Summary: Your Turn: How to be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Your Time (2021) serves as a mod­ern-day man­u­al on adult­ing – and self-explo­ration. Anec­dotes and per­spec­tives touch­ing on a range of top­ics from inter­per­son­al con­nec­tions to men­tal well-being to finances cre­ate a detailed view of adult respon­si­bil­i­ties. Rather than pre­sent­ing a strict def­i­n­i­tion or end­point, it equips you with tech­niques to help cul­ti­vate con­fi­dence and enthu­si­asm in nav­i­gat­ing the ter­rain of adult­hood and liv­ing a ful­fill­ing, pur­pose­ful existence.

Who is this for?

• Indi­vid­u­als in their twen­ties and thir­ties are curi­ous about the true essence of “grow­ing up”
• Mil­len­ni­als feel­ing over­whelmed by the respon­si­bil­i­ties of maturity
• Any­one seek­ing to enhance their con­nec­tion with the young adults in their lives

A liberating approach to maturity.

Avo­ca­do-toast afi­ciona­dos. Finan­cial­ly care­less. Indo­lent. Over the last decade, much has been debat­ed regard­ing young adults and their reluc­tance to embrace adult­hood. But what does being an adult entail?

His­tor­i­cal­ly, psy­chol­o­gists from the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry out­lined five appar­ent­ly defin­i­tive mile­stones: com­plete your edu­ca­tion, secure employ­ment, leave the parental abode, mar­ry, and start a fam­i­ly. We’ve been indoc­tri­nat­ed to adhere to that check­list, despite the sig­nif­i­cant changes that have unfold­ed in the world since its conception.

One size does not fit all – yet many of us still go through the motions as pre­scribed. Beneath the sur­face, we grap­ple with stress, anx­i­ety, and a sense of mere­ly play­ing a role as an adult.

These syn­opses offer an alter­na­tive per­spec­tive: through psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tions, the author’s per­son­al encoun­ters, and prac­ti­cal method­olo­gies, you’ll dis­cov­er how to pave the way toward a more gen­uine, reward­ing adulthood.

In these briefs, you’ll learn

• how to “break out of stasis”;
• the cor­re­la­tion between marsh­mal­lows and finances;
• how three excep­tion­al abil­i­ties can assist you in turn­ing around a chal­leng­ing day.

Taking care of yourself implies engaging in the game of life instead of being a spectator

The moment the author tru­ly com­pre­hend­ed she had entered adult­hood was when all her pos­ses­sions went up in flames.

Dur­ing that peri­od, she and her spouse were in their twen­ties, and they had opt­ed to relo­cate to Cal­i­for­nia. They packed all their belong­ings into a mov­ing van and head­ed to stay with the author’s par­ents while the vehi­cle made its jour­ney across the coun­try. One evening, dur­ing din­ner, the author received a dis­tress­ing call: the van had caught fire. All their pos­ses­sions – fur­ni­ture, memen­tos, love let­ters – had turned to ash.

She had­n’t felt like an adult at her wed­ding a few years ear­li­er; that was mere­ly an elab­o­rate cel­e­bra­tion involv­ing a grand attire. Adult­hood had­n’t mate­ri­al­ized dur­ing her bar exam; that was just anoth­er eval­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, in that instance, she real­ized she could­n’t depend on oth­ers to man­age the sit­u­a­tion – nor did she wish for that. Some­how, she har­bored the belief that she could han­dle it. She was self-suf­fi­cient. And it was an empow­er­ing feeling.

The fun­da­men­tal idea here is: Tak­ing care of your­self involves engag­ing in the game of life instead of watch­ing from the sidelines.

If you haven’t yet expe­ri­enced your self-suf­fi­cien­cy moment, fret not – it’s on the hori­zon. It may instill fear in you. You might seek out an adult around you. Then, sud­den­ly, you’ll rec­og­nize that you are an adult!

Ris­ing to con­front life’s tribu­la­tions is both daunt­ing and lib­er­at­ing. Each time you do so, you’ll feel more equipped to tack­le the sub­se­quent obsta­cle. You’ll per­ceive life as a game you’re active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in. At times you’ll tri­umph, and at oth­er times you’ll stum­ble. Nonethe­less, you won’t be a mere observ­er on the sidelines.

There are some fun­da­men­tal aspects of self-suf­fi­cien­cy: mas­ter­ing culi­nary skills, observ­ing good hygiene, attend­ing med­ical and den­tal appoint­ments. Self-suf­fi­cien­cy also involves seek­ing employ­ment to meet your finan­cial oblig­a­tions, mak­ing your own choic­es, and respond­ing and show­ing up.

It might seem daunt­ing to han­dle these respon­si­bil­i­ties if some­one else has tra­di­tion­al­ly han­dled them for you – that aligns with what psy­chol­o­gists refer to as con­di­tioned help­less­ness. Nev­er­the­less, you must take com­mand; it is your life, not any­one else’s!

In any giv­en cir­cum­stance, self-suf­fi­cien­cy entails devis­ing a solu­tion based on your alter­na­tives, capa­bil­i­ties, and resources. It sig­ni­fies fash­ion­ing a way for­ward. It does­n’t demand per­fec­tion – a con­cept we’ll explore fur­ther in the upcom­ing chapter.

Embracing adulthood involves accepting imperfection, learning from setbacks, and progressing

Many of us har­bor an unhealthy rela­tion­ship with the notion of per­fec­tion, fre­quent­ly due to soci­etal or parental pres­sures. How­ev­er, per­fec­tion is an illu­sion; it’s an unat­tain­able expec­ta­tion that is guar­an­teed to sow discontent.

There’s only one viable course of action here: bid farewell to per­fec­tion. Your ide­al life won’t mate­ri­al­ize because you are “per­fect”; it will unfold through edu­ca­tion and development.

The cen­tral mes­sage here is: Embrac­ing adult­hood involves accept­ing imper­fec­tion, learn­ing from set­backs, and advancing.

Soci­ety sig­nals that the “f‑word” is unfa­vor­able. No, not that one – fail­ing. We’re also instruct­ed to shun falling, stum­bling, strug­gling, floun­der­ing, and fum­bling. Nonethe­less, the author denotes these as the “Exquis­ite F’s.” When you relin­quish the notion of being flaw­less, along­side your trep­i­da­tion of dis­grace or inad­e­qua­cy, you are lib­er­at­ed to err – and can then dis­cern your next course of action and progress in that direction.

Lever­age insights from Game of Thrones. When Jon Snow con­fessed to his men­tor Ser Davos about his fail­ure, how did Ser Davos respond? “Excel­lent. Now strive to fail once more.” This is because a “dis­as­trous” expe­ri­ence such as fail­ing fur­nish­es anoth­er f‑word: feed­back. Feed­back edu­cates and empow­ers us to shift from our com­fort zone to our growth zone. Had you nev­er stum­bled – and risen again – repeat­ed­ly, how would you have mas­tered the art of walk­ing? By remain­ing in your com­fort zone, yes, you’ll be cozy – yet bored and lethar­gic as you tra­verse life on all fours.

In your growth zone, you may feel unsta­ble. You may be uncer­tain of your actions. Nev­er­the­less, that’s accept­able; you’ll be nur­tur­ing a growth mind­set – there­by unveil­ing life’s prospects and your con­nec­tion to them – rather than con­strain­ing your­self with a fixed mindset.

To com­mence fos­ter­ing a growth mind­set, imple­ment five straight­for­ward men­tal trans­for­ma­tions: Ini­tial­ly, replace “I’m flaw­less” with “I’m striv­ing to enhance in this aspect.” Sec­ond, shift from “I’m intel­li­gent” to “When I devote effort to things, it yields results.” Third, “This is chal­leng­ing” evolves into “I tack­le ardu­ous tasks.” Fourth, erad­i­cate “I can’t.” Instead, adopt “I can take the ini­tial step and assess the out­comes.” Last­ly, swap “I’m inad­e­quate” for “I haven’t yet acquired this skill.”

These strate­gies are applic­a­ble in per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al con­texts alike. So breathe in, and out. Inform your­self that you don’t have to be “per­fect” or “secure” to real­ize you’re con­tent. You can sole­ly reg­u­late your con­duct and reac­tions. And this encom­pass­es let­ting go.

It’s crucial to excel – until it impedes your contentment

Con­tem­plate the most mar­velous indi­vid­u­als you’re famil­iar with. What are their traits? Per­haps they’re affec­tion­ate? Com­pas­sion­ate? Con­sid­er­ate? You can deduce, then, that embody­ing affec­tion, com­pas­sion, and con­sid­er­a­tion is sig­nif­i­cant to oth­ers. In essence, it is ben­e­fi­cial to be virtuous.

You are also aware that achiev­ing per­fec­tion is unat­tain­able; at times, you may catch your­self being thought­less or blunt. How­ev­er, adult­hood entails that you are not indif­fer­ent about it.

So, how can you act “vir­tu­ous­ly?” Ini­tial­ly, rec­og­nize that the world does­n’t revolve sole­ly around one per­son (you); it revolves around all 7.7 bil­lion of us. In oth­er words, your desires and neces­si­ties are not supe­ri­or to any­one else’s. Sub­se­quent­ly, con­tribute: approach a sce­nario with the mind­set of, how can I be of assis­tance? Show empa­thy towards oth­ers, speak the truth — and when a mis­take is made, offer an apology.

The cru­cial point here is: Being vir­tu­ous is cru­cial — until it impedes your joy.

Exhib­it affec­tion towards oth­ers — but refrain from sat­is­fy­ing them at the cost of your own well-being. Your fam­i­ly or com­mu­ni­ty may think they have pros­per­i­ty all fig­ured out. They might believe they know what’s ben­e­fi­cial for you con­cern­ing your edu­ca­tion, pro­fes­sion, and part­ner­ship. How­ev­er, the only indi­vid­ual who gen­uine­ly com­pre­hends you and your desires … is you.

Imag­ine wak­ing up one day and real­iz­ing all your deci­sions were based on a desire to make an impres­sion, or a fear of dis­ap­point­ing, oth­ers? At the age of 27, the writer was cry­ing on her veran­da in Men­lo Park, Cal­i­for­nia. She was a cor­po­rate attor­ney, thriv­ing in every aspect except her own happiness.

Now, at 53, things have changed: she depart­ed from cor­po­rate law, tran­si­tioned to a dean posi­tion at Stan­ford, and then became an author and ora­tor — pur­suits she adores! This might appear to be a cir­cuitous career tra­jec­to­ry. How­ev­er, at times, you must devi­ate sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the intend­ed path to dis­cov­er a route that gen­uine­ly brings you happiness.

There are three stages to arriv­ing at your path. First in line? Tune in to your inner voice. Ques­tion who you are, what you excel at, and what you val­ue. What kind of work lies at the inter­sec­tion of those aspects? Com­mence exper­i­ment­ing — some endeav­ors will ignite your pas­sion, while oth­ers you’ll detest. Take note, and pro­ceed to the sec­ond stage: cease cri­tiquing your inner voice. Your emo­tions are legit­i­mate; don’t con­vince your­self that any endeav­or you gen­uine­ly desire is “beneath” you.

Third­ly, pro­ceed in the direc­tion your inner voice guides you. An infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sion can be immense­ly ben­e­fi­cial in this regard. Reach out to some­one in your desired field via email and arrange a 20-minute con­ver­sa­tion to inquire about their work, how they ven­tured into it, and what guid­ance they have for you. This isn’t about secur­ing a job — but you’ll gain valu­able insights and motivation!

Mature behavior is a deed that instigates its own impetus

This is your adult­hood. At some point, you’ll pass away, and it will con­clude. There­fore, there’s no point in post­pon­ing it until you’re “improved” at it, or “pre­pared” for it, or “com­pe­tent” of rel­ish­ing it. The moment to embrace being an adult is now.

The actions you prac­tice and explore now are fur­nish­ing your future self with wis­dom and pro­fi­cien­cy. It’s not cru­cial where you com­mence, but that you commence.

The essen­tial point here is: Mature behav­ior is a deed that insti­gates its own impetus.

Stok­ing your metaphor­i­cal flame does­n’t entail “keep­ing your options open”; all that accom­plish­es is retain­ing you in a state of inde­ci­sion. You like­ly rec­og­nize this from dat­ing appli­ca­tions; inces­sant swip­ing often leads to unease, inun­da­tion, and apa­thy — not the pro­found con­nec­tion you might be search­ing for.

To “break free from iner­tia” and pro­pel your­self for­ward, you have to be delib­er­ate rather than let­ting your mind mean­der. Accord­ing to stud­ies, a wan­der­ing mind is an unhap­py one; it’s pre­dis­posed to spi­ral into ego­cen­tric rumi­na­tion and appre­hen­sion. Con­verse­ly, a focused mind ush­ers in more tran­quil­i­ty, joy, and triumph.

How you out­line your inten­tions holds sig­nif­i­cance. Envi­sion your­self clutch­ing a flash­light. Its ray is your focus, and where you direct it is your inten­tion. If your inten­tion is “not to fail,” for instance, then your beam is regard­ing what fail­ure embod­ies. What the flash­light illu­mi­nates is your con­scious­ness: in this sce­nario, that might be appre­hen­sion or inad­e­qua­cy. Yet, if you point your flash­light at “suc­cess,” then your beam — atten­tion — encom­pass­es oppor­tu­ni­ties and strate­gies, and you illu­mi­nate an aware­ness of excite­ment and accomplishment.

Escap­ing stag­na­tion is demand­ing, both in terms of exer­tion — to dis­rupt dat­ing pat­terns, piv­ot careers, or relo­cate to a new city — and emo­tion­al labor. It begins with har­bor­ing curios­i­ty about what prompts you to per­sist in a stand­still rather than progress. Are you pre­serv­ing options open? Fear­ful of change? Over­whelmed by the vast­ness of the endeav­or ahead?

To pin­point the ratio­nale, and acquaint your­self bet­ter, you must invest time in soli­tude. As one of the author’s com­pan­ions asserts, “In silence is where we begin to hear our­selves.” (You gen­uine­ly can con­ceive your finest notions in the show­er!) Through­out this process, it’s accept­able — even favor­able — to expe­ri­ence dis­com­fort. Because once you’ve acknowl­edged your dis­com­fort, you can take action.

Any nov­el action will result in fresh expe­ri­ences and insights, where­as idly engag­ing in the same rou­tine will yield the same out­comes. Hence, unlatch the car door, assume the dri­ver’s posi­tion, shift into gear, and commence!

Grasping how finances function — and harnessing them for your benefit — will aid in constructing your ideal life

In 1972, a cohort of stu­dents at Bing Nurs­ery School were offered one marsh­mal­low each. Pro­vid­ed they wait­ed 15 min­utes before con­sum­ing it, they were noti­fied, that they’d receive a sec­ond marsh­mal­low. Some of the stu­dents instant­ly savored their treat, while oth­ers wait­ed and were reward­ed with two. The pro­fes­sor over­see­ing the research pro­ceed­ed to fol­low the stu­dents for years; he ascer­tained that those who wait­ed for the addi­tion­al marsh­mal­low went on to accom­plish more “suc­cess” on stan­dard­ized assess­ments, in aca­d­e­mics, and in their professions.

Mon­ey resem­bles the marsh­mal­lows. If you con­serve a por­tion now rather than con­sum­ing it all at once, a greater reward awaits you in the future. Mon­ey isn’t the sole ele­ment in life. How­ev­er, it assists you in lead­ing the life you aspire to live — and it enables you to back indi­vid­u­als and caus­es that hold sig­nif­i­cance to you.

The key mes­sage here is: Grasp­ing how finances func­tion — and har­ness­ing them for your ben­e­fit — will aid in con­struct­ing your ide­al life.

Learn­ing how to man­age finances might appear intim­i­dat­ing — but it’s not over­ly intri­cate. Let’s com­mence with the fundamentals.

Ini­tial­ly, you must earn ade­quate funds to cov­er your liv­ing expens­es. That fig­ure varies for each indi­vid­ual, but a reli­able guide­line to remem­ber is this: don’t expend more than a third of your gross month­ly income — that’s your pay before tax­es — on hous­ing. This way, you’ll have ample remain­ing for essen­tials like nour­ish­ment and utilities.

Sub­se­quent­ly, set­tle your cred­it card bal­ances every month — entire­ly if plau­si­ble — to evade inter­est charges and ensure a com­mend­able cred­it score.

Always regard your­self as a pri­or­i­ty. In oth­er words, make your sav­ings your utmost expen­di­ture. Allo­cate mon­ey for sav­ing, and appor­tion the remain­der of your earn­ings towards your oth­er expen­di­tures — rent, food, enjoy­ment, and so forth.

Estab­lish a Roth IRA to invest your sav­ings. This is the enjoy­able part: where you set your mon­ey to work for you! It all comes down to the enchant­ment of com­pound inter­est. Let the sta­tis­tics speak for themselves.

Pre­sume you’re 22, and you con­tribute $1,000 into your Roth IRA annu­al­ly — that’s $83.33 per month, or just $2.77 a day — until you retire at 65. Assum­ing a 7 per­cent net aver­age annu­al return, you’ll amass over $283,000 at retirement.

Or per­haps you’re thir­ty-two — if you com­mence sav­ing that same $1,000 now, you’ll cul­mi­nate with $136,000 at retire­ment. That’s notably few­er than the 22-year-old — but that’s not the focus! The essence is, it’s notably more funds than you’d have if you had­n’t begun invest­ing at all.

Visu­al­ize sav­ing not just $2.77, but $10 a day. The 32-year-old would pos­sess over $498,000 acces­si­ble at retire­ment. And the 22-year-old? Over $1,034,000! Talk about trea­sur­ing your marshmallows …

Looking after your body and mind will make adulthood more delightful

So you’ve com­menced to dis­cern what you love, and what you’re adept at, and how to get there — superb! Now, bear in mind that you can car­ry out those things longer, and bet­ter, if you’re car­ing for your phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being.

Many of us cope with depres­sion, racism, sex­ism, trau­ma, or self-destruc­tive behav­iors dai­ly. No won­der the sit­com BoJack Horse­man is so trendy. Under­stand­ing your­self and exer­cis­ing self-care so you can func­tion well is arguably the most inti­mate, mature thing you can do.

The cru­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion here is: Tend­ing to your body and mind will make adult­hood more pleasing.

Prac­tic­ing self-care might imply see­ing a ther­a­pist or psy­chi­a­trist to work through deep-root­ed issues. There are also numer­ous behav­iors you can incor­po­rate into your dai­ly rou­tine that’ll aid you pros­per. Some are evi­dent: get ade­quate sleep, drink more water, move your body, and eat healthily.

Let’s delve a bit deep­er. Hold­ing things pent up inside of you isn’t ben­e­fi­cial for your blood pres­sure or stress lev­els, so release any anger or grudges you may be har­bor­ing. Even if you don’t sense ready to for­give, do it for you! After all, for­giv­ing isn’t the same as con­don­ing. Let go of any dis­putes that tran­spired in the past — par­tic­u­lar­ly ones with your par­ents. This is vital when it comes to form­ing a new, hor­i­zon­tal rela­tion­ship with them.

Along the same lines, assert your agency — the knowl­edge that you’re capa­ble of car­ry­ing out the task at hand. Tak­ing good care of your­self denotes telling well-mean­ing but over­bear­ing loved ones that you val­ue the inten­tion — but you got it (or will try your hard­est)! This will aid in delin­eat­ing healthy bound­aries that allow you to oper­ate as an adult.

Human con­nec­tion is fun­da­men­tal to your sur­vival as well as to your men­tal well-being. So con­gre­gate with friends and go hik­ing, cook togeth­er, shoot some hoops, go to a rave — what­ev­er piques your inter­est. Instead of see­ing a col­league and casu­al­ly say­ing, “We should get cof­fee some­time!” inquire whether they’d be will­ing to get a cof­fee right now. Catch up, and per­haps dis­cuss a few pro­found mat­ters you’ve been contemplating.

But it does­n’t all have to be pro­found. Research shows that even inter­ac­tions with strangers, like a barista or some­one you pass on the street, can con­sid­er­ably boost your mood. Laugh­ing releas­es feel-good endor­phins, as does hug­ging — even if it’s just cud­dling a stuffed ani­mal. And orgasms do, too. So dis­card any taboos to the curb, and embrace the sen­sa­tions of plea­sure and trust these activ­i­ties yield!

Utilize resilience to make sense of, and endure, challenging times

You’ve just been ter­mi­nat­ed. Some­one you cher­ish isn’t far­ing well. Or maybe you’re under­go­ing a painful breakup. In oth­er words, adver­si­ty has struck. When unfa­vor­able events — inevitably — occur in life, feel­ing bet­ter might not be as straight­for­ward as receiv­ing a kiss and a Band-Aid from a par­ent. How­ev­er, there are mul­ti­far­i­ous con­struc­tive ways to cope.

The ’60s TV show Mis­ter Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood advised chil­dren to “look for the helpers” if they were strug­gling. The same holds true now that you’re an adult. Hear­ing oth­ers’ tales of hard­ship can uplift you dur­ing tough times, which is why sup­port groups are so effi­ca­cious. If you’re in shock, call some­one to pro­vide you with per­spec­tive — even if it’s the mid­dle of the night.

Active­ly con­tem­plate on how you nav­i­gat­ed through oth­er ardu­ous sit­u­a­tions. You might have felt like the world was end­ing, but then some­thing changed — what was it? Rec­og­niz­ing that emo­tions and cir­cum­stances have altered in the past can instill reas­sur­ance that this time, too, the tide will even­tu­al­ly turn.

The piv­otal com­mu­ni­ca­tion here is: Uti­lize resilience to make sense of, and endure, chal­leng­ing times.

You can also tap into an emo­tion­al strength termed resilience — one of the hall­marks of being an adult. Resilience means being able to recov­er, irre­spec­tive of what hits you. It’s “mak­ing mean­ing” of the sit­u­a­tion. This notion orig­i­nates from pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy, an approach that con­cen­trates on what’s right — instead of what’s wrong — to cul­ti­vate well-being.

Ask your­self, what will I do with this expe­ri­ence to progress? One of the finest steps you can take is to chan­nel your sor­row into nur­tur­ing oth­ers. You’ve learned the lessons the hard way; now you can sup­port the next indi­vid­ual who under­goes some­thing distressing.

You could also con­tribute on a broad­er scale by striv­ing to make the world a bet­ter place. Tune into the issues that make you bris­tle and think, That’s not right! Strive not to be daunt­ed by the enor­mi­ty or obsti­na­cy of prob­lems that neces­si­tate address­ing. To enhance mat­ters, you don’t have to sin­gle-hand­ed­ly tack­le tox­ic cor­po­rate cul­ture, glob­al warm­ing, or uni­ver­sal basic income.

You can con­sid­er­ably bet­ter your sur­round­ings by sim­ply spend­ing your mon­ey more con­scious­ly, vol­un­teer­ing, or being empa­thet­ic. You can reg­is­ter to vote — and vote! You can peruse the news, be cog­nizant of bias­es, and fact-check — Poli­ti­Fact and Snopes are com­mend­able online sources for that.

Ulti­mate­ly, engag­ing in life and being part of some­thing larg­er than your­self will aid you heal.

Nurturing mindfulness, kindness, and gratitude will bring significance to your life

What’s the ratio­nale of human exis­tence? Well, accord­ing to spir­i­tu­al guru Ram Dass, “We’re all just walk­ing each oth­er home.”

Life can some­times feel like a bur­den, but we’re all on this jour­ney togeth­er — and mind­ful­ness, kind­ness, and grat­i­tude can make it a whole lot easier.

The essen­tial mes­sage here is: Nur­tur­ing mind­ful­ness, kind­ness, and grat­i­tude will bring sig­nif­i­cance to your life.

Mind­ful­ness is the prac­tice of attun­ing with your­self so you can con­scious­ly respond instead of reflex­ive­ly react in any giv­en sit­u­a­tion. To get mind­ful, sit qui­et­ly. Com­mence to observe and label your thoughts; you’ll find your mind unwind­ing. Now, slow­ly scan your body. Tru­ly per­ceive this ves­sel that trans­ports you through life. Is there pain or dis­com­fort any­where? Notice and acknowl­edge — but don’t judge.

After being mind­ful for a few min­utes, doc­u­ment your obser­va­tions to mon­i­tor how things evolve over time. Prac­tice mind­ful­ness dai­ly so it becomes a rou­tine. Even­tu­al­ly, take your prac­tice out into the world.

Accord­ing to chaos the­o­ry, a butterfly’s flut­ter can trig­ger a tor­na­do. The but­ter­fly effect also applies to kind­ness. When treat­ed kind­ly, you’re more prone to act kind­ly towards some­one else. Act­ing kind­ly towards some­one else will make you feel bet­ter — once again. And some­one who wit­nessed the kind­ness is more like­ly to be kind in return.

Kind­ness is chal­leng­ing to define, but “you know it when you see it.” It’s ask­ing your part­ner or cowork­ers what you can do to make their day bet­ter, and then doing it — with­in lim­its, of course! It’s aid­ing lost strangers in find­ing their way ‑even if it’s mere­ly in a super­mar­ket. It’s demon­strat­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty when you wit­ness some­one fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties. It’s dis­play­ing dis­cern­ment in decid­ing whether to address some­one’s issue — or sim­ply lend an ear.

Last­ly, there’s appre­ci­a­tion. Stud­ies indi­cate that focus­ing on what you’re thank­ful for helps you mag­ni­fy those aspects. It’s akin to encoun­ter­ing a fresh term — and then sud­den­ly spot­ting it every­where. Jot down what you appre­ci­ate. Per­haps it’s your exis­tence, the sen­sa­tion of sun­light on your skin, your pet tor­toise — even the attrib­ut­es of some­one you may not see eye to eye with.

And, nat­u­ral­ly, your com­pan­ions. We all lead hec­tic lives, yet it’s essen­tial to take a moment and val­ue those accom­pa­ny­ing you on this jour­ney. Be detailed. Instead of say­ing “I love you,” express, “I adore how you ….” Or sub­sti­tute a gener­ic “It’s fan­tas­tic col­lab­o­rat­ing with you,” for a reflec­tive “I val­ue when you ….”

Matur­ing can feel chal­leng­ing — and the glob­al pan­dem­ic did not make things any sim­pler. Nev­er­the­less, per­sist. His­to­ry has weath­ered its fair share of hard­ships: con­flicts, famine, nat­ur­al calami­ties. You are a tes­ta­ment to those who endured long enough to bestow you with life. Now, it’s your time.

Summary

The fun­da­men­tal mes­sage con­veyed in these sum­maries is that:

Adult­ing in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry is less about con­form­ing to cul­tur­al norms and more about being capa­ble of nav­i­gat­ing the jour­ney on your own terms. To achieve this, you must first com­pre­hend your­self and treat your­self kind­ly. You may not gov­ern every aspect, but you can equip your­self with an empow­er­ing toolk­it; this encom­pass­es know­ing how to look after your­self, break free from stag­na­tion, and man­age finances. And dur­ing try­ing times, embrac­ing mind­ful­ness, benev­o­lence, and appre­ci­a­tion can aid in turn­ing the tide. Ulti­mate­ly, you will real­ize that adult­hood is not sole­ly about effec­tive­ly con­fronting life’s obsta­cles; it also involves shap­ing a future you are enthu­si­as­tic about.

Adult­ing can occa­sion­al­ly feel like a monot­o­nous task. How­ev­er, as you’ve dis­cov­ered, being com­pas­sion­ate can fos­ter a mutu­al­ly uplift­ing impact on both the per­former and recip­i­ent — so why not infuse a dash of spon­tane­ity into the dai­ly grind? If you’re feel­ing low, embody an elf. In oth­er words, per­form a small, enchant­i­ng act of kind­ness — such as anony­mous­ly cov­er­ing some­one’s din­ner bill, sur­pris­ing a friend with cof­fee, send­ing a let­ter to a rel­a­tive via tra­di­tion­al mail, or aid­ing a strug­gling par­ent in nav­i­gat­ing stairs with a stroller. It con­veys your care for oth­ers and is bound to bring a smile to your face. Besides, the world could cer­tain­ly ben­e­fit from a sprin­kle of magic!

About the Author

Julie Lyth­cott-Haims earned a BA in Amer­i­can Stud­ies from Stan­ford, a JD from Har­vard Law School, and an MFA in writ­ing from Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts. Her oth­er works include the New York Times best­seller How to Raise an Adult and Real Amer­i­can.