you become an adult when you notice life has tradeoffs, when you deeply accept that as inescapable fact, and begin to intentionally choose which tradeoffs to make
there is the childhood of ignorance of tradeoffs, the rebellious youth of pretending they don’t exist, and the maturity of accepting them as fact
you were once ignorant of their existence—no longer. now you see them everywhere, you witness them honestly, you weigh them carefully
on beginning to notice them, you may have tried in vain to make choices without tradeoffs, but eventually you see this leads to worse outcomes, to unforced errors
instead, you quietly, resignedly, bravely accept them. you choose this instead of that, knowing that you have set a course with these advantages and those disadvantages, with these possibilities and those obstacles, having welcomed one future while having said goodbye to another
