OH MY GOSH PEOPLE.
Stop living your life like you still have your parents telling you no!
You are ADULT!
The word adulting has such a negative connotation.
Paying bills. Responsibility. Work. HARD tedious work you may not like. Making choices. Cleaning. Oh.man. Cleaning…
BUT FOR REAL.
When we were kids ALL we wanted to be was an adult. To stay up. To watch whatever we wanted. To eat whenever, whatever and where ever we wanted.
Yet here we are. Adults and still living under the same rules we had as kids.
Yes. Taking care of life is necessary. We have to have jobs. Pay the bills. Take are of our kids. Keep our houses updated. YADA YADA YADA.
But stop living like like adulting is the worst. Start living it like adulting is as awesome as you though it was going to be.
Find a way to enjoy the job you do. It IS possible even in the most mundane crappy jobs.
Keep up your hobbies.
Find joy in adulting.
Have ice cream when it’s too late at night.
Eat sugar cereal for breakfast.
Add extra cheese to your grilled cheese.
Order a meal and eat JUST the condiments. ( Hellloooo beer cheese! )
Go for a bike ride.
We are SO hard on ourselves. SO focused on perfection. SO focused on how we look to other people. SO focused on rigidity and keeping everything in control. CONTROL. We were taught to keep it all in control. We were groomed to think that those who couldn’t keep it reigned in in all areas of life were less than. So we fight every day to be in control.
Today I am telling you to stop it.
Stop trying to be in so much control that you forget who you are and you forget that you’ve lived your entire life for THIS day! To be an adult and do what you want to do!
I knew at 14 I wanted to be a writer. I even got an honorable mention for a poem I wrote in a writing contest. I wanted to tell my story like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wanted to help other people feel good about themselves. I used to “counsel” my friends at the lunch table for Pete’s sake!
But I forgot about all that for 20 years because I let the world, society, culture and my parents tell me what I needed to be and how I should define success. And it killed my soul. Dried it up like a prune. Then fossilized it.
I’m taking back my life this year. I am redefining my idea of success. Chipping away around the fossil. I am shedding the painted on layers of shellac I’ve covered myself in to look shiny and perfect to those around me. I’m letting my true self out and I want you to join me.
Not because it will affirm myself as a writer. I could care less if I ever make money off this gig. I could care less if I hit the world’s definition of success.
No. Join me because our world NEEDS you to be yourself.
Join me because YOU NEED you to be yourself.
Dye your hair pink.
Start singing again.
Travel. Even if it’s just down the road.
Plant a garden.
Dress the way you want to. Even if that means you look totally different each day.
Take a class. Teach a class.
Parents. This is more vital to us. Because our kids are watching. The BEST way we can show our kids how to be themselves, how to succeed, how to be happy, how to choose what they want their lives to look like, how to be good people, how to avoid the chaos the world sells us… IS TO DO IT OURSELVES.
It is us adults who smother our children. Then when they grow we wonder why they face depression and confusion about their lives.
It is us.
Stop trying to blame teachers. Stop trying to blame social expectations. Or the government. Or our financial situation. Or our mental illness.
No.
Science of the brain has revealed a very hard to swallow pill. It is US parents who stifle our kids. NO other way around it. We hold great power when it comes to our children. We are NOT going to be perfect. We WILL mess up. But it’s our need for control that smothers our kids.
We don’t have to keep doing it.
And you don’t have to keep listening to your parent’s voices in your heads.
Grow up people.
And remember the voice we should really be listening to from our childhood:
“Remember who you are.” – Mufasa
I’m a writer.
What are you?
Andie.ink 
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