On adulting
Pocket suggests things for me to read, and a few weeks ago, it suggested I read this piece about adulting. As I lay in bed, my toddler sleeping peacefully beside me, I thought, “I really need adulting help.” Which in one sense is ridiculous, because I have been doing some adulting basics, like holding a steady job, or paying rent or utilities, for almost 18 years. My adult self is, in fact, an adult.
But then I look at my immensely dirty car, or think about the extreme level of disrepair my home has fallen into over the past six years of home ownership, or remember that W. is the one who does the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning and the yardwork and I think…
Yeah. I could use some help.
…
I had a revelation a couple weeks ago while driving and noticing that my windshield wipers need to be replaced. I’m really good at projects. In one sense, it’s completely correct that my personal brand could be KIMBERLY: SHE GETS THE JOB DONE. If the job has a clear objective and a defined endpoint. I can manage human and material resources to make magic happen.
If, on the other hand, the job is a repetitive task directed at maintenance that will need to be done over and over again (like laundry or dishes or toothbrushing), then I’ll have to work harder to create a system to make sure it happens.
I’m trying to figure out what those systems look like.
Maybe acknowledging that all of life is a process of incrementally improving and coming up with ways to hack your brain is the real adulting.