The day you turn 18, there is an inexplicable need to start adulting. College, admission deadlines, leaving home, hustling to make a mark, random bills, and so many compromises. We cannot rule out the fact that most of it is a pressure building exercise of to be or not to be. From the protected walls of school & home, suddenly we are on a hunt for a room of our own. A city to call us with open hearts & make space for us.
The day we run out of our houses, another house, the one within starts testing us. From our impulse – the very need to trust our gut and do something on our own to our middle class truths, everything is a test to sit for whether you want the degree or not. So what can we do as an adult who has to really be one.
Soft Skill 1 – I was watching this series where a girl with a strong academic background, a scholar so to say wanted to go to another city to study her favourite course, but her father had to break her educational FD due to family emergency. The girl was broken for her academic record since school was so good, but she still had to choose staying in her hometown. Her impulse even made her leave the house secretly, only to discover who we are without our families. So she took a calculated decision, after all education comes with genuine knowledge, knowledge of life. She chose to stay but now her mind was focussing on the bigger pictures, that was adulting.
Soft Skill 2 – Finances – Adulthood comes with a baggage, and like Sisyphus you keep loading that baggage of making money up the hill, only to find it less the moment that rock of money hits the rock bottom. Its an ever repeated exercise until the time you take your last breath. But the ones who start managing their finances early in life, find juggling those expenses like a pro. They know the realities of that piece of paper which can break your sense of self worth or make you worthy of yourself in no time. So a reality check about finances & an open conversation with yourself on it will only help you keep adulting further.
Soft Skill 3 – Relationships are an adults safety net. We make friends, we marry our partners, we even have bad partners leading to separations, then children, in- laws, colleagues, all are given to us as we keep adulting. Some are lessons, while some are permanent partnerships, but we keep nudging ourselves for more. So relationship building is not just a soft skill, it’s a life skill where you keep learning & unlearning about people you hold close. If your essence tells you to keep making more human connections, you are on a mission to learn, but if you shut down those connections you become victims of your own minds. Because true human nature can be understood not only in the favourable, but unfavourable as well. So use all your skills to maintain relationships, with conscious choices & see how your life blooms around them.