Ready, Set, Adulthood
Around this time, we’ve all been really thinking about growing up. Before, most of us always dreamt of growing up and becoming an adult already. Now, that the time is approaching soon, we’re scared. Some of us may not want to leave our parents and siblings. I mean, who really wants to grow up? We used to be able to spend our days sleeping, playing with our friends, watching movies and repeat and soon we would worry about things like rent, feeding ourselves and our families, and much more. It’s scary that our lives will soon change completely, but it’s important because who knows? Maybe our lives are going to change for the better.
Nowadays, we’re often experiencing a number of transitions and challenges at this stage of our lives, potentially including navigating a new city, not living with or having family nearby for the first time in our lives, not having any or many established friendships locally, learning the ins and outs of college life, building new relationships, looking for part-time employment or a summer internship, and determining what course of study we want to select and what career we want to pursue. Situations like this can be overwhelming. Life is different for everyone. You have the people who can’t wait to grow up, the ones who are scared but excited, the ones who refuse to let go of their childhood and the ones who are completely reluctant in fear of what is in store for their future. We don’t want to let go of that part of our childhood. Now that it’s changing, we feel scared and excited at the same time. Scared that we have to grow up so fast and grow farther and farther away from being a little kid. Excited because we finally have the chance to go on more adventures and more opportunity and be more mature and have our own lives with our own choices.
Who will I become? We are often asked what we want to be when we grow up. When we’re in kindergarten, it’s fun to think of all the things we could be when we grow up. But, when we become teenagers nearing adulthood, some or even most of us really have no clue what we want to be for the rest of their lives. It scares us at such a young age that sometimes we forget the life we had now and worry about the future. Worrying about your future is not the problem. The problem is worrying too much to the point that you miss out on the great moments of your life now. There are so many memorable things that you will always, always look back on like moments with your friends, family, classmates, teachers, all of them. Don’t be scared; be nervous, sure, but don’t let fear get in the way of letting you have fun while you grow up. growing up isn’t all that bad, it’s fun. but enjoy being young for as long as you can.
When the world starts to feel a little too big for me, I try to break it down into what I am really worried about. So with “growing up”, I ask myself, which part am I exactly scared of? Leaving home? Having babies? Finding a job? If we zoom in on it, we can often take it apart and realize it’s not so bad, or it’s not something we have to worry about yet. We might even find it’s something we can deal with. How I like to think of it is that if we can get through high school, we can get through anything. Sure, it’s a bit of an exaggeration, “High school isn’t that bad” “People have been through worse”, but it’s still true. High School is where we all did our growing up the first time to prepare for the future. All the exams we had to sit through and all the drama we went through with friendship fallouts and relationship endings. No matter how bad it got, we all moved forward step by step. That’s how I see myself when I grow up. I may be knocked down by obstacles or I may knock myself down and give up, but I know I’ll bounce back. It takes time to get back to how you were before, but you take the time to do it because if you don’t, then you’ve not really grown up. You will regret mistakes you’ve made in the past and hope for better later on because that is what growing up is truly about; acceptance and hope for a better future.
Yet, we are still scared. Why? Because it makes us realize that we will never know what to expect. We start to think about our future and ask ourselves questions. In a few years from now, what will I be looking forward to? Am I going to be married or have kids or both? No one has all the answers to life. That’s what growing up is all about; figuring out how to get by one step at a time. We will have to go through obstacles, the good and bad times, but you never know, maybe it’s all going according to plan.
