The majority of teens entering college have a fear of being alone, and in a way it starts right when you move into your college dorm room or apartment. You will now be living in a different place which is not your home, with people who are not your family, and you will have to figure out how to live by yourself. For some, it doesn’t seem that difficult, and for others it feels too lonesome and sometimes it is the reason why people end up leaving college. However, the loneliness is not the reason why many cannot deal with growing up on their own, it stems from the fear of adulting.
I think all children have a fear of growing up and yet, it is the thing we want most. We all have the instinctive desire to be independent and able to make our own decisions while not having to rely on a parents’ decision making. However, once we become of age to be on our own, we still feel in some way obligated to go to our parents and ask them on their opinions on our major decisions. And of course, they advise us to do things a certain way or to not do them at all, and sometimes we listen and at other times we do not.
It is very hard to stray away from the fact that your parents can no longer dictate your life. They can no longer look at your grades and tell you that you need to try harder to ace your classes. They can no longer give you a curfew, or even dictate where you can and cannot go. In a way, the freedom is great, but now you begin to realize that it is time to make your own decisions. However, that transition of being in control of your own freedom is a bit overwhelming. You now have to decide when going out seems too late, how much time to devote to schoolwork to get better grades and how to receive and maintain a job to earn your own money. Once you are on your own, learning to live by yourself or even with a roommate and figuring out how to live your own life without the rules of parents seems a bit too much.
The fear of adulting is something everyone must confront in their own way. Some young adults face adulting head on and decide to get a job, live off their own money and begin to live a life of independence. While others procrastinate this opportunity to become an adult by relying on their parents and decide not try to have a sense of responsibility because they are afraid and would rather postpone it to sometime in the future.
Adulting is just a way for those becoming adults to transition into independence by gaining more responsibility by taking care of themselves. As long as you can find a way to depend on yourself for everything you want to do in life, then you have officially become an adult. The steps to get there seem difficult, but if you think about it, adulting isn’t that scary after all. It just consists of you getting a job to support yourself and the necessities you have in life. And once you get that job and start working, you are already on that path of adulting.
There are many benefits of adulting. This consists of owning your own things (clothes, books, movies and even a car), randomly just picking up and going somewhere just to do something new (going to a local restaurant you’ve never been too, traveling two hours to see underground caves that you have never heard of, or even road tripping to another state) and being able to plan your day according to you (you no longer have to run errands for your parents all the time because you now have your own life to worry about). For instance, imagine being able to purchase your own car and being able to call it yours. You, of course, would have to work for the money to pay off the car, but you will be able to treasure it so much more because you bought it yourself. Adulting can ultimately help you become a more responsible adult because you are now able to provide for yourself.
It may seem scary at first, and you may be afraid to face adulthood, but in the end it is worth it. You will not only gain experience to know of real world situations (like rude customers), but you will also see a deeper purpose in your life through your growth. You will begin to learn new things about yourself that you never knew because you never had a true chance to get to know yourself on your own.
