Adulting 101

I get the distinct feeling that everyone else is absolutely smashing being an adult, just instinctively ‘getting it’. Whether it’s friends getting married, buying property or bringing new, miniature humans into the world, I’m often left wondering when we all got so grown up?

Me on the other hand, I’m over here trying not to eat raw cookie dough for breakfast or drink margaritas until I am sick, and even at that I only win about half the time…

…Okay, we know each other pretty well now, it’s way less than half the time!

I notice this perceived difference most often lately when I talk to my peers about work. As someone who has recently given up a job that people can understand with a well known company, a lot of people find my recent choice to become a freelance writer, sales person, and part time cocktail shaker a little difficult to compute.

I think a lot of that comes from a sort of internal checklist we’re given of things we need to achieve by the time we’re 30 or so. Whether it’s life goals, work ambitions, or status, many people feel comforted by knowing where they are going and what’s next; but if we’re being really honest, isn’t that a false sense of security?

No one really knows what’s going to happen next, in work, life or love, and living as though certain choices, jobs, or labels will secure future success or happiness seems no more likely to result in those things than honestly admitting that we can’t control the future.

I think this is tricky for people at our stage of life, to be honest. Throughout every previous stage, childhood, university, even the first year or so in the workplace via internships or apprenticeships, we were constantly titillated with the promise of ‘the next stage’ of life: the hopeful promise of fulfillment, prosperity, and personal acceptance, lurking just around the corner. There was always a future adult self that was going to deliver on all these promises…

The question you get asked a lot as a child and a young person is 'What do you want to do when you grow up?' The problem is, I still haven’t figured out an answer to that question, yet as I sit here now, a growing pile of bills next to me, and my cat nuzzling my toes, I’m acutely aware that I’ve run out of time: I am already a grown up!

So here’s my plea: let’s all take the pressure off each other a little. Let’s stop asking questions that assume everyone is on the same path or timeline as you. Let’s banish the: 'When are you tying the knot?' or 'When can we expect to hear the pitter patter…'

And if someone is doing life a little differently, realise that there’s no one way to be successful or happy. We’re all just trying our best to live our best life. And anyway, maybe being a grown up is overrated…

“Relax. You will become an adult. You will figure out your career. You will find someone who loves you. You have a whole lifetime; time takes time. The only way to fail at life is to abstain.”—Johanna de Silentio