Adulthood has no intention of being fun

To all the people out there who hit the big 30 and realize the fun times are over: welcome to reality!

The problem with being dissapointed by the monotony of adulthood is that we — including myself — believed adulthood would be something great, something truly valuable, the real deal, what life is actually all about. Well — it’s not. When you’re in you 30's, you haven’t married, haven’t hatched a kid or two (but most of your friends have or are getting started), life — for the most part — is pretty dull. You go to work, you cook, you pay your bills, if you’re lucky you meet some friends for a drink or two (not more, because that means getting drunk), get home, go to bed, get up in the morning and that bitch named routine comes knocking on your door again. Is that fun? Of course not.

The problem is: adulthood never intended to be fun. We thought it would, because that’s what we wanted to believe.

That once we have the liberty to do whatever we want, our life would be spectacular. Just like that. Boom! I’m all grown, life is awesome. And when the curtain falls and we realize that it’s actually quite lame, we’re dissapointed. We want the easiness of our 20s back, our reckless ‘fuck this’-attitude that earned us so many great memories we cherish now. And we try to get it back. We want to be as reckless and easy as in our 20's, when life consited of constant emotional ups and downs and had no other purpose than to be lived to the fullest.

Does it work? No. Because we have changed. The reality of life made us change, maybe even forced us to change and see value in others things. Maybe in blending soups, making Humus from scratch, running a marathon or going hiking (which actually is a very pleasing activity, if you can appreciate the silence and purity nature offers).

Being an adult doesn’t mean life is fun — it means realizing that the concept of a fun life is nothing but a disillusion from the naivety of our youth.

Does that mean we’ll spend the rest of our life unhappy? I don’t think so. I refuse to believe that this is really it. There’s gotta be more. I still want to believe that something truly great can happen. Something that will make me go ‘fucking hell, adulthood is the real deal!’ Something actually valuable, that one big thing that will make me look back on life on my deathbed and say ‘life was good. it was worth it.’

Maybe more lies in having a family. Or writing books, travelling the world, running marathons or something completely different. We have yet to find out I guess. And this is where the actual problem lies: When we’re all grown up, we understand we’re running out of time. Time to find greatness in life. We don’t have forever to live the life we want to live. We’re aging. Fast. And if we don’t know who we are or where we want to be in life, we’re not only dissapointed or annoyed, but terrified as fuck. What’s my perspective? Who am I and who will I become? What will I be remembered for? Will I be remembered? Who will remember me if not my own family? Do I want a family? Should I have a family so I won’t end up all alone?

Who knows? I’m 32 and I have no fucking clue what I want from life. Sure, a job I don’t despise would be good. Somebody to love would be great. And if that somebody loves me back — fantastic! But other than that I have no idea. All I know is, I don’t want life to be fun, I want it to be of real value. Whatever that means.

So, if somebody in their 40's is reading this and has advice, feel free to share your wisdom!