Here is what you need to know about adulting, before it is too late.

Dear Youngsters,

This is a letter to you because no one wrote me one when I was your age. Adulting is a gradual process and there are many emotions that cloud your judgement in this period of life. It is my mission to help children understand the long-term effects of one of the most common ailments of adulting which is ‘not standing up for yourself' so that you all can learn to utilize your full potential.

I understand what you are going through. And no, I don’t think all adolescents have textbook issues, if you are judging me for that. I am simply telling you that I can relate with you. I remember being there in that age and I feel you period.

But I haven’t written this letter to sympathize with you, have I?

I write to educate. So, read on.

This time of your life is highly crucial because it will shape your personality. You are getting sick and tired of hearing this, but you know what? it is true!

There are a wide range of problems that your life has gifted you on your thirteenth.

Your body is changing too fast and people around you are branding you based on that and of course a hundred other things like your family’s financial status, your clothes, and anything about you that challenges their sense of security. If you are on the receiving end of this then you already have more names at school than everyone in your family put together. For you it is a battle field out there. Kill or get killed. It is simply impossible to focus on things that matter.

Envy is your go to emotion. You are constantly being programmed to feel incomplete and incompetent. So, naturally you are happy to trade away your skin/hair/body/family for your neighbor’s or schoolmate’s. Right now, the way you see this, everybody is better than you.

Amidst this chaos you are also experiencing a new range of emotions because you are after all adulting. You feel ashamed of admitting it because it is clear that you are not up to the mark. So, you end up secretly struggling with these emotions rather than sharing it with a friend like other kids your age do.

Society hasn’t yet mastered the art of shaping the blooming minds of its young ones and you will see plenty of adults mimic the youngsters. They either punish you, tease you, bully you, lecture you or judge you!! But they will not sit you down and tell you to ignore the haters.

Happens!

Remember, not all children your age are bullies, and not all adults are distant. Find the right people and if you don’t, then keep looking. But never accept that “you are not enough”.

No matter which country you live in, what language you speak, whether you are a girl or a boy or transitioning, if you are an adolescent, you are likely to struggle to adjust with your new role in the society while you are still figuring out your identity. It seems like everybody in the world from your neighbors, to your teachers, to the bus driver and the street vendor, has an opinion about your life. No one trusts your judgement. You are too old to be called a kid and too young to be addressed as an adult! But know that this is no reason for you to doubt yourself.

And then, obviously, there is the opposite gender! Suddenly you feel the need to impress. But the few romantic tales that you muster the courage to imagine, always end tragically with the thought of you embarrassing yourself in front of them.

With so many reasons to break down, YOU ARE ALWAYS ANGRY! And if you have gone too long without seeking help, you are likely to derive satisfaction out of keeping your kith and kin around you on their toes. Now you take on the dominating role. For once you want to feel the power of saying mean things to others. You want to vent out the anger that has been bubbling inside you. But you must understand that it is cowardly and that you should be sorry and not proud of yourself. Stop immediately and put yourself in the receiver’s shoes, it won’t be difficult for you. This will help you resist any temptation to become evil at this point. This is a phase. You don’t need to determine your life’s trajectory based on what your life is just yet, but you need to learn to tell right from wrong. Be patient, you will learn and become tough, soon. Better days are around the corner, so hold on.

It does not require a genius to figure out that adulting is overwhelming but I am not here to concur, I am here to educate. So, let me give you a rough idea about my journey to learning to standing up for myself.

I had always been a straight A student. No matter what, I never had a teacher complain about my academic performance until trouble makers literally found me on google maps or something. I was a bright kid and both my teachers and my parents felt that my life was sorted!

But as you know, parents and teachers seldom have any idea about what is REALLY happening in your life. There is huge difference between the act that you put up in front of the world and the real business that goes on behind the curtains. Sometimes, I wonder if elders really ever want to peek behind these curtains, into the reality. Don’t be surprised or depressed if you too have come to a similar conclusion about the attitude of elders in your life. Let us for the sake of healing and making progress give them the benefit of doubt. Probably life isn’t fair to them either, or they are just finally happy making progress so they don’t want trouble, or they are simply too naïve. Whatever it is, take it as a blessing in disguise that you could at least strike off some people on your go-to list. Now you won’t be wasting your time waiting for the support and sympathy that is never going to come. And in case it does, it will be a pleasant surprise. So, it is better to not expect rather than expecting too much and becoming bitter over the years. What if you turn into a distant adult yourself because of all the bitterness you let simmer too long within you?

Anyways back to my story, I was doing alright at school and so I saw myself in big responsible professions. I knew I will be a surgeon. I had no idea what real life surgeon’s lives were like. If I had given it a thought, I would have been saved the trouble of wasting 2 years trying to convince myself to just work hard and crack the exam. I realized it the hard way that I did not want to be a surgeon!

After that I was thrown into a backup career plan which was ‘Law’! I easily derived that I will be a great attorney. It was only when I stepped out of my dream world into the real that I realized I did not want to go down that path.

Next, I aimed higher and 1 year gone in what seemed like, the blink of an eye.

Now let’s do the math. Two years of high school, five years of law school, one year post graduating and another two years in employment (which I wasn’t cut out for). It rounds up to 10 years.

Ten years of my life! Directionless!

Why do you think I made such hasty choices in life? The answer came to me after ten years of pondering, trying and failing a hundred times in hundred different ways at hundred different things. It turned out that I only ever wanted to be someone so I could get back at the society for looking down upon me. I never really felt that I needed those goals for me. In fact, I never knew what I wanted for me. When did I ever spend time to get to know who I am? I was only running away from the world. I guess you figured what I was running from. That’s right. It was the teasing. Back in those days I did not know that it had a name. That it was wrong even. I just thought that it was what I should expect for being me. Something went terribly wrong while I was adulting and that was my encounter with my bullies. You will also have had this unique experience in your life and if you don’t learn to deal with it now, then you are likely to find yourself a bully everywhere you go and always. Had I spoken up then, had I vented my anger at the people I intended to silence, I would have saved myself from the immense self-harm that I caused me through my mindless running.

They told me day in and day out that I had a brown skin like there were no mirrors where I lived. And that I had bushy hair like only they could spot it. And that these things obviously made them better than me in every walk of life! “Like duh obviously!!!!”

As simple as it seems for the 27-year-old-me to write this letter to you and explain away my life’s most dreadful days in just one word, OBVIOUSLY, it was far from it for the 14 year old me. Worse even for a seven-year-old-me who tried to rub her skin raw in the bath one day to reveal a lighter skin tone. It gave me nothing except a bleed of course so, one realization there.

I blamed myself so mercilessly all along that it never occurred to me that it wasn’t a flaw, it was who i was, it was my uniqueness, it was what distinguished me from others.

When you give in to the role of a victim, your perpetrators pop up everywhere. Teachers, peers, elders in the family and social circle, everyone everywhere.

You will understand why I never divulged the details of my torment to anyone.

I also never accepted myself and worse I never mustered the courage to speak up for myself. The bullying the teasing the leg pulling, however revolting it was, I just took it! I let people walk all over me and bully me, because I believed they were right. This costed me my confidence, my self-esteem and of course my identity. It plagued my mind all these years. I could never manage to let it go. It affected my life choices. Even when the cause of such chaos (the bullies) went out of my life physically, a part of their personality remained in my head forever following me wherever I went, taking over their role in my life. And I became my own bully. I could not find a single positive thing in me. There was always someone better, there was always scope for improvement. I was constantly disappointed in me. I never figured out my identity because I was always trying to please this voice in my head. I made choices approved by my bully. I believed that if I finally fit in, this voice will stop and everybody will accept me. That day never came. Not because I failed, but because one day I realized that I was a unique creation to begin with and I need not try to fit in if I could so boldly stand out. And so should you.

The path to great confidence is not in becoming invincible, flawless, and seemingly perfect. But rather, it is in embracing your humanity, in all its messy glory and tender vulnerability. – Aziz Gazipura

Finally, after 10 years of faltering, and crying into many sleepless nights and after having questioned my sanity over and over again did I succeed in getting rid of the bully in my head. It was extremely painful for me, and I am still learning. This is your chance to turn things around. You can make the choice of listening to yourself rather than others. This world will try to bring you down to your knees for just being YOU, but that is exactly why you need to do it. You have one life and it is never too late to make it the life of your dreams.

I don’t feel vexed about having to figure things out the hard way because even though I took me time getting there, I would have never been there without my failures and my sufferings. My bullies will always be an essential part of my making even though they were an essential part of my downfall. But all is well that ends well and I would not trade my suffering for anything in the world but stand up for myself, I WILL. And so should you. Let life throw anything at you, don’t fear the pain of failing, cherish the opportunity of learning instead.

You don’t have to spend a decade in pain figuring out your way to happiness. I hope that you take a lesson from my life and learn to embrace yourself. It is only in embracing that you shall find the strength to live on your own terms. Accepting who you are and being proud of yourself is the key to being fulfilled and happy.

And here is my final adulting advise to you:

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

- Dr. Seuss