How to fail at adulting

It’s a meme that comes up on my social media all the time. Living in a culture of mockingly commenting on how hard it is being an adult, but actually though the meme is often funny (usually very large glasses of wine are involved), I think under the humour, all adults agree at times, adulting is hard.

Today I went to a meeting with my ‘Wealth Manager’ (which fills me with equal amounts of fear and pride) who made a proposal to me and my husband about evaluating and improving our pensions and how to invest our savings in medium risk ventures. On the surface, I was quite excited by the meeting (after a fairly successful meeting we had previously looking into our insurances – we now have every insurance imaginable!) but it soon transpired I didn’t understand half of what the guy was saying. In fact, in my totally ignorant way, I left the meeting kind of not wanting a pension at all, after looking at the amounts we ‘might’ receive at pensionable age. I happily put my hands up and say I do not understand the ins and outs of pensions. I want to understand but I cannot seem to wire my brain into focusing properly on it. I felt like I was back at school, specifically in a maths lesson (I never did well in maths) and knowing out right that I was going to fail. I managed to scrape a C in GCSE Maths (which I am actually pretty proud of considering I really do not have any aptitude for the subject). I now have to put a day aside in the foreseeable future to read all this stuff in detail (probably several times until I understand it – hopefully!) and decide what to do next.

As a result of the meeting, I started thinking about all the shitty things that come with being an adult. The endless paying of bills. Commuting. Grocery shopping. Answering a million emails. The constant battle of trying to keep your house clean and tidy. Getting up early. Doing your tax return. Gardening! Pensions! These are some of my pet hates when it comes to adult tasks that must be done. All these mundane tasks can be very draining, and I have to constantly fight the urge to fall into their trap – of being a boring adult as a result. When you have so many ‘necessary’ tasks, which weirdly often become priorities in your mind, no wonder we sometimes fail to go through our days with a sense of fun, spontaneity and freedom.

When I was young, I used to dream about being an adult. I believed all adults knew everything. They didn’t get scared, they weren’t vulnerable. When I became an adult, I would know how to be adult because adults were adults. They were educated. They knew it all. But nothing happens when you turn 18. No magical change comes over you. You feel the same at 35 as you did when you were 17, albeit with more life experience and self-awareness. What I’ve found though is that it’s harder to be a dreamer, or a fun spontaneous individual as an adult. My daughter loves to play. She wants me to play with her all the time. Some days I love this, will happily play with her, be silly, laugh but other days, I feel guilty because I just don’t have the energy or inclination. However, my daughter does not have these days. She wants to play every day. To me, that is so special. Life is still one big playground to her. Her vitality for life is beautiful.

So, maybe failing at adulting sometimes doesn’t have to be a bad thing? Right now, I am sat writing this with my daughter, who is watching the Disney film ‘Enchanted’. It’s such a sweet, colourful and gooey film but its joyfulness is infectious. It perfectly depicts the contrasts between a fairy-tale mindset and a serious ‘adulting’ mindset. By finding the balance between the two, the two main characters fall in love and make a life together. You get a sense in the final scene as they dance through their apartment with the guy’s little daughter and the lead fairy-tale heroine has become a successful clothes designer that they’ve got the balance of adulting and childishness down to an artform. I’d happily fail at adulting if it means I don’t lose my instincts of being silly like when you’re young. Surely in between all the chores and daily tasks, there’s always time for play, for laughter and thinking like a non-adult? In a strange way through, even though this behaviour is effectively spontaneous, you need to make time for it, for it to happen. Even if you don’t feel like it, put the chores/tasks on hold for a bit, and give spontaneity a chance to happen. My approach is to just sit on the floor with someone else (normally my daughter) and see what happens next. Or you could just get in the car and spontaneously drive somewhere and see what happens. Play a game. Do some painting. Go outside and run around. Whatever takes your fancy. Discover your inner child and fail at being an adult for a little while.