What Growing Up Doesn’t Prepare You For
School is supposed to educate you and prepare you for adulthood, right? The idea is that you go to school, learn what you need, then you go to college, and then once you graduate, you’re ready to start working and be an actual adult.
And part of that works fine; education is important. But no school will teach you how to choose a health insurance plan that won’t bankrupt you or how to deal with a noisy neighbor who has no respect for anyone else. You may be good at taking tests and memorizing facts, but that doesn’t mean your daily life will be easier because of it.
On the one hand, growing up means you can eat cereal for dinner and ice cream for breakfast.
And nobody can tell you you can’t or force you to eat your spinach. But on the other hand, nobody will remind you that your car registration is about to expire; you’re the one responsible for handling that. If you don’t, you’re also the one bearing the consequences.
Life would be somewhat easier if someone told you all of this sooner.
The Everyday Challenges That Hit You Like a Brick
The most attention goes to the dramatic stuff, like losing your job or getting sick. But those moments are few and far between, and everyday life is all about small moments that repeat themselves over and over.
To the outside observer, they don’t look like much, but they can wear down the person living through them.
The Perfect Choice Usually Doesn’t Exist
In school, you were taught that there’s one right answer to every question.
But life isn’t like that at all, and most decisions you make have pros and cons, and plenty of them. Let’s say you’ve been looking for a job with better pay. What you do now is fun, but you’re not earning enough, so after a while, you finally find something that can support your lifestyle. BUT it means you’ll have an extra 30 minutes of commute and you’ll work an hour longer.
But that’s life.
Everything Changes Once You Start Looking After Other People
At some point, your focus will change, and you’ll be more concerned with what those who depend on you need. It could be a child, a sibling, or even a parent. Even if you decide not to have kids, your parents will need your help sooner or later, and that will probably come gradually.
If you stay involved, which you most likely will, there might even come a time when you need to move them into a nursing home, which is very emotional for everyone involved.
Hopefully, a nursing home neglect lawyer isn’t in your future, but that’s part of looking after someone else, too.
Plans Change All the Time
Making plans means life is relatively predictable, and most people find comfort in that.
But life doesn’t care about your dates and maps, and it won’t hesitate to show you that. A career that was your dream at 25 might make zero sense at 38, and you might find yourself doing a complete 180 in that aspect.
You should also be prepared for financial surprises, even if you always stick to your budget.
Planning isn’t useless, though. But with that being said, if your plans are too rigid, there’s almost a guarantee that they’ll fall apart.
How to Make Life Easier
Life is about the journey, not the destination.
What a cliché, right?
But it’s the truth, and if you treat life as something that has a finish line and you wait to appreciate it until you’re there, you’ll never be happy. Telling someone to learn how to enjoy the little things they take for granted seems like the cringiest thing ever, but actually, this is the secret to happiness.
It’s best to accept the fact that you’ll never really figure everything out. And if it seems like there are people who are handling this adulthood stuff better than you, it doesn’t mean they’re smarter or better prepared. They’re handling the same mess you are.
So, how do you make it easier on yourself?
Well, it’s the little things, like keeping a calendar on your phone and updating it regularly. Glance at your bank account regularly, and learn to set boundaries with other people. It’s okay to help, but don’t let others take advantage of you.
Remember that it’s all about consistency.
Most people are winging it, but the ones who get ahead in life are the ones who show up over and over, even when they’re struggling.
It’s Normal Not to Feel Like an Adult
If you don’t really feel like an adult, that’s normal. Most people pretend anyway; nobody actually knows what they’re doing. And it’s okay because mistakes are part of life, and each one teaches you way more than school ever did.
Embrace change and go with the flow.
If you hold on too tight or try to control the world around you, you’ll go crazy. Growing up is just one big process of showing up, messing up, and then showing up again and again.
And you’re doing better than you think.
