The world is their oyster. Also, Jackie Chan.
But when you're an adult, you already live in the future. Sure, new things may happen, and you might still get a cool job, maybe a dream romance, but in order to not go insane, you have to have more practical expectations. Maybe instead of the house in Narnia, you can settle for a house in Austin. Or your mom's basement. Let's just be realistic, here.
And at some point, you have to let go of your dream of being Indiana Jones, and discovering the elusive velociterityranigigantisaurus raptor and making a gazillion dollars and living in a mansion and never having to work again. (That's... not possible, right?) But the weird thing about becoming an adult is that it doesn't develop slowly over time, giving you just enough time to prepare for it. It happens pretty much suddenly. Sure, in most cases, they give you four years between high school and NEVERENDINGSUCKTASTIC real life, often called "college" and sometimes called "university" if you're from Australia or something (in which case, why are you even reading this? Australians don't live in real life, they live in Narnia. Which means you're already living the dream. Stop being unfair, Australians!), but during those four years, you feel less like an adult, and more like a kid that someone handed freedom too. You think all you get to do is watch anime and eat pizza for breakfast, and drink beer at 4AM, and stay up for three days straight, and WHOO! nobody can tell you not to! But then college ends, and all of a sudden you're an adult.
Pictured: responsible adults being responsible.
Ask just about any 23-year-old if they feel like an adult, and their answer will probably be "Hahahahah! What? ... Wait, did high school really end five years ago?" Ask any child if a 23-year-old is an adult, and they'll probably look at you like you're a crazy person and yell "STRANGER!", but if they don't they'll probably look at you like you're stupid and say "duh, stupid!" Which is why being a young adult is like living in some paradox where nothing make sense. Sometimes, I still have those mental restrictions on myself as if I were still a teenager. I know that when I was a teenager, if I sneaked out in the middle of the night to throw champagne-filled water balloons at unsuspecting pedestrians, my parents probably would've frowned upon that, so I don't do it. Even though it's what's popular with the kids right now. (I'm hip.) Then there are those moments when I get the notion that I'm an adult, and I can do whatever I want to do! I make all the necessary plans to move to Australia(Narnia?) to become a kangaroo farmer (they do that in Australia, I'm sure), but then I realize that there's just one small itsy bitsy problem. In order to do that, I need something called money.
Ah, money. When you're a teenager, it's the stuff that buys your snacks, and movie tickets, and puts gas in your old hooptie when you want to go hang out with your friends, that your parents just give you because that's what they're supposed to do, right? When you're an adult, sure, your parents might give you some money here and there, but because you no longer have teenager needs, the $20 your dad gave you on Monday really don't help with much. There's no more school lunch, and meal plans, so now you have to buy food. And you could live with the parentals forever, but that's just not cool (because life is like high school, and you need to be cool, even when you're an adult.), so you need to make money to pay rents and utilities and all of that fun stuff that you didn't even think about six months ago when you were still a kid. That way, people don't think you're a loser. And in order to have money, you have to have a job, which means you get to go somewhere where more people tell you what to do and yell at you. And that happens for the rest of forever. Until you die. Being an adult isn't absolute freedom where you can do whatever you want, and move to Austr-narnia, and be free or anything cool like that. It's where you have to work in order to not die, until you do die. (Yes, it's pointless, but everyone must do it.)
Because you must work for a living, and do that until you die, the world looks at you when you're somewhere between 16 and 23 and asks you to make a decision. "What stupid thing that you hate do you want to do for the rest of your life, Number 625338827?" If you're like me, you spent that entire time going "uhhh... oh! No, wait, ummm..... Ehhh.... Stuff?" It wasn't that I didn't have dreams. It was just that my dreams weren't practical enough, and good, responsible adults are always practical. I spent my entire college years worrying about picking a practical career, and then they were gone, and I was an adult, and the world said "too late! You'll either be a loser, or a desk-job loser. Pick one." I chose to be an artistic stuff loser.
And the best part about that is that I never have to be an adult! But I'm still working on how to turn artistic bs that nobody cares about into not-having-to-live-in-my-parents'-basement-forever... I'll let you know if I ever figure it out.
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