I have learned that there is only one rule in life. There are no rules.

Adulthood is an interesting place. I've been fascinated by it ever since I got here a few years ago. Now I'm 22. I'm really in the game, this isn't a drill anymore. I'm about to graduate college. I'm looking for a job. I am expected to pay bills, feed myself, abide by the law, and make my own Doctor's appointments. And as I've been fortunate enough to make it this far, there are many things that I have noticed in this weird transition from being a kid to an adult.

When you're a kid, you listen to your parents, guardians, older siblings, and elders. Despite any rebellious stages, you ultimately look up to these adults to tell you right from wrong. To guide you. They learned tricks to survive. There they are before you, in the flesh. They made it. So, in order for your 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-year-old selves to make it to the 20s and beyond, you model your life the way your role models teach you to.

If you're lucky, you have good, positive, strong adults in your life who teach you their ways and help you to be a good person too. Hopefully as an adult under their influence, you can do your laundry, drive a car, walk an old lady across the street, open the door for the person behind you, say "please" and "thank you," you have relationships, you call your mother at least once a week, and you can feed yourself or you are studying to get a job that will allow you to feed yourself in the near future. You pursue happiness. You're essentially healthy.

Not all of us are fortunate enough to have these types of role models, though. Some of us are raised by broken people who struggle to survive and struggle to thrive. People who form their lives out of fear or can't seem to pull it together. So then, what do you do when these people shape your life too? What do you do, when it's time for you to be an adult and that is the only way you know how?

You can always obtain good from your guardians, no matter what the situation. No human is solely "good" or "bad." Even an amazing, loving guardian has minor imperfections that can be passed down too. Gossiping. Lashing out. Road rage. Selfishness. Emotional eating. Not necessarily as severe as abuse or true dysfunction but they can take their toll too.

Your views, religion, morals, and behaviors are all typically derived from your guardians and role models. Most people don't like to question these things; it's uncomfortable to question the only things you've ever known. It's even more uncomfortable to question yourself and those you love, although this is necessary to grow as a person. In this uncertain, unstable world we look for anything to hold onto. We want something to keep us steady while life swings us round and round on the merry go round. Sometimes so fast that we almost fall off. People want to be certain of anything so they decide to be certain that one race is superior to another just because their parents had that notion.

Therein lies, racism.

Prejudice.

Unfortunate political views.

But what if you want something else? What if you decide you do want to go to college? Or that you don't? What if you don't want to get married and have kids? What if you don't want to take over the family business? What if you don't want to be a republican? Or a democrat? What if you want to move out of a dangerous neighborhood? What if you want to move across the country? What if you want to live in a cave in a loin cloth and survive off the land because traditional society isn't your thing? A little extreme - but to each their own.

Often, we feel that we can't do what we want because of rules that someone else created for us. Politicians. Businesses. Media. So many succumb. They followed someone else's loud, insistent answers of botox, implants, policy ideas, prejudice notions, and sparkly Uggs, instead of the little voice in their head that said, "maybe it doesn't have to be this way."

We have been raised to think that adults know it all. Then, we get to adulthood and expect that we to will have the answers once the clock strikes midnight on our eighteenth birthday. The answers seem to miss your doorstep and you're still looking around. Soon enough you realize no one truly knows what the fuck they're doing. We're all just winging it and trying to do the best we can. It's a sham.

Ashton Kutcher said it best at the Teen Choice Awards in 2015:

"When you grow up -- you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is. And that your life, is to live your life inside the world and try not to get into too much trouble, and maybe get an education, and get a job, and make some money, and have a family but life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing. And that is that everything around us - that we call life -- was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own things. You can build your own life that other people can live in. So build a life, don't live one. Build one."

This is quite possibly the most important lesson that I have ever learned. Be brave enough to create your own rules. Live the life that you dream. Even if it doesn't look familiar to what you already know or what other people around you know. You can still deeply love, value, and hold close to you those who made you who you are and live your own way. You can still be thankful that you are a one-of-a-kind human being because of the DNA and experiences they passed onto you.

At the end of the day I think the most important question is...when you're on your deathbed, what do you want to look back and see? Conformity and mediocrity? Or passion, love, and a rich collection of memories?

Thank you to the negative influences in my life for testing me with adversity as well as the beautiful, positive influences for teaching me how to overcome it.