Adulting 101

I love my first job. The work is challenging and tough, but I like being kept on my toes. I love the people I work with; I am so fond of my colleagues that I feel like my friends and family know more about them than they should. I am irrevocably in love with my office building — if you saw it yourself, you would be, too. (I like bragging about our building. It’s really pretty.) The hours tend to be toxic, but the pay isn’t bad, so I don’t mind.

It was pretty clear to me, even at the very beginning, that I am one of the lucky ones who began their career on a good start. Having a full-time job is the most serious, most adult decision I’ve ever made in my life. It’s a natural step towards buying a car, paying for a mortgage, and getting married — or in my case, owning 15 cats.

With all that in mind, I decided to quit.

Sure, I am leaving my serious, grown-up job without having secured another one in its place; nor do I have any prospects in play. I can’t expect a steady income every two weeks or a daily routine that’ll keep my brain functioning. I’m gonna have to go through job hunting, professional heartbreaks, and the bureaucracy that comes with finding new employment. (Getting an NBI clearance, for example, is a circle of hell all its own.)

So why do it? I’ve given my bosses and my parents a barrage of reasons, all of which, I believe, are true to a degree. I want to reassess my personal goals; I would like to try my luck at a different industry; I want a new challenge… to be honest, I’m not quite sure of what I want, but as Woody Allen said in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I am sure of what I don’t want. What I don’t want is to compromise passion for comfort.

Early on I’ve learned that the trick to acting like a mature person is to always make the Adult Choice. Whenever I am confused as to what that is, it’s the option I don’t want to take. When I began to feel confused about my feelings towards my first job, I thought to myself that staying would be smart. Giving up on the most adult decision I have ever made so far would be counter to my Adult Choice theory, right? So for a while I stayed, and took comfort in the fact that I was being wise and mature.

Look, I certainly can’t claim to be a put-together adult just yet, but when I realized that the “adult” thing to do is to get out of my comfort zone and figure out where my bliss truly lies, I realized that I am on the way to getting there. Adulthood, that is.

Being an adult is a mindset, a decision you have to make for yourself. It isn’t just about paying income tax or building up your retirement fund. I’d like to think that the essence of truly being grown-up is having the ability to know what you want and plotting out your life’s blueprint to achieving your goals.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t claim to have the answers to everything. Even my Adult Choice theory isn’t foolproof: I’m bound to screw up repeatedly. There are days when I wish there were a guidebook to being a grown-up, because most of the time, I still feel like I’m a kid struggling to handle her cutlery at the adults’ table. But isn’t that what’s fun about it, the thrill and terror of perfecting your adult formula?

It’s definitely a perpetual challenge — at least for someone like me who can barely get out of bed in the morning — but there is a deep sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing that despite all your apparent life fails, you’re on your way to something great.

I may not be an adult yet, but as lame as it sounds, I do know that growing up is one thing which I’m never going to quit.