Living for Dummies: How to Live While Feeling Like A Piece of Sh*t

5. Adulting

When I was a little kid, I couldn't wait to be an adult. 

Growing up as the youngest, I just can't help but to feel excited at the thought of being 20 and finally getting rid of that '-teen' mark at the end of my age. Welp, I'm 22 years old and boy, was that a mistake.

Through my lens, the adults around me have always had that "I know everything," mentality where they just go around and do stuff just because they can and they "know better". As silly as it sounds, faking confidence when you're a grown-up is quite possibly the best way to go about life, and more often than not, these adults that you see around you are probably at the brink of losing their sanity—as it is with most adults. 

Now the thing with adulting is that it gets lonely. And I mean really, really lonely. When you've grown out of that high-school bubble, real life gets scary because it's lonely, and the most important skill that I've come to learn when you're trying to build a strong foundation in life post-graduating high school is having solid social skills. I've met way too many talented people who have wasted their lives due to poor sociability and getting mixed up with the wrong crowd; being able to socially determine what's right and wrong, and judging intentions based on social cues—all these are really important skills that'll determine where you'll go in life because let's face it, most of life is just your relationship with people and anything that comes out of that is a result of it whether we like it or not.

But the sucky thing about developing these skills is that it doesn't come with theories. Sure, you can just read up on the science behind it and try to gauge the theories surrounding it but the experience is the best teacher in this case. Although, make sure that you have an anchor that'll always pull you back in whenever you find that you've drifted too far away from your actual self. This anchor can be anything; a person, a place, a feeling, an object, or even a concept. As long as this anchor makes up a big part of yourself, and I might even go as far as saying that it is the building block of your personality and morals, then you just need to hold on to it.

Life in general is very hazy, and at times it can be burdening. I am at that stage where I find everything tiring, and sometimes I don't even have the energy to go out and socialize. But the good thing about adulting is that you don't have to do it if you don't want to. One good thing I learned from experience is to always prioritize yourself if it benefits your mental health. If you find yourself constantly having to compromise your very much-needed me-times for others' sake, then you're not really taking enough care of yourself. A big part of being an adult is having enough me-times—never, ever compromise this for others' benefit.

It's okay to feel down sometimes though, that's also a crucial part of growing up. Without those negative feelings, we'll never be able to grow from our mistakes and learn from them. Another thing that I find useful is that holding grudges is okay depending on the context; and sometimes, you don't always have to be the bigger person and that is okay.

Adulting in general is equivalent to dating yourself. It's a very hefty process of getting to know what you like and your preferences, for the most part in your 20s, this is exactly what you'll be doing. I learned the hard way that it's okay to be selfish sometimes depending on the context, but it is never okay to compromise your mental health for the sake of other people—if you think that something is worth it, then work for it. Otherwise, don't waste your time on it. 

Sometimes, giving something the benefit of the doubt—in the context that you've already known what you want—won't work out in the long run—that was my biggest lesson for the year.

Anyways—happy adulting, and Merry Christmas!