The best part: I did all of this before noon. ON A SATURDAY.
I don't even know who I am anymore, y'all.
Well, that's not true, to an extent. I know exactly who I am - I'm Cassidy, and I'm finally practicing adulting.
When the college students with whom I work start complaining about how hard life is (as we all tend to do, let's be honest), I remind them that they're adults now, and that being an adult consists of two key truths that I've learned over the past few years, since I was a college student myself.
Here are these truths, which are actually corollaries of each other:
1) Being an adult means that you have to make yourself do things you don't want to do. All the time.
When you were younger, the people who raised you probably did a lot of things for you - they would make your doctor's appointments, or pay your living costs/bills, or make your lunch for you to take to school.
When you're an adult, there's no one to do this for you. (Probably.) You have to schedule that dentist appointment you've been putting off for 3 years. You have to re-register your car at the DMV (and pay property taxes... ouch). You have to wash those dishes that have been sitting in your sink since Tuesday. You're the only person that's responsible for your life now... so do the thing. It sucks, but you're the person who can and should do it.
2) Being an adult means that you're allowed to make whatever choices you want... but you have to live with the consequences of those choices.
As you got older, you probably had to start doing a lot of the aforementioned chores for yourself, but there would be consequences if you didn't. Clean your room, or no TV. Mow the lawn, or you're grounded. When you're an adult, a lot of times, these consequences aren't as apparent, because a lot of times, no one external is setting them for you.
Listen, the first time I realized that I could let my dishes sit in the sink for a week, I was ecstatic. Washing dishes is mundane, tedious, and sometimes icky. I didn't have a parent or roommate shooting me dirty looks for leaving them sitting; I didn't face no TV or no cell phone for not getting them done. It was magic. But after a few days, those dishes start smelling. Fruit flies may show up. And eventually, you run out of dishes.
I made a choice not to wash my dishes, but then I had to live with the consequences of not washing them - no clean dishes. An even dirtier kitchen. And those consequences, honestly, were worse than if I had just bit the bullet and cleaned them.
This is such a metaphor for adulthood it's not even funny - oftentimes, the immediate action of doing something may be distasteful, or hard, or you may be unsure of how to do it. But the reality is, the consequence of not doing the thing is 99.9% percent of the time WAY worse than doing the thing in the moment.
Sure, I can choose not to go to the doctor or dentist. But what problems are going to be worse because I'm not discovering them early? Sure, I can procrastinate on getting my car's registration renewed. But when I get a ticket for an out-of-date registration, whose fault is that? Adulthood is about facing choices, and making decisions, and then dealing with the consequences.
~
I'm still learning these lessons; I'm by no means perfect. I may have renewed my car registration yesterday; I haven't gone to the dentist in years (I'll spare you the details on how long it's been). I may have deep-cleaned my guest bedroom and bathroom; I still need to vacuum the rest of my apartment and clean my kitchen.
In the end, what I'm really working on is not feeling guilt for the things left undone; rather, I'm attempting to be proud of the progress I've made. Sure, I may slip and make a mistake, but I'm still growing and learning from those mistakes. Every small victory is still a victory - as my friend Ashlie says, "A baby shark is still a shark." Any bit of progress, however small, is still a step forward. And that's something to be proud of.
No comments:
Post a Comment