Many of us make it into adult life not exactly ready for adult life. Whether you left home at 18 or are still living under your parents' roof doesn't really designate your adulthood. Perhaps society expects you to own your life, but there are a lot of ways to skirt around growing up. You can keep leaning on your parents' generosity. You can hook up with a partner who will carry the weight of the household. You can have kids and expect them to keep you afloat and connected. It's amazing what we do to avoid responsibility.
But being an adult still dependent on others is pretty hard on the ego. You can't exactly feel good about yourself when you have a full-grown beard but still need mommy (or hubby) to do your laundry and pay your taxes.
Being dependent on others is also a major breeding ground for resentment. You want to live your life, but somebody is still holding the purse strings?!? You want to spend the whole weekend playing Xbox or golf, but the kids need supper?!? You want to relax on the couch but no one has picked up the trash you left there last time?!? How dare the world keep moving.
There may be moments you really appreciate what your partner does for you, but other times it just pisses you off that they want reciprocal love and care. That pouty lip comes out as you stomp your feet and stubbornly refuse to do the things they're asking. Nobody's gonna control me!
This is emotional adolescence. When you're big enough and strong enough to take responsibility for your own life, but you just don't want to. It's too scary. Too hard. You don't want the discomfort of the work it takes. It hurts your pride to face your failures and hurts your ego to acknowledge the things you have yet to learn. You want all the freedom with none of the responsibility.
Tired of it yet? Want to grow up? Here are some steps you can take:
Admit your failure to launch. It's ugly, but this painful reality is the open door to growth. Let's be honest - the other adults around you already see this about you. You're just the last domino to fall.
Figure out what you actually want out of life. Emotional children just want what they're supposed to want. Emotional adolescents push back against those social mores and are really good at identifying what they don't want, but they rarely know what they do want. What do you want?
Learn how to make a plan. Adults have fully developed brains. They have the capacity to think big picture, gather research, and make a comprehensive plan to get what they need. It's a big task, but you can do it. Your plan may not be perfect, but it's important to get you walking in the right direction and arrogant to assume you don't need one at all.
Give yourself permission to change your mind. Stubborn adolescents won't change their minds. But the more you know, the better you can humbly adjust your plan. Staying stuck at step one because you're afraid you don't have step twenty-two ready to go is really a choice to stay stuck indefinitely. If you have permission to change your mind along the way, you can hold your plans more loosely and make healthy adjustments when you find something isn't working as well as you'd hoped.
Learn how to humbly say you're sorry. Amazingly, apologizing often brings forgiveness from others, rather than reprimand. You'll only really know this if you try. Adults own their mistakes and value connection enough to acknowledge when they've hurt others.
Own your responsibilities. Adults are reasonably expected to take care of themselves and their kids in all categories (i.e. financial, emotional, psychological, physical health, etc.). It's your job to make sure you have the things you need to thrive. How are you going to do that? If you have a spouse, you have signed up to be a reliable partner and carry half of the weight of your relationship. Are you doing that? Are you behaving in a way that they can trust you to follow through, show up, and intentionally plan for the difficulties that come with marriage?
Learn how to get help in a differentiated way. Emotional children desperately need help because they can't handle themselves. Emotional adolescents arrogantly believe they don't need any help, Emotional adults humbly acknowledge they need help because the world is hard, but they have enough resources that they don't have to overly rely on anyone in particular. They humbly ask for the help they want from others. If they get turned down for that help, they move on to the next resource to try again.
You might have caught a theme in this blog: humility. Growing up from an adolescent to an adult is all about humility. Being confronted with the difficulties of the real world, we all have a choice to live in arrogance, rebellion and denial, or to lean into the hard and learn how to deal. A humble heart makes all the difference.
As a believer in Jesus, the safety that comes with being able to trust a good, but unseen Father in the midst of pain and strife is the element that makes humility possible for me. I couldn't relax until I was able to believe that someone else was handling the things that were beyond me. He is good enough to manage despite my limitations and immaturity. Once I decided to trust Him with even the tiniest amount of my shame, God has proven Himself faithful to me. Since then we have gone round after round of stepping out and finding His provision. Can you believe that He is that good?
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