On Saturday, I experienced my birth anniversary for the 19th time, thus concluding my first year of adulthood.
When I was still a young and naive 17-year-old, I had a lot of different assumptions about what might happen upon reaching adulthood. I remember thinking that as soon as I turned 18, I would suddenly have my life figured out. I assumed that everyone had a massive shift in their personality when they turned 18, and that I would be a drastically different person. I also assumed that being an adult was scary, overwhelming, and not fun at all.
I could not have been more wrong about any of those things.
Here are a few things I wish I’d known before I became an adult, and that I hope future adults take into consideration.
- There is no moment of enlightenment when you turn 18.
I remember when I was 16, I was looking up the things I would have to take responsibility for when I turned 18. Making my own appointments, signing my own forms, paying for myself, registering to vote, signing up for the draft, paying my own bills, going to college, not being able to get away with stupidity, etc. It all seemed very far away, and I assumed that once I was 18, I would suddenly become prepared to take on the responsibilities of an adult.
Well, it turns out that wasn’t the case.
When you become an adult, all the responsibilities of adulthood hit you like a brick wall, but your personality and maturity level do not evolve quickly enough to catch up. This often makes for a hectic, stressful, and very overwhelming eighteenth year. Suddenly, you’re expected to be able to fend for yourself, and be completely responsible for your own actions. There is no grace period.
I believe I took this massive load of responsibilities in stride, and so far I haven’t had any major hiccups. Still, knowing I would not intrinsically know how to be an adult would have been helpful, because maybe I might have been a little more prepared for this shocking transition.
2. Self-motivation is key.
Throughout childhood, my primary form of motivation came from outside of myself. Essentially, I was a floundering amateur whose only purpose was to fulfill the expectations of my family and the school system. I was legally required to be in class and do homework, so failure simply was not an option.
As an adult, the whole dynamic of motivation changes. There is no legal obligation for you to be a student, a worker, or really to do anything. If you fail, you fail. Thus, self-motivation becomes super important when you begin to forge your own path. So far, in my experience, there hasn’t been much guidance, and it has been a rather stressful experience so far, but I’ve also learned so much more about how to be a productive member of society through self-motivation than I ever did when I was working to please other people. If I had known how effective self-motivation was when I was in high school, maybe I wouldn’t have shirked my responsibilities and been a cynical a**hole.
3. Work is FUN.
Another thing that comes with being a self-motivated adult is the enjoyment that is derived from doing something you love. As an adult, you are literally free to do whatever you please (as long as it’s legal and doesn’t cost a sh*t ton of money), and you are boxed in far less than you are as a minor. Since I have gained the freedom to determine what I study, who I work for, and what I do with my life, pursuing labors that may have seemed tedious and unbearable as a kid are now fun and exciting. When the results of your hard work are as tangible as they are when you are an adult, the process of working for these results becomes all the more enjoyable. As a high schooler, I dreaded college, because I thought that the work would be so incredibly hard and unbearable that life would lose its color. Instead, life has gained a whole new dimension; the dimension of self-determination.
4. People still suck.
Maybe it’s just the excessive politeness of professional adult interactions that convinced me of this, but as a younger person, I truly believed people stopped being mean and petty once they grew up. I believed the cruelty of middle school would fizzle as we all grew and matured into polite, kind adults. This is partially true, because adults generally do become a bit less outwardly cruel as they grow and mature, but at their core, people remain pretty awful….always. Adults can be cruel, adults can be mean, adults can be immature and adults can absolutely throw tantrums. Adults are just as sh*tty as 13-year-olds, they’re just way better at hiding it.
5. The fun doesn’t end after childhood; it just changes.
As a kid, I thought that, because adults didn’t like playing with toys and climbing monkey bars, that being an adult was boring and sad. Of course, as a young adult, my definition of fun is certainly different than that of an older adult, but that doesn’t change the fact that fun evolves alongside us. As we evolve, our perception of what constitutes “fun” does as well. At age nine, “fun” was playing outside and playing with toys. At age twelve, “fun” was making funny videos with friends, going on adventures and playing video games. At age fifteen, “fun” was doing as many insanely stupid things as possible and laughing about it. Now, “fun” is discussing important issues, listening to new music and bonding with close friends (maybe mixed with a bit of stupidity as well). As of right now, sitting around, drinking wine and discussing work with my three best friends and their screaming babies doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, but who knows how I’ll feel in fifteen years?
In the last year, I have learned a lot about myself, my purpose in the world, and what it means to really be an adult. Yes, being an adult is exciting, different, and, yes, stressful, but it is not anything like I expected it to be. It’s not better or worse than being a minor...it’s just very different. Going into adulthood with an open mind and a positive outlook is key to having the very best experience possible. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to go put on my skin moisturizer to prevent wrinkles in twenty years.
