You're (probably) not as slick as you think you are
When you're a little kid lying about stealing a cookie from the jar on the counter, you simply haven't learned that your parents can see right through your bullshit with laser vision.
You're kinda testing the waters, right?
Especially if you have siblings. Like if you and your sister are both toddlers hanging out at the kitchen table, clearly there's some room for deception because you were BOTH in there while your mom was in the other room. So the only thing she can prove is that there's one less cookie in the jar. Either one of you could've taken it and she has no way of knowing. Aside from the fact that you have chocolate smeared all over your face and you're covered in debris that looks suspiciously like crumbs from a standard issue chocolate chip cookie.
Life is just infinite levels of that.
It's the same as when you're a teenager and you come home reeking like shitty weed and an entire can of Axe body spray, wearing a dirty Grateful Dead shirt and drinking a can of Pringles. You think you're slick because you used some cologne and dropped some Visine into your eyes but everyone knows you're absolutely baked.
Or when you're in college and have ChatGPT bang out your term paper in five minutes because you waited until the last minute when you were suffering from a particularly bad case of post party depression.
Or when you half-ass something at work and think you convinced your lifer boss you did it exactly like he said to and have no idea why it blew up in your face.
You keep advancing through life, learning new things, gaining wisdom, overcoming obstacles... you're an entirely different person than you were ten years ago and you feel like you're finally figuring this stuff out for once. Maybe you get to 40 or 50 or 60 and think you're FINALLY just like every other grownup. You made it ✨
But you'll never actually be there.
There's always going to be people in life who have made the same dumb ass mistakes as you, used the same excuses, tried something sketchy because they genuinely thought I got this right before they found out they do not, in fact, got this.
It happens at work between you and the higher-ups, with relationships, friendships... as soon as you finally figure some stuff out about life, the goal post moves. And there's always someone who was in your exact shoes long before you. Someone who saw it from every angle and already clawed their way out while you were still trying to figure out how to steal cookies.
It's one of those things you can't see until you've moved on and the next person comes along to try and bullshit you. Then it sticks out like a sore thumb; you can't unsee it.
Experience is a motherfucker.