Being A Grownup

An article on CNN inspired me to write this post.

Growing up as a geek doesn't mean that you have to give up your hobbies, it means taking responsibility for your actions.

The author of the article says that in order to be a real grownup, you have to do these 10 things (I have added my thoughts after each one).

"• Face life's challenges head-on. (instead of placing the blame for all bad things on other people, or bad luck. You get over it and go forward.)

• Make peace with your body. (no more moping about how you wish you were fill-in-the-blank. Everyone wishes they were taller, thinner, buffer, better looking, etc but you have to be happy with the person you are now. I think as geeks we also have to learn to make peace with our geek status. If you're a geek but still yearn to be cool, I think that's going to cause problems in your life and in your relationships.)

• Take responsibility for your heart. (I think they mean here is you have some control over your romantic destiny. Don't be like a junior high student and just stare at your crush, do something about it. And if you have a break up, after a reasonable moping time, go and evaluate the relationship and think honestly about what were the good and bad parts and what would you do differently in the future.)

• Build a meaningful career. (some people are happy being drifters...I'm totally not one of those guys. I think even for people who aren't working persay, you need some kind of goal. Maybe you're a great stay at home parent or volunteer for your favorite charities. I think even if you aren't a money-maker, you need to have some kind of aspirations for life.)

• Learn how to handle the tough times. (everyone's got troubles, the things that differentiate us is how we handle those problems. Do you let it destroy you and everything you've worked for or do you come out of the fire even stronger like a phoenix?)

• Face your anxieties. (again, we all worry about stuff, but are they rational? Don't let irrational thought patterns control your life. Like don't not date b/c you had your heart broken before, but go back out there, hopefully a bit wiser and not too jaded.)

• Take ownership of your finances. (not that you have to be like rich or anything but I think taking ownership means you're not in denial about your credit card or student loan debt and have a reasonable plan for the future that doesn't involve marrying a rich dude or winning the lottery or waiting for a rich relation to kick off.)

• Master the use of your time. (OMG, this is a massive pet peeve of mine. Generally if you say you're going to be somewhere at a certain time, you should be there at that time unless there was some crazy emergency but if you know there's going to be traffic b/c there's always traffic at that time, that really isn't an excuse. Also this covers things like getting assignments done on time, not flaking out, making sure you get enough sleep at night, crap like that. Staying up til 4 in the morning playing WoW when you have to be at work at 8 is not a great idea. )

• Practice dynamic communication. (for geeks, dynamic communication skills would be being about to talk to people and not bore them with too much detail and yet not being so vague and stammery as to not convey any information. But ultimately, being able to effectively communicate is a key to being an adult. B/c if you're still pulling crap like making them play guessing games at why you're mad, yeah, that's not being an adult.)

• Find the right level of flexibility. (learning how to effectively compromise, not being a doormat and not being an a-hole either. Learning when to stick with your principles and when to shut up.)

In short, own up."

I think this is incredibly good advice, b/c again, mentally healthy, stable people are more likely to have healthier stablier relationships. (I have no stats to back this up but it must be true. IT MUST! B/c I know people who are nuts who are in relationships but it'll be all stressful and full of crazy arguing.)

Think about reasons why people break up, and then look back at this list, I think many of the reasons why people break up can be attributed to not having finished all the things on the list.

I will once again repeat that it's not your hobbies that determine if you're an adult or a child, it's how you react to a situation and your decisions. So giving up WoW isn't going to change how mature you are, it's how you react to WoW that determines your maturity.