All grown up?

Why did we ever want to grow up? Being an adult is tough. You are responsible for your life in ways you can never imagine. Every decision you make or fail to make is entirely yours. What to eat, where to live, whom to love or hate, where to work, whom to be indebted or obligated, whom to help or avoid, these are just basic decisions that you, just you, have to make.

What was wrong with being told what to do? At least if anything ended badly you didn’t have to deal with the fact that it was your mistake. You had somebody else to blame; somebody else to rely on. But no, we had to want to grow up, we had to have it all. We had to be independent, had to live separately, and get stuck with the choices we made. When we were kids, if we sucked at playing the piano, we could give our parents the ‘I-told-you-so’ look but whom do we blame when we have a big fat ‘F’ circled in red for an arts test, an elective we thought we could handle? We may have tons of excuses but it boils down to just one thing—you messed up.

As kids, we cribbed about having to study irrelevant things and envied our older siblings for having the choice of subjects and clothing and freedom and money. And when we reached their age, we realised that being in college was not all that rosy. Who knew that you had to read tons of books to write out a decent essay and that you had to work so hard to afford a wardrobe? And it only got worse. You kept hoping that at some stage you would achieve some semblance of order and living. No wonder Peter Pan never wanted to grow up! It sucks being an adult.

Of course, you get to stay up late and pass out drunk, and eat take-out food every day, but when you have to clean after your upchuck and appear bloated and bleary eyed at work, it no longer is fun. Being grown up and being responsible is hard. Unfortunately responsibility is not just going to go away. Either you learn to stand up and take control or face the consequences.

But being an adult is not really that bad. You just need to shake off the lethargy and get a system in place. You make mistakes and you learn and it’s a pretty good feeling when you fall and rise up all on your own. The clothes, the sex, the independence, no curfew or parents to report to, it’s all great and all but nothing comes close to the feeling of exhilaration you get when you come on top despite all odds. You have a problem, you figure out a solution and that’s all there is to it.

You realise that being grown-up has it perks, like being children had its perks as well. What matters is how you look at it. Are you going to whine about having so much to do or are you going to take care of it one thing at a time? Because there is something to be said for this whole be-the-architect-of-your-own-life—nobody else can do it for you and nobody can take it away, unless of course you let them. But like all things, in the end it all boils down to you.