Adulting Issa Scam

Temitope Ef'
Aug 9, 2017 · 8 min read

Warning: The following is the ranting of a chronic millennial gerascophobic who’s chosen to see the hourglass as half empty.

  • Growing up and other lies

Granted he’s a highly functioning psychopath, a pseudo-dictator and a murderer but Peter Pan, knew the real truth about adulthood that we spent our teenage years being blissfully ignorant of. Brother even spelt it out for us as explicitly as possible.

Like many before me, I didn’t clue in to what he was trying to say. I filed him under the section titled “fantasy” based on the recommendations of Disney and the publisher only to wake up one nondescript morning to the sudden realization that growing up and adulthood has been nothing more than a giant letdown; an anticlimax measurable on the Richter scale. I guess old man Pete was right all along.

I mean who really wants to grow up? Okay probably every kid at some point, but then you do and it just turns out to be a major scam, like if the creators of MMM got together with the guys from Ocean’s Eleven and they all agreed to run one last job together. Bad news is you’re the target.

Looking back now, I see how strange a phenomenon adulthood really is. Often we try to put a number to it, but we fail ever so miserably. It’s unclear where it begins or ends. It sneaks up on you like the proverbial thief in the night, clad in black and a ski mask; the grim reaper’s reaper. By the time your youth gets an inkling of what is truly going on, there’s already a knife lodged in its spleen. Alas! Too late. It won’t come back.

As far as adulthood is concerned, the world is filled with three major classes of people: there are those that choose to grow up very early — the Macaulay Culkins and Company, who by chance or circumstance, happen on adulthood faster than the rest of us.

Then we have others that refuse to grow up despite the best efforts of time. Most of these Neverlanders live in a bubble where unicorns exist and money trees are just a horticulturist away. They are lost in the illusion that things automatically work themselves out. Watch out for these ones, they rarely age gracefully.

Finally, there are those of us that wish we never had to grow up. We followed the natural course and at the end of the road found that it takes being an adult to realize being an adult is for the birds.

I for one couldn’t wait today grow up under the guise that I’ll finally be able to do just whatever the heck I want (Remind you of anyone?)

My thought was that with adulthood, rules, chores, curfews, homework assignments and all those things that conspire to cramp the style of the typical Nigerian adolescent would be thrown straight out the window.

I’d live in a mansion the size of Texas, have hunnies crawling its length and breadth and a garageful of Lamborghinis. Things were going to be like a real life Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Sky is the Limit’ video and nobody in my world was gonna yell cut.

Fast forward to 2017 and I’m here sitting in a bar surrounded by friends, pretending I have my shit figured out while there is a pile of dreams waiting for me at home to sort through. Those responsibilities I wanted gone have been replaced with more complex ones. I don’t know what I’m having for dinner, what goes on in the head of women and still no clue why bad things happen to good people.

It’s funny how no one tells you when you’re a kid that adulthood isn’t some magical state where you always know exactly what to do (or say) at exactly the right time to make all your wishes come true.

But at least the asun at this bar is lit though. One of the better adulting decisions I’ve made all week.

All of this has got me thinking. Maybe it’s high time science invented a ‘How to Adult’ kit; an easy step-by-step guide or instruction manual on how to deal with the mundane and difficult here on Earth before embarking on the equally mundane and difficult search for interstellar life. But hey, that’s just one man’s opinion.

  • Pros & the Long Con

Am I being over critical? Maybe. There is no doubt that adulthood comes with certain perks that. For instance, thanks to adulthood, a coarser voice and more lines on my face, people now take me seriously enough to pay me to develop content. I can stroll into any strip club with my head held high and if perhaps by some mistake I knock a girl up, apostle need not hear about it.

But perky as some of these things may be, adulthood remains pretty much underwhelming, and overwhelming, at the same damn time.

Such is the level of ridiculousness that if one was to run a cursory search for the word ‘adulting’ on google these days, your search results are bound to be dominated by comic relief. I think people joke about adulthood a lot because adulthood really is a joke. Sooner than later many of us come to realise that the whole suit, tie and 9–5 dream we were sold may no longer seem relevant to the lives we lead today.

They said get an education, work very hard in school so that you’ll have time to lounge later only to graduate and realize that you’ve actually been chilling all along and life was just about to get real.

You craved for freedom and autonomy but now you’re a slave to a job that demands you wake up at 6am (4am, if you’re out in Lagos) and don’t even get me started on the nigh impossible task of figuring out this whole love and relationship thing. That one is like a color blind person trying to solve a Rubik’s cube.

The buck doesn’t stop there either. Thanks to society, the new and improved adulthood now comes with a one-size-fits-all notion of how you should live your life, how you should act, what to say, who you should be, and what you should and shouldn’t have.

You watch helplessly as labels and social construct quickly take shape while tolerance diminishes. You learn quickly that the moment you turn into an adult, society isn’t as forgiving as before. There is no end to what it expects of and from you. You can take copious notes all you want, but rest assured there will always be something you’ll miss.

  • A for Adulting…

Few times in a year, I spontaneously decide that I’m ready to be a real adult. I don’t know why I do it since it always ends terribly but I do it anyway. I sit myself down and lecture myself on how I’m going to start being serious — I’ll reply my WhatsApp messages promptly, turn into a vegan and maybe even settle into a stable relationship.

Schedules are drafted. Equations are written.

I prepare for life as an adult like some people prepare for the apocalypse.

  • Side Effects

What usually ends up happening is that I completely wear myself out. Thinking that I’ve earned it, I give myself permission to slack off for a while and recover. I feel I’ve exceeded my capacity for responsibility in such a melodramatic fashion, I end up needing more time to recover than usual, and that’s when the guilt trips start.

The weight from ignored responsibilities grows so large that merely carrying it around with me feels like a huge responsibility. It takes up a sizable portion of my capacity, leaving me almost completely useless for anything other than reading books, binge watching TV series and surfing the pages of the internet like an attention-deficient punk on THC.

  • Forever Young

Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while/Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies.

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst/Are you going to drop the bomb or not?

If there’s anything my tentative steps into responsibility has taught me, it’s that nobody truly reaches adulthood. The idea is to survive long enough to do the things you didn’t or couldn’t do as a child. There’s really no use taking life too seriously since I doubt anyone truly knows what becoming an adult really means.

So it is for this reason I have given up adulting altogether and decided to settle for something lighter and more fun. I’m learning to reappreciate life and it’s many absurdities but this time it’s with the humor and humility that only maturity can afford.

I guess now that I’ve tasted it, a part of me is always going to try and run away from the idea of growing up no matter how inevitable it is. But I understand that no matter how old I get, the double digit is just a number, yet another way to track how long I’ve been on this planet. What really matters and what should matter to anyone are the deeds we get around to doing while He teaches us to number our days.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d rather fail growing up and be happy about it than live miserably while trying to figure out how adulthood works. Who knows, maybe that’s what growing up is truly about.

Anyway, I think I’ve had just about enough adulting for today (and the foreseeable future). If anyone needs me, I’ll be on Neverland, building myself a time machine.

Temitope Ef'

Written by

Copywriter. A hilarious, exaggerated look into the life of a 90's product.

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