They say that adulting is hard. Who is 'they', anyway? I don't know if we'll ever know the answer to that, but it still stands that being an adult is hard. What does it mean to be an adult? Well, beyond the physical actions that you see adults engaging in such as working a full-time job, paying bills and balancing a budget/checkbook, there's an emotional aspect that comes with being an adult as well. Like????
Well, generally adults don't throw temper tantrums. (I'm looking at you, Occupy Movement.) There's this little thing called self-control and as an adult, if you want to be successful, you have to build that self-control muscle. I could even go so far as to say it's called self-control for a reason and not 'others-control' because you are the only person on this planet that you can control. Remember that. Others will do things you don't like, but it's up to you to handle your own emotions and deal with them wisely. That looks different for everyone I'm sure, however, if you want to live at the mercy of others, by all means, ride every wave of feelings that comes into your head. Let me know how that works for you.
You are responsible for your own happiness. Period. There isn't one other person on this planet now or previously that is or was responsible for your happiness. No one can make you 'feel' a certain way. You allow it or you don't. So, you have to be careful on that front, too. You could say that your partner or spouse makes you 'feel so good'. That's only because you accept their behavior and process it as good. On the other hand, you could say that your partner or spouse makes you 'feel so bad'. That's because of the way you process it. Now, there are people out there with abusive behaviors, but that's a different topic for a different day.
Adulting means that we have needs and we are aware of who can meet them. We have emotional needs, physical needs, and spiritual needs. Some of those needs others can meet, some of which we have to meet on our own. For example, you feed yourself, right? You shop for, prepare and cook food to physically feed your body. However, you cannot hug yourself. Only others can do that. Some emotional needs that we have can be met by ourselves. There's a constant internal conversation that we have with ourselves. I think that is where we have the ability to turn it around for ourselves emotionally. Training the internal voice and tweaking the conversation that we hold is major. In the spiritual department, we all have a need for God. There's a God shaped hole in our hearts and minds that only God can fill. When we realize that we have to take up our cross and work out our OWN salvation, that's when we can start to work with God to fill that hole. Nobody here on earth can do that for you. Pastors and priests and clergy can point you to God, but they are not God themselves.
Here's where I think a lot of relationships go bad. Marriages, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, parent/child relationships, etc. all start to fail when we start to put the needs that we can meet for ourselves and the ones that only God can meet onto others. Doing so is a recipe for disaster. These become an unrealistic expectation in a relationship, which furthers the recipe for disaster. There are other expectations that become unrealistic as well; unspoken expectations. When we don't ask for what we want or need, things can definitely start to go sideways. There are also some caveats to this scenario, but that is also another topic for another day.
If you're in a relationship with any of these tendencies on your part or the part of your partner, it's not too late to change these. It's going to take some work, but depending on the situation, it might be worth it to put in the work to reverse these bad behaviors. Again, you are responsible for YOUR behaviors and working on yourself. You should not accept responsibility for anyone else even if they insist that you are the person solely responsible for their happiness. That's a red flag and it might be time to reevaluate things.
So, yes, being an adult is hard because not only do you have the physical, outward responsibilities to take care of, you have the responsibility to keep your emotional health in check, and only YOU can do that for yourself. I feel like Smokey the Bear, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires.", except it should be a different tagline of, "Only YOU can prevent emotional self-destruction.". Or something.
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