Adulting explained for “adults” & two tips for happy adulting.

If you do not know what the term “adulting” means, you are probably over 40 or under 18. (Well by now you probably have heard it but filtered it out as an unintended grammatical error). A word cloud generated out of a web search for the definition of adulting can give you an inkling:

Get the picture? Yeah, it’s a verb…and a noun. A few choice tweets that come up with #adulting:
“Yesterday I was broke. Today I got paid. Tomorrow I pay rent. Tomorrow I am broke again.”

“I accidentally slept til 8:30 the other day and felt like I wasted half the day.”

“It’s 10:30 am and I’ve already been at work for 2 hours.”

“When you book a half day off work to get a smart meter installed.”

“Just signed up for my independent health insurance & the 1st payment is due by 2pm today and I don’t have the money in my account”

Childhood is a relatively new concept for the human species. Until about 300 years ago, you were either an infant, utterly dependant on a parent, or a small (working) adult. Over the 200,000 years that we humans have roamed this earth, we have experienced protection, tenderness, and nurturing during our childhood years for only 1% our time. Toys, children’s books, and primary education were unknown to all but royalty until about 150 years ago. Today you are legally a child until 18, years after sexual maturation and reaching physiological adulthood. We switched up our evolution.

At the park yesterday, I asked my grandson and his friends what they liked best about being kids. “Playing.” “Having fun.” “Being taken care of.” Then we went to Menchies. They covered their ice cream with giant gummi sharks. I wondered how they would define being an adult when they grew up, and hoped that having fun, playing and feeling taken care of would be a big part of it.

When I was 22, I made up a joke: If you talk about shopping, relationships and children, you are a woman, if you talk about sports, computers and work, you are a man, if you talk about investments, home renovations and vacations, you are an adult. I do not want to be any of those. I’m not sure how funny that joke was (it was funny to me), but one thing I was sure of: I wanted to avoid the loss of soul when one defines oneself too narrowly or by external forces.

I think the reason for the term “adulting” is that when we switched up our evolution with the creation of childhood, we neglected to form a definition of adulthood that ushers in health and happiness. It’s like there is nothing really good to look forward to in growing up. So now, today, you are adulting when you play a role, and get to quit adulting when you can go back to your true nature. The problem with this is that it leads to a splitting of the self and disintegration of the personality. Life should not suck. It’s too brief for that.

So here are two tips for happy adulting.

1. Reject the definition of adulting as: Get a Job, Move Out of your Parents, Get Hitched, Get Insurance, Buy a House, Have Kids, blablabla.

Make up your own definition of adulting. That does not mean you do not do any of those things. It does mean that you take your life at your pace. Know your heart, go by your heart and do what fills you with inspiration. Don’t be afraid to make dumb mistakes- instead, celebrate these! Your life will be richer for them. Here are a few of my favorite tweets that also came up with #adulting:

“Today I had an ice cream for lunch, drank juice from the carton and had a water fight.”

“Today i did not complain.”

“Shout out to…my summer roommate, colleague, and friend for joining the leadership team.”

This leads to my next tip:

2. Be the adult you want future generations to be: Have fun. Be weird. Be 100% you.

There is a thriving index that has five questions pointing the way to what adulting really should be:

Is your life purposeful and meaningful?

Are you interested in your daily activities?

Are you optimistic about your future?

Do you feel a sense of accomplishment from what you do?

Do you feel positive about yourself?

You can answer these questions and get your scores and see how you compare to everyone else who has taken the Gross National Happiness Index here.