Feeling confused is the norm

Didn't you use to feel like adults were really smart and had the answer to everything, and knew exactly what they were doing when you were a kid?

Well, it's a funny thing because a lot of us, as adults, feel like we have absolutely no idea what we're supposed to do. And that can frustrate us quite a lot, and for good reason.

It's funny to me because for a very long time I believed that those older than me knew exactly what their path was in life, or at least what they needed to do in order to live well. They knew where to get the things they needed, where to find work, how to spend their money, etc.

But that belief resulted in a lot of frustration when I realized that at some point in my life I too became an adult and yet I knew pretty much nothing. I had no idea where to pay bills, I had no idea how to get a job, or what a job would require from me, I had no idea how to make a bank account or how to talk to other adults that I might need something from etc.

It's a bit sad, but I've met quite a lot of people who feel just the same way. We don't get answers to our questions when we grow up. We're just as confused as before. The only difference is that once you become an adult you are expected to do those things that you don't know, and you'll eventually have to figure things out, either through trial and error, or from others.

I honestly learned everything I currently know about being an adult from books and just doing whatever I was supposed to do with no idea if it will work out or not.

I had a bank account since I was 16 years old, my father being the legal owner of the account, because I was making money with YouTube, so I didn't have to make it myself, up until the point when I got a normal job and I was asked to go and make a bank account to a certain bank in order to get paid.

Did I know what I had to do? Not a chance. I just went there, told them I need a bank account to get paid and that was it. Being really nice, patient and understanding with the lady who was obviously stressed and tired probably helped quite a lot because she behaved nicely in return, but that's not always the case.

Actually, now that I think about it, I had pretty much no idea what I was doing when I got the job itself. I went to the interview with no idea of what I was doing, apparently did very well, was asked to come in a few days later, and around 3 days after the interview I was at work, with, you guessed it, absolutely no idea what to do.

The lesson here is that it's completely okay if you don't know what you should do as an adult. You don't get all the answers when you turn 18. You're just as confused as you were before that.

School sadly doesn't teach you anything about it either. You won't learn how to do taxes, how to get a good cellphone plan, how to manage your money, how to search for an apartment and buy one, or rent one, or whatever.

You need to learn all that on your own, which sucks, but we're lucky that we live in the era of the Internet. We can learn everything we want, from how to change a tire, or a socket, to how to better search for a place to live, to how to prepare for interviews and how to pick jobs, to how to make a bank account and what to look for.

We're lucky that we can get answers for pretty much any question we might have, and if there's not an answer yet, all you have to do is ask around online and you'll find at least a few dozens of people willing to help you out.

So, I'm gonna say it again - it's okay if you are confused about what you're supposed to do as an adult. No one really knows just after they turn 18. Everyone just does things and they see what happens. Others ask around, either on the Internet, or the people that are close to them. And that's pretty much what you should start doing as well, in order to figure out how this adult thing works.