Even when you’re technically progressing..?
There’s like a thousand scary parts of adulting that I’ve come to understand, but I think the worst one for me has been how easy it is to settle for things and choose stability over excitement. It’s like, you don’t necessarily like something, but it’s okay to be in it because it works
You don’t like your job, but it pays the bills so you keep working there (for 20-something years, constantly telling yourself, this is the year you quit to find something better. You don’t love your partner that much (or at all) but I mean shit, they like you and you have fun sometimes, so you stay in the relationship. You don’t like your home anymore but it seems so stressful to start looking for a new place and the moving process just seems ridiculously long.
So yeah, basically, as an adult, you learn to settle
I was having one of those days at work, and I started thinking that the bravest thing my dad ever did, in my opinion, was quitting his 9 – 5 (as a new husband and father) because he knew it wasn’t for him and decided to run a business instead
First thing I did when I found out was ask my mum how she felt in those moments. Because shit, if I had just gotten married and my husband and baby daddy decided to up and quit his one and only job, I’d probably just throw the ring (and the baby LOL) in his face
But I started to look at him in a completely different light when I started working and realised 75% of the people I worked with simply hated their jobs. They hated the work, they hated the work-life balance, they hated their bosses or coworkers, they hated the stress the work came with, they hated –
Yet they still stay. They wake up every morning, put on the same work clothes and fake smiles, and just keep doing what they have to do. And knowing that scared me a lot more than I was prepared for. Because I started to realise how easy it was to fit into that statistic.
I’m sure most of these people stare at their laptops daydreaming about the lives they wanted to have and how they’ll probably never get to chase those dreams because they need the safety of what they have now
Like me.
I feel like after I graduated from university, I had the biggest dreams. No, like, I seriously called my best friend one day and listed everything I was going to do before I turned 40. It was such an unrealistic list with an unrealistic timeline, but I didn’t care; in fact, I didn’t even see it that way. If I’m being honest. It was simple math in my head – If I want it hard enough, I’m gonna achieve it. I wasn’t thinking about all the technicalities of life and how un-simple it can be to achieve even just one thing on your list of goals.
Now it’s like, I’m turning 25 next year, and the only thing I’ve achieved on that list is starting a 9 – 5. And it’s not even a job that I thought I’d be doing
And it’s like. Well. At least I have a job
And I’m like…? When did that become enough?? To just have a thing and not the thing?
What about the hair care line? The winery? The published book? The beauty salon? The podcast?
I had to ask myself that day: when did I shift the goalpost to be much closer? Why have my standards dropped? Is it the adult effect? The Lagos effect?
Well, maybe that’s why, despite all that, I still try doing everything I’ve ever had an interest in. It feels like each time I pick up a hobby that I once loved doing, I’m awakening the child in me so it almost balances it out?
Tbh, I’m still trying to make sense of it
Will probably come back to this when I do
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