What It Means To Become An Adult
Some reflections on growing up and becoming independent.
I’ve been forced to think about this question more and more since the time that my father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly a few months ago.
Before that, I’ve always received some sort of financial help from my parents. Even during those times when I actually made enough money myself to sustain my own lifestyle.
Most importantly, perhaps, I always knew that even if I failed completely, my parents would always be willing to help out.
Now, that safety net is gone.
And with it, I am forced to become completely independent.
I wish I had started this process much earlier. I wish I had consciously broken my financial bonds a long time ago. I wish I had not been as dependent on my parents.
So now, I’ve got to learn my lessons the hard way.
If you want something, work for it yourself
Nobody can help you to build the dream that you are trying to build. As long as you are dependent on other people help you in achieving the success you are looking for, you are not worthy of chasing after your own dream.
This is something I think all young adults should learn as early as possible.
Perhaps, they should postpone that plan to do that gap year a little. Perhaps, they should wait for the time that they buy their first car. Perhaps, they should wait with building their own business.
Start, or do something only when you are ready for it.
Financially.
Emotionally.
Skill-wise.
Rushing into something that you can not achieve on your own accord (yet) will only lead you to crash and burn.
Instead, it makes much more sense to spend time for your own preparation. Get ready in all those aspects of life that you need to be clear on first, and only then tackle the next steps towards your dreams.
Struggle is always a part of the process
Nothing ever comes to you easily. Trying to build something meaningful always is defined by uncertainty, struggle, and hardship.
As long as you are working towards your dreams as opposed to just copying everybody else around you, you will go through an enormous amount of hardship.
University is like a playground for young adults.
While you are in the university environment, you are being guided in terms of where you have to go. You have few financial worries. You are being given all the resources you need.
None of that ever holds true in the real world.
If you don’t show any real economic value, nobody will even bother working with you. If you are not among the most skilled people in your field, you will get crushed by the competition.
Unfortunately, dreams do not have any economic value in themselves.
If you are not capable of translating your dream into something of real, tangible value for people, then you will soon be forced into a soul-crushing job that you will despise forever
Nobody can fix your screw-ups for you
You will screw up. All the time. And guess who is going to have to fix those screw-ups for you?
That’s right. You yourself.
Take responsibility for your failures. Admit it when you screwed up, and then immediately set out to fix the situation in whatever way you can.
And when that means that you are going to face negative consequences, then so be it. Don’t even think about asking somebody else to fix the situation for you.
Because if you do ask, then you are only going back into that cycle of dependency that you have been stuck in all your life.
This doesn’t mean that you should never ask for help.
Rather, it means that you should never become dependent on somebody else to do things for you. And you should never blame responsibility on somebody else when you know exactly that it was really your own screw up.
There will be one million choices. You’ll have to make one and then own it.
Life will provide you with an unlimited number of choices. Countries to live in. Work to do. Potential partners to marry. Things to spend your time with.
You don’t have time to play around and keep postponing those decisions.
Life is incredibly short. By this point, you probably already spent more than a quarter of it.
Truly mastering a subject is supposedly going to take 10,000 hours. I know this is a very debated point, but let’s just assume that this is true.
This means that you are likely going to spend another 8 years or so until you become a real expert at what you do. You simply don’t have time to play around a lot, waste your resources, and remain stuck.
I don’t mean to say that by now you’ve got to have it all figured out. Nobody does.
But I do mean to say that you should choose one option for how you are planning your life to go, and then stick with it for a while. Perhaps you find out that this is not for you, and that’s fine.
You can always change your course of action as you go. Just don’t get stuck in inaction and stagnation.
You don’t have time for that.
As much as you want to avoid it, money will always be a reality
Perhaps you want to build a successful start-up. Perhaps you want to be an artist. Perhaps you want to be the world’s best author.
Everybody has some sort of dream.
Most people, though, will end up in one of two options:
- They quit their dream because they realize that its too hard to achieve considering economic realities
- They are asking other people (like their parents) to help them finance their dreams until they succeed
If you really want to chase your dream, then make sure that you first set up the necessary conditions for making that dream a reality without dependency on somebody else.
After a lot of testing around, I actually think that a 20-hour part-time job is quite an attractive option for many people.
It allows you to live your life (albeit on minimum expenses), while at the same time giving you the space to work on the projects that you really care about.
Of course, this is just one option. Which path is the right one for you, will always be your own choice. But the point here is that you should always live up to the economic realities, even if you have entrepreneurial ambitions.
Some final words:
First and foremost, becoming an adult means that you are becoming responsible for yourself, in every sense of the world.
It means that you are making your own choices. That you are responsible for your own mistakes. That you need to fix your own problems. That you need to manage to make enough money for yourself. That you yourself are deciding where your life is going.
If you feel that you are not there yet, then I suggest that you begin taking the necessary steps towards being responsible for yourself now.
You never know whether or not the person who is currently supporting you will be capable of continuing to do so one year later. The last thing you want is to wake up one day realizing that you won’t be able to pay the bills anymore.
The reality of life is a harsh one.
Begin preparing yourself from now onward.
- What steps can you take now to become financially independent as soon as possible?
- How can you reduce your dependency on other people in all aspects of life?
- How can you develop some economically valuable skills now that will continue to support you for the rest of your life?
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