Are you finally an adult and you feel like have having a conversation with an understanding adult? Well, here is a moment to share, addressing what the challenges of early adulthood are
I have always loved the idea of independence, doing my own thing, no rules, no quiet corner, no grounding, just an unlimited amount of me and my ideas. I had imagined that I would not have to answer to anyone, I would finally be free from curfews and punishment. I was very sure that at 18 I would move out and share an apartment with my cousin and start adulting with a bang.
All that day dreaming did not prepare me for facing the challenges of being a young adult. I am going to take a moment to review some of the hurdles I have encountered.
Finances
I got my first official job at 24, I had been working on my own baking business in the 2 years prior to getting a Job. Even if I were still living at home with my parents, with most of the essential financial needs taken care of, the money I made in that business was not enough, I just wanted more than what my source of income could give. It started with the hair care journey, then skin care, before I knew it, I was officially my own fiscal responsibility.
There is no stipulated age for financial independence in fact everyone’s story is different, but we can all agree that we need money to get along.
It comes with the territory, as you grow older you will realise that you need to be part of the great economic system. As part of the many struggles of adulthood is the struggle to get a source of income, we need to get a job or find our feet in whatever career we have chosen, whatever the case we need to sustain ourselves financially. That in and of itself is a problem, we do not always get the jobs we want or the jobs we get do not pay as much but because we need the little, they offer, we find ourselves sucking up to all conditions.
Getting a job is not the only thing on the finances list but there is also the subject of understanding money and how to make it work for you. It is the whole budgeting, cutting down on your expenses, new expenses, promotions, going out, parents, siblings and the list never ends. The stress of trying to prioritise expenses, save and have fun heightens, it just does not always seem possible. For most responsible individuals, the fun always losses its plot, which is sad because life gets incredibly stressful, we need to let our hair down once every while.
There is a different group that spends a sizeable number of adult years in a money insensitive bubble because they decide to go on and further their education. They spend years and years pursuing a career, in those years they do not work or even try to gather experience of working. They are caught up in the busyness of the course of study and the pursuit of the career insomuch that by the time they catch the economic train they are so far behind in understanding and experience.
FYI: I am for education
Big decision and big steps
During high school, we get hinted that one day we would have to choose careers for ourselves. I think the whole highlight is wrong, we are not merely choosing career paths, we are primarily choosing our life paths. The whole movement should be about making the individual you want to be and the person you want to be perceived as. The training should equip us to make decisions on what we want to major in, side hustles? Marriage? who to date, who makes up your friendship circle, who you marry? When to marry? Children, are they in your plans? If yes when to have them? What influences these decisions? What makes your priorities list and why?
Having to learn to manage all the admin in your own life, all paperwork and communication becomes your baby. all decision-making rests on your shoulders, no one encourages you or nudges you to a certain direction, it’s really all on you. This is overwhelming because you will only learn a decision was bad when it backfires, we don’t have a manual for life, we have speculations on how we could improve it, but they are not always efficient as no one has really lived life in your shoes except for you. It is not always the answer but I say, quit laziness and always do your research regarding all things you take an interest in.
What is far worse in all this is that you must act, we cannot keep dreaming of who we want to be, we have got to start becoming. There is a gulf I think, between the dream and the execution, the gulf is big enough to create anxiety. It is extremely easy to build imaginary castles and lifestyles but to make them come to true is in a whole different league
Romantic relationships
It still baffles me how one can build a whole life with a total stranger because of love. As a young person, you are new to this independence theme, still formulating ideas about you and your life but strangely we also pick someone to help us build on the dreams we ourselves are still new too.
Not everyone will get married out of choice or circumstance but what is highly likely is that we will all, at some point find ourselves committed to a total stranger. It takes a lot of wisdom and courage to take a chance on someone you like, however, it is so hard to find someone who for the most part has the same principles and practises as you.
I do not know where and when we learnt that everyone you have ever liked should be your current partner or your ex. I think this method of doing things takes away thoughtfulness, we keep moving from relationship to relationship, falling in and out of love. We do not stop to find out who we are and what life we want, we do not channel our energies to growth and self-love and when we are much older, we realise self-development is where we should have started.
In relation to relationships, self-development is big because when you know yourself and who you are becoming you know what type of person fits into your space and life. When we look for life partners, we need people we can grow and build with therefore its wisdom and caution that should be deployed.
OTHER INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS
When we are teenagers, we enjoy neglecting our parents, we have an infinite frustration towards them, and we just love to hate them. However, when we grow up and begin to understand what they did for us and why they did it, a new warmth is kindled within our hearts. We may also learn that they are not superheroes, and their parenting techniques are not perfect, but maturity says we must work our way back to a loving relationship.
This journey is not always easy, it maybe that the emotional scars that we inflicted on our parents in teenage days are too deep for them and there is a lot to work through before we get into a safe space of love with them. Or it could be the other way round, whatever the case, its not always easy to work on the relationship that we have taken for granted. Its so much easier to underappreciate the people we should love the most and when we grow, we learn that we ought to put effort to keep developing those relationships, not just with our parents but with our sibling as well. We move out and on with our lives, we find ourselves living in separates places miles and miles apart, we put an effort to take loving care of these relationships.
There Is so much change that happens in our lives, even the dynamics of our friendship’s change. The friends we have in high school seldom make it to the other side of our lives, after living together for so long, the things that brought us together cease. So, we lose friends in adulthood, and we make new friends, we always hope that the friendships kept and the new ones we make, sail with us right through life.it really goes without saying, we need to manage our social lives, learning how to pour into friendships, managing boundaries and keeping up the different stages of your friendship life and the very dynamics of own life. Growth is a big deal and there is so much to deal with so many changes and such great expectations many are the challenges of becoming an adult and its doesn’t get easier, we still have challenges as new adults