Adulting Is Really Hard, So Here’s How To Deal With It

Look, I get it.

Adulting kind of sucks.

There’s so much shit we have to do just to be grown up.

Paying attention, bills, and taxes? Sucks.

Doing laundry and dishes? Sucks.

Getting up early and working out and cleaning house? Sucks.

Having to schedule time to hang out with our friends? Sucks.

You know what else kind of sucks? A whole lot of other stuff we have to do to be an ‘adult’.

Or does it?

It took me a long time to realize that I am the only problem in my life. For years, I would whine about bad bosses or long lines or how unfair life was. I would complain about the weather or what someone said. The smallest things would set me off.

A bro grunting loudly at the gym. A crying toddler. Traffic and taxes.

But things aren’t good or bad. They just are.

We assign the meaning.

A few years ago I started chasing silver linings. I decided to make my life a scavenger hunt for optimistic thoughts, a treasure hunt for fun and awe.

When I realized that I have the power to change my own mind about anything I find along the road of my life, the craziest thing happened: I started enjoying myself more. When I accepted total responsibility for how I saw the world, I started feeling more peace and calm. I laughed a little longer. I breathed a bit deeper. I relaxed.

Yes, choices are a pain in the butt, but they’re also a blessing. Can I get a hallelujah for having options? Can I get a “thank fucking god” for not living in a place where I have to worry about bombs or bullets or starving to death?

I mean, sure, sometimes I can’t decide what I want on my pizza, but fuck, isn’t it great to know I can pay a dude to make me food?

The secret ingredient to life is gratitude.

What is the most overlooked thing in your life that you are grateful for? What is the smallest thing you can appreciate?

Your eyebrows or toes?

Soap?

How about having options? How about instead of being overwhelmed by options, you chose to be thankful for them?

If you can read this, you are one of the luckiest, most blessed people to have ever lived in the history of the universe.

Truly.

You have a device in your pocket that can quickly tell you every single fact that has ever been found. You are a wizard.

You can talk to anyone in the world in seconds. No matter where they are, you can see their face and hear their voice as if they were standing next to you. You are a sorcerer.

The fact that you are even alive today is a sensational and marvelous miracle. Get this. Your parents had sex and then out of millions of sperm, you were the chosen one, and then your mom was your first landlord and you literally lived inside of her for nine months, and then somehow you grew from a tiny baby into the person you are today, and all of this occurred while you lived on a sphere circling around a gigantic ball of fire in the middle of ever-expanding nothingness.

The chance of you even reading this article at all is absolutely fucking bonkers.

Accept and admit it: Your life is a magic trick.

You have a machine in your house that creates fire with the spin of a dial or the push of a button, and another machine that pumps clean, hot water out of a hole in your wall, and another machine that can freeze things, and another machine that washes your clothes for you…

A hundred years ago, if you took these tricks and showed them off, you would be burned at the stake and called a witch.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

So why does freedom feel so overwhelming and annoying? Why are responsibilities so obnoxious?

Because we forget that we live in a blessed wonderland.

Yes, adulting is a total pain in the ass sometimes, but the more often and easily we remind ourselves that we are lucky, living, breathing miracles, the easier it becomes to be an adult.