Right, I am ‘adult’ now, what the feck does that mean?

Oh look I am an adult now, I have finished by studies gone out in the big wild work and adult. I have a problem. What the fack does it mean to adult.

Does this sound similar to how you are currently feeling? You have spent the first quarter of your life building up to this moment, stepping out into the world to live, to be successful and become a true adult. I have a feeling my statement ‘what the fack does that mean’ relates to you also the question of what am I meant to do with the rest of my life as this ‘adult’.

As with every other question I gave it of a good google and to be fair it gave me a pretty solid answer.

I need to be responsible and mature and understand the consequences of my decisions, well how hard can that be. Wait that still doesn’t help me understand what I am meant to be doing as an adult. What are these decisions I need to make?

Doesn’t society tell us what to do as an adult?

Growing up, learning from all those around us. An adult looks like going to work 5 days a week, bringing home the bacon, maybe having a family and then retiring. That again seems pretty simple it is a nice little journey. This scares me as it may do you and yet still does not help me understand what I meant to be doing as an adult.

And you know what I did just this. I finished university on a Friday and started my full time 9–5 career on a Monday, and guess what I hated it. After 3 months mentally and physically I was broken (more on that in another blog). Is that what being an adult is about?

The 9–5 didn’t work how about starting a business?

While I was in my studies at university I started a brand as a side hustle, and that seemed to work well. So post failing the 9–5 I took this up full time, working within the service industry deliver sports coaching and I love it. The first year post-uni went well, up comes year 2, things are looking better so I decided right lets actually make this into a business. I get myself a business coach, 6 months later I hate it. Again I felt mentally drained.

So what I did I actually learn

Both of my experiences on trying to be an adult in very different ways were all prescribed by what society told me I should be doing, building the 9–5 career, building a business, but yet when I got home sat down none of it mattered. Neither one made me any happier than before and neither one made life any better.

You can’t follow a systemic pathway to happiness and a good life.

I did learn that when you work you get money and when you get money for a short time you feel like your adulting, you buy things, get that momentary gratification. Fast forward a month later the gratification from that moment is gone and you’re chasing the next and so on and so on.

Do not get me wrong you need a certain amount of money to live: for shelter and food, but chasing the gratification doesn’t bring that longer-term happiness.

Have I found a happy ‘adult life yet’?

To cut a long story short. Yes, I have and it’s not what you might expect. I live alone (yet I am not lonely), I am playing building a brand (yet I am not a businessman)and I have a part-time job in a pub (yet I have prospects).

Each one of those things on its own has its own society definitions but yet I suit to none of them. I have the feeling of growth and development from my brand, the freedom of living alone, and the security of money.

I think I have found the start to what it means to be an adult: growth, freedom, and security.

In coming articles, I am going to dig deeper into each and maybe even learn about being an adult.

If you have enjoyed this article, then share clap and do the adult thing ;)