Fake It 'Til You Make It

I've been trying to figure something out: does being a grown-up mean actually being a competent, functional member of society, or is adulthood really just perfecting the art of convincing people you are a competent, functional member of society?

In the past month I have been very fortunate to turn an internship into a bonafide job. The process was daunting and overdramatized on my part but at the end of that tunnel I found a salary, retirement plan and even real health care (the excitement I feel when I think of never having to return to Medicaid-quality doctors is unprecidented).

For the past week and two days, I've plopped down at the very same desk in the very same cubicle and felt really, really scared. The technology I'm working with is exactly the same and I have a functional knowledge of the information I'm supposed to handle, but none if it is good enough to make me feel comfortable. I am terrified someone will find out I don't have any idea what I'm tinkering with most the time. After a few hours I seem to figure things out, but right off the cuff, I have zero idea what is happening.

The emperor has no clothes.

I shared (share being a loose interpretation of an extra computer being jammed into a pre-existing office likely against the will of two photographers) an office in Alaksa with two photojournalists. One of them told me once that he just wakes up every day and does his very best to convince the world he knows what he's doing. I didn't find that news reassuring then, but it seems strangely true now.