Something strange happens when you graduate college. As you walk onto the artificial stage, shake hands with the professor you’ve never met, and accept a diploma earned to appease your over-anxious parents, you are told that you are stepping into an exciting and boundless world. Endless possibilities lay ahead of you, and your academic achievements are a testament that you possess a talented and capable mind. This is your moment to prove that you are the person you’ve told people you were since you were building lego blocks. You are an adult. You are strong. You are fearless.
Except when you get off that stage you don’t find yourself stepping onto a manicured field. There are no lavenders and there is no freshly cut grass. Come on, that would be too easy. Rather you find yourself at the base of a very steep mountain. The kind that jags along the sides. Or perhaps you are unlucky enough to find yourself plunged head-first into shark-infested waters. Except instead of shark bites you are slowly devoured and torn to shreds by student debt, crippling anxiety, and the existential dread of having to move back in with your parents.
Because for many of us newly-minted adults, the transition from college student to professional go-getter is not as seamless as career brochures have led you to believe. If you are able to find a job in this unstable economy then you are forced to keep your head above water as doubts over your aptitude begin to creep in. In school you were always compared to your peers. People who had spent the same amount of time living, breathing, and learning as you. Thrust into the deep end you may as well be a baby left to drown with no practical skills save for the odd tidbit about marginal tax rates you learnt in Econ 101.
And if you are not so lucky and find yourself jobless, then you are met with an even bigger fear. The possibility that after all those sleepless nights…all those practice sets…you have failed. That the years spent on your education have been a complete waste. You move back into your childhood bedroom that is now too small for you. Bedsheets that don’t suit your age and window shades which you can only hope are thick enough to hide your embarrassment from the world. You are left without identity or meaning.
But cheer up! Because if what you are reading sounds disturbingly familiar then I have some good news. The fact that you are reacting this intensely to your perceived failure means that you likely have never met with failure at all. You have probably glided along in school on your childhood rollerblades, boosted with pleasantries about natural talent and being in the 99th percentile. And so you don’t know that hitting rock bottom and failing at goals is a natural part of life.
A quote from J.K Rowling’s 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech, which I watched in my pajamas at 11am on a Tuesday morning.
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.
Now’s your time to learn, at the ripe old age of 23. You will have to learn to deal with failure. Failure, like milk mustaches and burnt toast, are an unavoidable fact of life. But fortunately, it is only a negative aspect of it if you let it be. Failure is the essential lever you must use to get to where you are going. There are very few people who have climbed mountains without tripping here and there. Who haven’t stopped for a shot of aspirin and some matcha tea. A healthy brew can be the antidote to a broken ego.
So congratulations on your first steps to failure and more importantly, to adulting. I intend to blog everyday for the next year (argh…that’s 365 posts) in order to document, observe, and comment on my own personal journey as I learn that having an Ivy-League degree is not a golden ticket to a fulfilling life. If anything, my sheltered experiences are more of a straight-jacket that I must slowly learn to pry open with the help from my new friends, modesty and humility. I have goals. I have ambitions. I have dreams. But I must learn to live in a way that doesn’t tire me out as I embark on the journey to reach those summits. Read as I uncover new experiences to navigate as an independent tax-paying adult, and the humbling lessons that I learn along the way.
Daily Adulting is a self-help humor blog written by Leon Wu. He documents his thoughts and experiences about growing up, while taking a break from life and moving back in with his parents. Subscribe to follow his (hopefully) uplifting journey.
