Happy National Honesty Day! Though I try to keep my fibs to a minimum, I thought it’d be a fun to write a completely barebones post about Adulting.
What is Adulting, you say? The state of being an adult.
The state I struggle without about 6 days out of the week. The extra day is mostly comprised of sleep time sprinkled across the week. And even then, that could be a struggle.
You see, I’m in the transient stage that people lovingly call “twenty something”. I’m done with school, building a career, wondering why I hate domestic skills and liking everyone else’s life achievements on Facebook as I clutch my glass of two buck chuck. And honestly speaking, Adulting is hard. But knowing these facts about being adult might help you set realistic expectations for yourself and help ease this whole growing pain called life.
1. You probably won’t get Adulting right on the first try.
If you do, kudos, but this post is probably not for or about you. There are many things you will get wrong or at least not completely right the first time. In fact, the only thing I might have gotten right in adulting is selecting an insurance option, and that took a few frantic parent calls and a mini “I don’t want to grow up and diabetes sucks” breakdown. I’m not telling you to rejoice in or create a habit of failure, but I’m just saying it will happen and NBD…it happens to the best of us.
2. Adulting is expensive.
No matter how well you budget, or how many 0s are stacked in that entry-level check, you will soon learn that being adult takes a lot of discipline, financially. After a few rounds of living like Beyoncé one week and Farrah the next, you learn budgeting is your friend. Excel will even do the math for you if you ask nicely. And no matter how fiscally responsible you try to be, rent is probably going to cost more than you want it to be and yes, you’ll have to put money into maintaining your old faithful vehicle every now and again. Oh, to be young and parent-funded again.
3. Adulting looks better on Facebook than in real life.
Your friend closed on their new house, but you don’t know how many Ramen noodle nights they are estimating in the future. You wonder when your other friend has bad hair days, but it’s probably the days when she doesn’t post. Unless if you’re that kind of person that uses Facebook as daily journal, it is very natural to post about the high points and silencio about life’s sore points. Well, next time when the green monster shows up and reminds you everyone’s life is better than yours, remember that just because you don’t happen to know the sucky points, don’t mean they are not happening. Also, comparison is the enemy to finding contentment with your personal success. So maybe you didn’t close on your dream home, but you have two degrees and no one can take that away from you. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.
Adulting can be hard, but it is also a weird little adventure. I suck at a lot of things (I may never remember to vacuum weekly), but I find joy in knowing that yes, I can make edible things in the kitchen, and I am oddly delighted with the idea of making a will as of late. I think that my approach makes things a little more bearable for me. And my adulting coping mechanisms doesn’t have to be the same as yours, but we all make are own way, and it turns out kinda great in the end.
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