#AdultingTips #LifeAdvice #NewBeginnings
Hey there, fellow adult! 🎉🎈 Welcome to the exhilarating, sometimes overwhelming world of adulthood! 🌍✨ As you embark on this new chapter of your life, here are some nuggets of advice to help you navigate through the exciting rollercoaster that lies ahead.
1️⃣ Embrace Self-Discovery 🌱🔍: This is the perfect time to explore who you are, what you love, and what makes your heart sing. 🎶🤗 Take risks, try new things, and don’t be afraid to fail. It’s through these experiences that you’ll uncover your true passions and purpose.
2️⃣ Create a Budget 💵💼: Money talk, oh joy! 💸 While budgeting might not sound exciting, it’s the key to financial freedom and peace of mind. Take control by tracking your expenses, distinguishing needs from wants, and saving up for future goals. The earlier you start, the better!
3️⃣ Build a Support System 🤝❤️: Surround yourself with positive, uplifting people who will cheer you on through thick and thin. Whether it’s friends, family, or mentors, having a strong support system can provide invaluable guidance and encouragement when faced with life’s challenges.
4️⃣ Prioritize Mental and Physical Health 🧠💪: Self-care is not just a trendy buzzword; it’s crucial. Make sure to establish healthy habits, like exercising regularly 🏋️♀️ and maintaining a balanced diet 🥦🍓, while also devoting time to your mental well-being, whether through mindfulness practice 🧘♂️ or seeking therapy.
5️⃣ Learn from Failures and Celebrate Successes 🎓🥳: Life is a series of trials and errors, my friend. Don’t be disheartened when things don’t go as planned. Instead, see failures as valuable lessons that will propel you towards success. And when you do achieve something, no matter how small, celebrate it! 🎉🎊
6️⃣ Embrace Continuous Learning 📚🌟: Education extends far beyond the classroom 🎓. Seek opportunities for growth and development in various forms, whether it’s through online courses, books, podcasts, or even learning from those around you. Never stop feeding your curiosity 🌟✨
Remember, life is a journey, and each step you take is an opportunity for growth and personal development. 🚶♂️🧭 Stay curious, stay hungry, and embrace the ups and downs with a resilient spirit. The real world can be challenging at times, but it’s also filled with countless moments of joy and fulfillment. 🌈💪 So, go out there, chase your dreams, and soar into the adventures that lie ahead! You’ve got this! 🌟🙌 #YouCanDoIt
Ain’t it fun?
Value your time. Don’t let those who ain’t worth it, steal it from you.
Debt is slavery. Treat it with great caution.
Using names like “13yodruglord” on social media might of been cool when you were 12, but now it just makes you look like a moron.
9-5s are hell.
Stay curious! Learning is such a joy of life
Remember, everything you do now has adult ramifications. Want to be a dick to some guy with your buddies? You’re a legal adult now, so he might well beat you up the same way he would a 40 year old guy. A cop will now treat you like an adult, no different from a 30 year old. You go to real jail. Real prison. I think a ton of 18 year olds are so close to being a teen, they don’t realize how much the “legal adult” thing changes everything.
Buy a plunger before you need a plunger.
Start saving. Compound interest is a strong force
Always be a nice guy, and friendly at work. Otherwise you’ll be stuck at the bottom forever.
Take care of your back. Even if it’s 10m of yoga in the morning, and work out too, a little is better than none.
Oh and take care of your teeth.
Stupid behavior quickly brings harsh results. Guaranteed. Smart behavior brings better results but it seems sooo slow. It’s not. It just seems that way. While stupid behavior may seem easier, faster, and a chance to beat the odds of bad rewards, it always results in stupid. Net advice: don’t be stupid.
No matter how smart or right you think you are now, just remember every 10 or so years you’ll look back at your younger foolish self and laugh at how misinformed you were.
Don’t bother with gambling
Have some effective way to process emotions. Shit catches up if you sweep them under the rug.
Avoid social media, protect your privacy and keep photos and videos off the internet
Protect the following:
Your credit score
Your driving record (keep it clean)
Your criminal record (don’t have one)
Your sexual health ( fuck often safely)
More
Don’t get fat
Don’t get married young
Don’t have kids very young or very late (do some planning)
Get a passport
Travel cheap and light
Always be learning
Always be looking for a new job
Find stuff you enjoy at which you can also support yourself
Learn to cook on a budget
Save in tax deferred or tax free accounts
Don’t post anything online under your name you wouldn’t tell your mother (or someone who’s opinion you value)
For guys: don’t stick your dick in crazy
For women: don’t let crazy stick their dick in you
1) if you go to college, make sure you get an internship at a good place. It’ll make finding a job easier and possible.
2) if you decide to do a trade, look into a union apprenticeship program. A union is a good option with benefits and protection compared to a crappy job without those things…
3) if you decide to be an entrepreneur, look into getting skilled in something first with your job, because if you have a good job that pays the bills and expense then itll shave off time building a biz. You can also learn in a job and branch out Eg start your own electrician business.
4) know basic finances: Get good credit. Don’t get into debt. Don’t use your credit card over limit, try to use cash or debit. Save % money you earn. Look into index funds. Be very careful about spending money because money give you options in life. Something that flies, floats, or f***s, rent it.
5) one day when you’re older you’ll realize that health, happiness, and harmony is what you really want, meaning get good sleep, diet, and exercise now. Make it a fun thing to do. You don’t want to wake up at 30 and have tinnitus or crackly joints and skin etc. your mind and body is all you got. Nothing, no money in the world can replace them… if you got achy teeth, every problem in the world can’t compare to that constant pain. Same with headaches. Same with chronic sleep deprivation……
6) how much you go up depends on your relationships and one thing I wish I can impart is to ask more. Go for the no if you’re asking someone out. You can learn something from everyone. Take a retail job if you have to break out of your shell. Again, always go for that fast no. Would you go out with me? No. Would you like fries with that? No. Would you give me one dollar for starving kids in Africa? No. But I guarantee you going for no fast is better than hesitation and regret. And one person might say yes. Then you got somewhat a bond.
7) don’t do stupid shit in gambling, drugs, and sex. These 3 vices are dangerous because they can single-handedly ruin your life or set you back years and years. Other vices like gluttony and greed could too. But those 3, due to their addictive nature, can make a vibrant young man into a beast, someone without control over themselves. Control in your thoughts are important so you don’t express them in those ways and ruin yourself with the consequences. Fill your void with something less like video games, best if you find a purpose that can replace games but oftentimes purpose only comes after the desire to get out of hardship and the trials of life.
Idk if I make sense but these are some things I would say to my younger self. Probably one more thing id say is to go experience life. McDonald job don’t have to be bad. Etc.
Go into yourself, question your values and morals, as they will most likely change in the next years, also start saving as much money as you can for your future, you never know whats coming or when you need it. Also if you do experiment with drugs, don’t overdo them or think of them as a “cure all” as some have the potential to push you into thinking that and before you know it you’re addicted – safer use is key
Get a degree in something you can tolerate doing. Bonus points if it’s a straight 9-5. Then learn to “Work” when you get home on one or two things you are passionate about and let them eventually take over what pays your bills.
Be honest and be kind. That is all.
As a 47yodruglord, I can say that buying cheaply is a false economy, and paying for the label is not a guarantee of quality. Know the intrinsic quality of the item, follow the money and know that even when deeply discounted, what you buy will always still be at profit to the seller.
Slow..The Fuck…Down.
That’s not a criticism. Sooo many kids just outta high school, out of their parents house, think they need to start life with a bang and live it all right away. You have (statistically) 50+ years to live. You don’t need to get it done right now.
Drinking isn’t worth it, not that much fun, and expensive as hell. The fun isn’t the drinking, it’s the friends. You can have a great time drinking soda while they drink all the crazy stuff. There’s something to be said about being the sober one around a bunch of drunk folk. I know, I did it for a looong time.
Sex is fun, and kids can be too. When it is time. Some diseases can be cured, others not so much. Whether you have had sex or not, have a current partner or just going free-style, or are holding off, guess what. It is nobodies business but your own (and partner(s) if you have any). Don’t be pressured by people that seem to think that your sex life is in any way something they need to worry, think, or care about. When you get to that point in your life, if a partner wants to criticize one way or another, you just got yourself a great message that you need to get out. My wife and I have different pasts in that regard. But in no way do we think that the past means anything to each other. Neither of us feel that they should have lived one way or another just because we were going to meet in the future. Cause how could we have known. People are who they are.
Money is great. Can get you many things. But can also lead to trouble. I worked a career for 20 years, 40 hours a week, responsibility, paperwork, licenses required to be able to do the job. Then Covid hit and I was furloughed, eventually laid off. Now I work as a prep cook at a pizza place. With hourly and tips (not a tip-wage state, so I get at least minimum wage before tips are applied) I make 70-80% what I did in a high-stress (for me) medical career job. And this has almost no stress, except for when I have to deal with customers, but that’s the autism showing. For a while I did Amazon flex delivery, and occasionally did some in affluent areas. I was amazed at how many of these expensive, beautiful homes were fully dark in the afternoon/evening times. If you spend your whole day/week working to sleep in a nice house, is it really worth it? A single bedroom home gets you the same place to put your bed. Make what you need to live your life, not work it away.
Find friends that, when you are texting at 2:00 in the morning cause one of you is having a hard time, you can call “brother” or “sister”. When my life was hell, and I mean that in all the ways imaginable, I had a married couple as friends that treated me as family. Invited me over every day for a while, never expected me to leave. Included me in normal family things, like when the wife was doing a class for her job. She was doing the at-home test, and we all three were working on it together. Fed me like I was one of them. They knew, and saw, what the state of my life was. I had money in the bank, a nice house to live in that I shared with my brother. A nice car. But I was alone. Surrounded by friends and family, I was more alone than a polar bear in Siberia. And they saw that, they felt my pain, and decided that they were going to help me bear it. Nothing expected in return, didn’t even mention that was why they were doing what they were doing. That’s a friend.
So take your time. Things will come as they do, people will enter and leave your life. I once asked an older co-worker who knew how to be honest, frank, and kind. I asked her once “When will ______ happen.” And in her soft, caring voice, she responded with one of the best, truest statements I have ever heard.
“When it is supposed to.”
So don’t force it, ride the wave of life as it goes. Enjoy it, you only get it once. You will get older, you will look back and wish things were different. That’s not despair or regret, that’s how life goes. We know much more about the past than the present cause we have seen it. So take your past and use that to go forwards. But always forwards. Yesterday can’t be changed, today is to be lived, and the future to be planned for. But plans can and will change, so keep plans firm, but not solid. Smack a stone with a hammer, it breaks. Smack a puddle of water with a hammer, it goes everywhere. But smack jello with a hammer, and it wiggles. So make plans like jello. And also eat jello, it’s yummy.
You are at a wonderful time of life. The future is there, it will come, and enjoy it. And in that future, when you hear someone else young ask for advice, share yours. It’s the only way we as a people will learn.
Your life isn’t ruined just because something doesn’t work or pan out like you planned.
Take more risks.
I remember my HS grad speaker quoted the song “I Hope You Dance”, and at the time I thought that was just what old people who wanted to say something cool would say.
But now that I’m older (if I had a kid in HS they’d be legal this year) that’s what I would say. Esp. when you’re younger, mistakes are easier to fix.
Hopefully though, you’d do more “calculated risks”.
Treat everyone with respect. Whether they’re a CEO or a janitor. On that note, when you’re going for a job interview it starts when you’re in the vicinity, the subway stop before you get there, the elevator etc. you never know if you’re gonna be a dick to your interviewer before you’ve even sat down in front of them. It’s happened more than you’d care to think!
You may be an adult but employers will see you as a kid whos inexperience they can exploit.
Make sure you get contracts in writing and read your job description so you know if what they’re asking you to do is actually appropriate.