So, there is this thing called “adulting”, and I suck at it.
“Adulting”, the action of being an adult, or doing “adult things”. When I was growing up, my mom would come in from a long day of doing whatever it is she did (she had a career, but seemed to always be doing things outside of her job title) and she would look at me and tell me, “Don’t grow up, its a trap.” or in a moment of frustration she would begin to sing the TOYS R US theme song, “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a TOYS R US kid.”
It wasn’t until I entered my late teens, early 20’s, especially, that I understood the emotions my mother was experiencing at the time. Being an adult is no joke. On top of just being an adult, my mother was also a mother, a single mother of three girls. As I approach my 22nd birthday, I have begun to reflect on my journey into and through my 20’s, and here are a few things that I have realized along the way:
First, I have learned that there is no manual to this “adulting.”
Being an adult will look different to everyone and THAT’S OK! I have realized there will be adults like my mother who, “don’t wanna grow up”, and will continue to sit in the front of the TV wrapped in their favorite blanket watching cartoons at 30 years old. On the other hand, there will be some people who will graduate college on time, find a job before they graduate, and will live a “perfect” life. While many of us, will live somewhere in between, there are many ways to adult and nothing is wrong with any of them.
Second, I realized that credit matters!
This is another thing that my mom used to stress to me that my teenage mind thought she was just being dramatic about. Seriously, credit matters. When I first decided to buy my own car, I looked into all the ways I could accomplish my goal- cash, lease, loan, all of it. I then quickly realized that I probably was not going to get that brand new Jeep, I was eyeing, and that 18 year old don’t have any credit, which is just as bad as having bad credit. My biggest piece of advice I give friends and colleagues is to start monitoring your credit and start doing it right away. Many of us finally get in a position to start buying and financing cars, or renting apartments/houses, and realize that it isn’t the money that is stopping us from accomplishing our goals, it’s our credit! I cannot tell you how many times I have seen young adults get medical bills in the mail and toss them, or don’t think twice about making a late payment, and then, BAM! They check their credit months or years later and see a low credit score and debt. Don’t be that person. Don’t sabotage your own future success.
Third, and lastly, I learned that the biggest factor to this “adulting” thing is identity.
I tend to say that I suck at this “adulting” thing, not because I’m terrible at paying bills, or spend too much time binge watching Netflix, instead of starting early on my paper, but instead, I haven’t quite understood who I really am. When looking at people I would classify as successful adults, I saw a trend. These people all had one commonality and that was they seemed to know who they were and where they were going. A determined person with a plan is a person who cannot be easily stopped. Naturally, I am a planner and have planned my life out since 8th grade. In all this planning I have done, one thing was missing, and it was me. How is that possible? I am planning MY life, yet I am missing from my own plans? Yup. In 8th grade, and even just recently, I really had no notion of who I was, I knew myself on a very basic level. I knew my likes and dislikes, and who I thought was cute that month, but I didn’t know what really made me up.
I did not understand my strengths and weaknesses and how they balanced each other. I did not understand what truly made me happy. Heck, I did not even really have a definition of happiness. I was making plans for my life based on expectations and assumptions. None of these took into account me, my passions, my desires, my motivating forces. I believe the biggest part of “adulting” is finding yourself. It is a cycle of discovery, action, and revision. From conversations with other millennials, the hardest part of growing up is the expectation to know what you want to do, how you want to do it while mastering the increased (and ever-increasing) responsibility.
So, how does one “not suck at adulting”?
Well, here’s what I found to be the trick: get to know and understand YOURSELF first. We can continue to muddle through this life and make plans that never seem to pan out, or we can be real, and get to know our real selves. It’s like this, how can you plan, if you don’t know what your planning for. Like, a friend asks you to plan a surprise party but fails to tell you who the party is for. You wouldn’t be able to decorate with their favorite colors in mind, including some of their favorite games, or even know who to invite.
If you understand my metaphor, then do me (and yourself) a favor and spend some time this week getting to know yourself in an honest and vulnerable way. That way, we can all be successful at this whole “adulting” thing.
-K
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