There are countless memes circulating the internet about the concept of adulting. The general consensus is that adulting is hard. Being a grown-up is loaded with expectations and pressures: Finding a career path and staying on it, starting and raising a family, owning a home and even maintaining the perfect garden are just some of the stressors faced in daily adult life. The pressure to not only do those things, but to do them well.
The secret that many people don’t realise is that being an adult doesn’t mean having to conform entirely to the world around them. As long as the bills get paid and laws aren’t broken, everything else is just fine.
For somebody new to the world of adulting, homeownership and building a career, the exacting gardening strategies of a pensioner is not a reasonable expectation to meet.
Build a garden that’s easy to maintain and meets many of your other goals. Put a couple of flowerpots by your front door for added curb appeal and a nice new lawn in the back garden. The time and money saved on maintenance will be better spent playing sports with friends or laying on the turf, enjoying a break from adulting and getting that often-desired, rarely achieved tan.
Doing things that make sense is the most freeing way to live. Like to travel? Forget about Netflix, and buy that plane ticket
Like to cook? Get some friends round and test your recipes on them. If they don’t work out? Who cares? Food=fun!
Don’t like working 9-5? See how you can use your skills and passions to make money working for yourself.
When all of the trappings and expectations of life are set aside, the truth is that the only needs that absolutely must be met are food and shelter. Having those and being happy with what that looks like are the cornerstone of determining what a good life looks like.
Adulting is realising just how much the grown ups around have no clue as to what they’re doing as much as the next person. Everyone is simply ‘winging it’ and making it look easy. The hundreds and thousands of images everyone’s news feed, depicting the perfect life are playing the showreel, not the behind the scenes. Maybe it’s time to chill out and bit and have a bit of fun?
At the end of the day, people live in this world for up to 100 years and move on. How long each person gets is not guaranteed and there’s too much to see and do to ever pack into one life. So every choice is precious and every moment wasted is an unknown opportunity gone forever.
Choose happiness because there’s not enough time to regret things. Don’t let the expectations of others create a narrow path through life. It’s the easiest path to the end, but it’s the stops along the way that matter.
Adulting is hard. But it doesn’t have to be unsatisfying.
