What Nobody Told Us About Adulting!
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard these lines, “Adulthood is a scam”, “nobody told me this and that about adulting” and many more.
I couldn’t have agreed lesser, I mean, our parents would always remind us to grow up but then they never told us what to expect while growing up and we assumed that life would be easy and all that we need would be handed over to us as we grew up.
For instance, a typical secondary school student has an image of what his/her future looks like. Graduate from secondary school at 16 or more, get into a preferred tertiary institution at 17 to study a 4-years course, and graduate by 21. By 22, NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) is settled, with a job on the ground, and the next point on the agenda is to get married and start raising kids if you want.
The reality turns out to be, probably repeating a class or not, so you leave secondary school either at your desired age or later. You move onto Jamb(Joint Admission Matriculation Board), and ended up trying over and over, at the end you managed to secure admission into either your preferred tertiary institution or not to study a course totally unrelated to your preferred course.
Classes starts and ASUU(Academic Staff Union of Universities) decided it was time for their annual leave(strike), four years course is extended to 5 or 6 as the case may be if your tertiary institution is either a Federal or State-owned institution. If your institution is anything like where I schooled, you have to spend about 12 months before NYSC can happen, although I learned they are working on improving the system.
Did you notice I didn’t include the emotional resources that would be expended during this season or other unforeseen circumstances? NYSC happens, you get posted wherever and one year goes by. Now you are back home, hoping that jobs will come to locate you.
Months after sitting at home unemployed, you finally get a job that could cover your bills, and one year after or months after, you are like my friend, who instead of thinking of settling down(getting married), is unfulfilled at his current job, decided to switch careers and had to start from scratch at his new job.
As before, I did not include the emotional and physical resources that would have gone into this process. Your workplace is far away from your family house or for other reasons, you want to get an apartment for yourself and that’s like another phase of life.
I did a poll and asked a couple of people what they wished they knew about adulting before they became an adult, Person A says he wished he knew he’d have to fend for himself as adulting kicks in. Person B says that she didn’t know she’d have to take responsibility for herself and her decisions. Person C says they wished they knew how to start making money from age 17 with digital skills.
I could go on and on about people’s expectations and reality of adulthood, the truth is, nobody and nothing prepares us for the strings of obligations and responsibility that comes with adulthood.
Our parents may have tried to prepare us, but you see, they can only teach us based on their own experiences years ago, or sometimes they don’t even see the need to prepare us ahead probably because they figured life out without the support of their own parents/guardians.
Guess what, there is someone who actually knows everything about every individual, adulthood amongst others, he is Jesus. He knows it so well and has the right manual you need to navigate life. You don’t have to figure out life on your own. I’ve tried to, and the more I try, the more I fail, because I don’t know what is coming, if I don’t, how can I prepare for it?
With him, you don’t even have to be bothered about preparing for what you don’t know because he will tell you what is coming and help you prepare for it. He will show you the way to go and how to walk along the way.
What nobody probably told us about adulting is that we’d need Jesus to navigate the streets and journey that comes with adulting. Thankfully, we can find out with the help of the holy spirit and we can help the younger generation to do the same.
All you need to do is to ask him to help you and be willing to allow him to help you.
If you don’t know how to ask him, feel free to send me a message on Instagram, I’m willing to help you.
Cheers!
Don’t forget to clap as many times as possible, share your thoughts as comments and share with your family and friends.
