Origin story of the name The Aspiring Adult

Aspiring Adults are unfinished. The finished state, or so we are told, is "adulthood". But what is adulthood? Who ever truly reaches it? Of the broad 4 phases of human life, adulthood is the only one that has markers of having reached it (or... not if that's the case). I decided to take that rule book and throw it in the trash because “human beings are a work in progress that mistakenly think they are finished”. This is a favorite quote of mine by Dan Gilbert, in reference to his research and talks on the psychology of our future self. The Aspiring Adult is a blog for sharing ways to reach financial independence by dispelling the myths of adulthood and the shame of having never reached it.

From the myth of the homeownership dream to the myth of mid-life crises, read on to explore the origin story of this blog and it's name.

What is adulthood? How do we know that we have reached it?

Adulthood is the only phase of life that many societies have decided has markers of having reached it. In order to be a "real" adult you should generally have most of these markers otherwise you must keep working hard or hustling to reach the coveted adulthood:

• Move out of your parents house
• Own a car
• Get married or otherwise have a long-term, romantic and/or (monogamous) sexual relationship
• Have a/some kid(s)
• Own your own washer/dryer (oddly specific, I know, but weirdly enough "have your own Netflix login and pay your own bill" is not one of these markers)
• Only make healthy eating choices

Note that I wrote this list from an American perspective and it resonates in many other countries. Your list will be very unique to your cultural upbringing regardless of the physical location of you upbringing. The main point here is that regardless of the specifics of your cultural upbringing or current cultural sphere of influence no one ever questions if you have reached teenager-dom (adolescence? fine...) or being old (other than the more obvious physical and mental developmental markers that are left to medical doctors and diagnosis). Notice in the below diagram that adulthood is like... a really long freaking time. You're sort of bumbling along trying to figure out adulthood, listening to the noise and other feedback around you about whether or not you've reached adulthood until some new hurdle comes along that wasn't agreed upon at the start.

​I will never reach adulthood. The Aspiring Adult is an intentional misnomer.

I too was on this escalator called life, once upon a time. I was mindlessly checking the boxes (and making blunders). And then I stepped off of it.

I realized that there are many versions of me throughout life. There are no boxes to check. Note that this starts with V2 because I consider my teenage years to be formative to who I am and therefore teenager=V1 but for purposes of this discussion we are trying to isolate and debunk the myth of specifically adulthood so I started at V2 in the diagram. You can see V3 lasted the longest because that's when I was on the "this is what adults do..." escalator, blindly checking boxes. I believed that the marker of a successful life was "get married and live happy ever after". Until I realized I didn't want to be married and then my life needed a new purpose, and V4 emerged.

"Ok but where is the "old" part after adulthood?" is a question you would be right to ask.

The answer comes from a very simple question: why is it the case that a 77 year old can't still have hopes and dreams?

If you were as stunned by that question as I was, please listen to this 10 minute podcast episode that changed my life from Mark Zoril.

Mid-life crises are a myth.

Dan Gilbert is a psychologist that I admire and you can find his TEDTalks online about the concept of the future self. He studies how humans struggle to imagine a future version of themselves which presents difficult choices and trade-offs today both from a health well-being and a financial well-being perspective. Our future selves are effectively a complete stranger to most of us, with no bargaining power in today's choices just like someone on the street we don't know.

As I have depicted in the above graphic, there are future versions of me that I don't yet know. I may or may not share something (like values) in common with them. As an "adult", I have already fit 4 versions of me into what society describes as a single phase of life. 

Why the concept of a mid-life crisis is a myth:

• We cannot imagine these future versions of ourselves, but their potential exists regardless. We aren't having a mid-life crisis*, our new version is trying to emerge and we feel it happening.

• Humans like to have order and explanations for everything. Calling these moments a mid-life crisis are a sort of "societal marketing tool" to get us to shake it off and "get back to normal" (i.e. the existing version of ourselves that is a stable and predictable contribution to society).

The concept of a mid-life crisis is an effective tool to discourage us from disruption and self-discovery.

* Note: people experience valid feelings of anxiety or depression during life changes, including me! Those are not a myth. The tired social trope is a myth, designed to "get us back to normal". 

If it sounds a little anarchist...

It is.
​
I am...

• a solo individual who prioritizes their autonomy
• getting off the hamster wheel
• on a journey to Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) - though I plan to skip the retire part​
• a relationship anarchist
• grown from the ashes of being poor (and literal ashes of my house burning down as a kid)
• navigating ADHD as my newly diagnosed super power
• a calculated risk-taker (who moves to a new country almost every 2 years without knowing anyone and usually without ever having stepped foot there before)

And I want to actively dispel the myths and remove the pressure of this imaginary adulthood checklist. My own shedding of those myths is propelling me towards reaching financial independence at 42 rather than staying in the rat race until I'm 65.

You are an adult (not "full", not "complete", but an adult) if...

• you live with your parents 
• ride your bicycle as transportation
• use a laundromat
• share tools and resources with neighbors and friends rather than buying new stuff
• went to college, quit your high paying job, and now work at Starbucks because it's less stressful and has good health insurance benefits
• you rent apartment the apartment you live in
• you live with friends
• you don't want children
• you enjoy spending money on avocado toast
• you don't want to be married
  
• pretty much LITERALLY anything else

TLDR?

Throwing out the adulthood myth has put me on the achievable path towards financial independence. People ask me "how do you do it? And all by yourself?" so I started this blog to share what I've learned.

As for the name: the truth is I was swiping on Tinder one night and a potential match had "Aspiring adult." written on their profile and I thought it was catchy. Special shout out to that guy I swiped left on.

via GIPHY

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