Growing Up for Dummies

Disclaimer: This isn't for those mature people who know how to handle the most volatile thing in this world..life. This is going to be a depressing post - I am going to sound like a grandma. Following are just *my* practical action items to be an adult.

Grow up

Recently my brain has been hit by some great revelations - which weren't pleasant. All of a sudden, I woke up to realize that I haven't been adulting. I have been living in my head. My reality and the actual reality had huge gaps. I realized that I am aging at 10X speed, but I am not at all growing up. I refused to grow up all these years and suddenly many things are now demanding me to grow up overnight. Everything and everyone wants me to be practical and mature. I am doing nothing about my career. I don't know how to sustain all by myself - how to cook, how to do laundry, how to drive, how to invest..nothing. I suck at maintaining a proper social life. All my friends are having kids and I lol at memes everyday. Life in general was advancing to a new difficulty level everyday.

Ok. Enough ranting about me. I know it's late for me. But as cliched as it may sound, better late than never. I want to become a proper adult before I hit 30. In general, people start this phase at 18 or even earlier, but hey I am late to the party. So I got to repent and work hard at this.

• The first step of being an adult is to be a self sustaining being. This means you should know the basic survival skills. You should be independent in all possible ways. By this, I don't mean that you have a job, so you can pay for a pizza. No, you should be able to cook yourself a proper healthy meal- not just instant noodles. 
• Take care of yourself. No one else will. Don't be all scared about visiting hospitals and even needles. If something is needed, then just get it done. Diet and exercise are the key. Buy your groceries carefully - It's easy to make a choice once in the store while buying instead of making a choice every moment in the pantry. 
• Take care of your family. They are all you got. Be responsible. Help them.
•  Stop living in your head. Be practical. Do the important things first. Do not ignore them and try to escape into 9gag/youtube. Identify and do the priority items - it's awesome if you clean your room, but not when you have a deadline looming over for the next day for an important project. 
•  Know what you want to do. Have a 10 year vision. 
• If you haven't figured out what's your passion, then take some time to try new things. But do not quit your job. Unless your side hustle brings you enough money or you have got enough savings to last you for a while, quitting your job may land you in more problems. 
• Have a career, not just a job. If the thought of switching job comes to your mind, then do something about it, don't get too comfy in a bad job.
• Maintain professional network. Have a mentor. Be a mentor to someone. 
•  Earn, save and invest money. All the three are important. 
• Spend money consciously. I have been hoarding clothes. Now I regret not just for the loss of money, but just for the sheer amount of clothes I own. 
• Learn taxes.
• Maintain a proper social life. Stay in touch with friends.
• Travel. You don't have to visit other countries. Travel within your own country for reasonable prices. 
• It scares me a lot that as an adult you are not supposed to stay sad or depressed. The problem with this is - when you are depressed, you can't get things done - which will further make you more depressed. It's better to learn how to live with depression and still get things done. I now have a 5 rated To Do list of items - if I feel low, I ignore my general To Do list and just get the important 5 rated things first.
• The less things you do, the more peaceful you can be. I love several things - but I figured out that I can't do them all in my life - I am no Chuck Norris.
• Don't hesitate or overthink for doing every single tiny activity - should I exercise or not? May be tomorrow..Just do it.
• Clean and organize your room/home. It keeps your mind de-cluttered.
• Don't waste time on gossip, jealousy, not talking after a fight for days, holding grudges,etc. Let go of them. Also as I grow older, I feel that its better to suffer in silence than to rant it someone who doesn't care.
• Don't hesitate to remove negative people from your life.

Do not worry too much about aging. You can't control it.
Do not regret past. Just learn from it and move on.
You don't have to be a boring grumpy human to be an adult. It's okay to let the child inside you take the control sometimes, but may be not always.

Maturity doesn't come with age, it comes from experiences. 
We will figure it out..Happy adulting :)

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