Its been a few years that i realized that im officially a grown up. I moved out, in the city, working, and free. It is a wonderful feeling to control your own life and with little to no input from others. You can do what you want now and you need to worry about coming home late, getting drunk and sleeping outside, and also meeting fresh faces. My first year here in Manila, Philippines was exciting for me since this is the first time that im away from my family indefinitely and that could mean i could change, for better or worst.

I am gonna be reaching two years staying in the city in a few months, and looking back, i did things that i did not know i would do, experienced new events, and still, not knowing whats next to come after my actions.

Here are some suggestion i would like to give you, and me when going out on your own:

You have to start from the start to start (most of the time)

If you don’t have referrals or backing from a friend or family, etc. then it is gonna be harder for you to get an opportunity. Certificates alone does not guarantee an occupation, so a backer could help you getting a job. But even if you have no acquaintance in the city, you still have chance to change that.

I was picked up by my relative and helped me get a job in where she’s working. Im still working in the same company as she is, and as of now, im doing good for myself. Even if the pay is not that high, i can work in minimum to below average salary since i dont have huge responsibilities like my own family, house and automobile debt payments, no loans here, hooray! And since i moved out and moved to the city, i am also walking distance to my job, so i have no commute hassles. And even though me and my relative could stay in the same roof and let my relative pay our expenses, i didn’t. Yes, i could be saving much more money now if i took that offer, but i know to myself i will regret not having this time for me to be alone and take some responsibilities that i for sure can handle; paying for my dorm rent, going out late, dating, and anything that i for sure not want my family to be talking about, about me.

Maybe you are not planning to move to the city, and thats great to hear. There are still options in starting your life with or without companions by your side. You can still work, go to places you never been, and talking to new people. But from my experience, going out on your own changed me. I was just a boy who played video games everytime after school, now, after work i either ,rest and instagram and facebook binge reels, go dating with my girlfriend, or work on my hobbies/ side hustle. Starting in a place where no one knows you can feel liberating, it is as if you were born again, with new identity. You could be an introvert in your barangay or town barely knowing your neighbors, but in the city, you could be a drunkard whose purpose is to cause mayhem and stomp on the bullies or whatnot. Joking aside, you get what i mean right? Since you are very much far away from your comfort zone, being in a new, alien, foreign territory could transform you to a person that the you-from-a-year-ago would never knew you would become in to.

New friends and faces will be part of the journey. They could be a hindrance or a help in your path to your new stage of life, so be careful. Maybe you will befriend bad people, heavy vape users who only care for unnecessary things, going out every night, i mean monday to sunday, achieving nothing, and just talking about nonsense, leading you to a path you would never want to be. Instill in yourself that you could make irreparable changes in your life, changing the course of your destiny.

Having fun is part of being in a new environment, but in moderation. You want to have fun now, while working to be ready, prepared, and fulfilled for the future. Yes there is nothing wrong going out with buddies and acting foolish, but remember that your future depends on the current you. Your job can be gone, maybe you are not satisfied and want to move up in your profession, and that could take time. The time you need to change your circumstances is in your free time. Maybe you need to spend your early morning in online courses. Sending job applications, perfecting a craft so that you are moving to a new level, and not stuck at the starting position. Because you would know that even if you have a job, lovelife, and friends, at the back of your mind you will tell yourself that nothing is moving forward.

So start from the start, if you are in a new city alone, meet new people, have fun, try something that city offers, and maybe that could also spark new interests in your life. And if you are still at your parent/relative’s house, then its ok too. Work on something that will provide you a sense of worth, enrich your relationship with what surrounds you, and find your north star, be fulfilled and provide value to your love ones.

Growing up is not equal to your age. Some do not start their journey even at the right and ripe age.

Catch up with your kin sometimes

I barely catch up with my kin. Maybe i do that once a month and it shows. I dont know whats happening to their lives and they dont also know what im going through, and i need to make a small impact even a little to change that.

Contacting a family or friend can be unnecessary, since you know you created a bond that no time can make it rotten. You can be out of touch with your brother, and he will treat like nothing. Peers become busy in life like you, so having a meetup with your bois, could be once in a blue moon. And i know most of us have time to meet up, but we also like to prefer just rotting in our beds. You “We are mutuals online, we can see if they are online or not. The access to their direct message is there all the time.” True, but you barely talk to that one close friend either in your private message.

Especially if you are alone in a new place, you might want to talk to your friends. They can bring joy and a sense of homeness, catching up, making jokes, fooling around. Just talking to them and catching up is already a blessing, and could make you freshen up after a day’s work. From what i’ve heard, the loneliness epidemic seems to be arising, and this could affect you and how you perform in life. So the doctor(me) recommends talking to your highschool or college close friends once in a while. Maybe some of them are pregnant, just got their own place, thats a good start to talk about. Heck, they might also make the first move and catch up with you. Some people think that “if they wanted to, they would.” and that’s fair. But don’t you want to talk to them as well? Thinking this way is probably not good. Waiting for others to take initiative can take off your capabilities to initiate. So if the thought comes to mind to talk to them, maybe reply to their stories on their facebook(yes, we still use facebook in the Philippines) and say hi or ask about their story, “how was Japan?” , “hey you got fat lol xd”, or “who’s that girl? Is that your sidechick?”.

If talking to friends online is easy, talking to your family could be frictionally harsh to others. If you have a good relationship with them, it would be easy to catch up weekly, your mother will call you once in a few days and you could talk about your days away, seeing your father at the background chilling and watching the tv, and seeing your siblings, and them asking you for money and pasalubong(gifts when you come back home). Your parents and uncles and aunts could be a cheat code in your life as well. They lived in a different generation, faced similar but different circumstances. You could ask them what to do in the situation that you are currently in, and could give you crappy advice, but they will tell you some useful things as well. And of course, when asking for advice, sometimes they riff off the topic and tells their story when the time when they were the same age like you. Hearing life experience that they never told you, and that’s when you realize, “they used to be cool? I thought they were lame since birth”(editor’s note: hahahahhaha) . Your relatives was your age in the past, some people don’t realize that they could have been a rambunctious teen, or alcoholic in their prime. Seeing them as a person and not as a warden, as an adult puts perspective in how and why they did things back when you are a kid. Not saying that you should copy the things that they did before but, via communication, you understand them a little better. Because some prefer not to talk to their bloodline.

For the people who have bad relationship with their Surname, to the people that caused their heartbeat, i have no way to tell you what to do on how you handle that, but since you are reading my article, i have the right to say what i say. If the reason of you not talking to them involves you being hurt, treated unfair, and no signs of them changing to a better person, then yes, leave them. If they can’t change as a person, then talking to them can cause harm to yourself. Maybe they hurt you because they are hurt too, but their actions does not justify that. Maybe you still want to talk to them, and you want to address how they treated you, say what you want to say, be vulnerable and see what they would reply. Maybe both you and your parents are finding a way to save some familial connection scrap that is refurbishable. Time could make them and you a different person. Maybe now that they see you as a grown up, they will be lax and not strict. If so, then a chance to communicate is a potential. Unresolved problems is like using your computer while the avast antivirus is telling you you have virus in your computer and choosing to ignore it, making your files vulnerable to be corrupt, or your computer to function improperly and the russian and indian hackers take your money. So, im suggesting that if the tides in your familial relationship is not the size of the tsunami, could not make a boat in the middle of the sea capsized, then conversing to them could heal your psychological bleeding cuts and heal them, not fully, but to a scar.

Growing up is not equal to your age. To grow with your relationship could mean to fertilize or pillage the soil of your connections.

Be familiar working while with debuffs

In your wake hours of being an adult, most of those times is spent on working, so you have to learn to work in any conditions. Especially when you are hustling, having a 2nd or 3rd job, stress will be your best friend. You have to learn to work while being in bad states. Some people can handle stress and thrive in a corporate, hustle environment. They will take every path to success, by working hard, gossiping hard, and just outlasting their colleagues. There are types of people that will not survive in said environment, and it’s fine. You should find what type of work culture suits you. But even if you are in a profession that you love, debuffs will strike you.

Debuff means being affected negatively by a status or condition that you currently have. Like drinking till 4am and working 8am the same day, you lack rest that day and now have sorts of debuffs. Since the current 20s in our generation(millennials and gen z right?) are vocal about being burnt out, we are aware of the effects of working hard every day or at least five days a week. This also affected our parents and grandparents, they just did not whine about it like we do. We are a human being after all so ofcourse we have times of flourishing energy and burdeness feelings. But what still matters is what is real, is the work done or not? If you are at work and you are not feeling it today, you could get out early or keep working, either way, you sickness could be gone by the evening. It is your choice to choose what is the best approach to your situation. In my work, i have colleagues who still go to work even if they have fever, just a bad day at they home, or prefer to work instead of attending to a family-related event. I do it as well. It’s been a while since i got the fever, but the last time i’ve had fever, i still work, even if it is just a day of fever, because no one will do the work i do. You might be thinking that it is foolish, and yes you have a point. But i dont know about you but for me, i get that energy to work hard when i get sick. Like i want to work before dying, because being sick feels like dying might as well work.

You have to learn to work with negativities still occurring in your life. Because even though it is best for us to focus on one thing at a time, in reality, you will have to juggle multiples things at once. You put an all nighter because you studied for the exam tomorrow? Now you have to answer that exam while sleepy, bobbing your head back and forth like a pendulum. You ran and lift last night to keep being healthy? Aight now work like your knees are not gonna collapse. Or maybe you just broke up with your long time serious girlfriend, now survive the day without having a mental panic. Most of the time, your mental state will be neutral, fine even. But there are days when you were just totally spent yesterday, from work ,school , or just being active at night going out, and it will take a toll in your day. You need to manage that, there are a lot of suggestions online on how to manage your stresses. Maybe you can just sit idly once in a while when at the classroom, when there are not much going on, zoning out at work, when the chance appears. But if you are a resilient person, you will just trudge through the pain and exhaustion and hopefully your mental state catch a second wind. To get out of being exhausted, don’t simmer in the aches of your mind and body, stay moving works too.

Growing up is not equal to your age. Some can not work through the tough times, making them progress less.

Find what you like

In today’s society, you will be bombarded with different contents. You will discover new things faster than our ancestors. You could potentially become the smartest one in your bloodline. But with the abundance of information, there is also abundance in distraction. You job is to focus on the things that makes living as interesting as possible. Find the things that would benefit you in the long run. Maybe it be creating art, solving logical problem, creating helpful things,and other stuff that could bring positiveness in the world. In your teens, you will encounter few things that sparked something inside you, but you have not touched upon now you are an adult. Maybe you were playing a lot of basketball back then, and now you barely move after work and just sit down while watching reels. That kind of relaxation can affect you negatively.

Most of the adults now would rather prefer just scrolling at home rather than do another activity, and i get it, i do that too. After a tiring shift from my work, i rather not work out and work on my side hustle and just lay straight at my dorm bed and watch instagram reels until its time to prepare to sleep. Life like that sounds chill, for some. You do need to relax to recharge for work tomorrow. Some people have responsibilities outside of themselves, like taking care of their children, loved ones, things that take time for other people, to maintain something. Don’t get me wrong, you want to help other people, but sometimes it would cause you yourself. You might also think that interests does not matter, as long as you have money, everything will be fine, and i agree with the money part. Money is valuable in our society, what more do you need when you have money and your support group. But is life satisfying when all you do is work, and talk to the people who are close to you? You will ran out of things to say if you are just focusing on them. And yes you could make consuming your interest or hobby, but is that fulfilling to you? You will feel something is missing if you do not create something by yourself, or with someone you know. It could be fulfilling , and maybe you have a job that is also bringing you joy, but what if you got fired from that job? Do you have another outlet for your energy? And for the people with depressing job, you already know the feeling of being in a state of uncertainty with how you impact the world. Do you believe that being the person that your current job have something to offer others? Are you essential in the company? You are not replaceable, are you? Does feeling useless better than being tired from work? Are you uselessly tired being in a work you know you could do better? To use your energy somewhere that could make you at least better? Not for other people’s sake, but for you, to feel like that you are worth something and could potentially become your norm, to be satisfied with your work and how it impacts others.

But how do we find things we like? There are a lot of ways to find it.

Try what you did back then. Tapping to those activities could ignite the passion for those skills and is your interest even if you are now an adult. Maybe those were playing the guitar, drawing, creating a story using your toys. Of Course, some of the activities you like will look like childish now if you were to do it. But maybe there are alternatives on what it can look like as an adult, like instead of creating a story using your action toys, you could write it in a book with some visuals to make the reader see what you were imagining up in your head, maybe its a manga style of storytelling as well. Try asking someone that you were close to, someone who have chances to see you when you were focused on one thing, maybe they know what sparks you and they might point you to the right direction on what is your true interests.

Try what other people are doing. These could help you find something new to yourself. You never tried hiking before? There a lot of hype around hiking on the internet and maybe you would like it as well. What about Dungeons and Dragons? You saw some nerds play online and it piqued your interest, so why not try a short session? See for yourself. This could help you find new things that you thought you would not like since we sometimes think that we are not like the people who we see online, we have different tastes in life. But this could help since we are all human, we have similarities in what we like, right? Moving around is part of our survival, being connected to our friends is also part of being human. The activities are the bridge to what we want, a sense of purpose. We just have to find the hobbies and activities which contain that sense of reinvigoration of self.

Try what pops in your mind. Influenced by outer cause or not, try what constantly shows up in your head, imagining the idea of doing it. There is a significant gap in the idea of doing the activity, to actually in the midst of a work. Everything is easier on paper. To do it the second it begins to notify itself to your mind could mean regret if not done. You will feel like you should have gone for it instead of actually doing it, it is a sad feeling to not try for once. Life is like a blank canvas, or a ball of clay, we should transform it as we get older and turn it to our own creation. The fear of messing up the canvas is natural, we don’t want our mistakes to be seen by others, be critiqued. We want to portray the best of ourselves. But having a bad brush stroke, wrong paint color is not the enemy of a great artwork, the blankness of the canvas is. The resistance in your brain whilst forming forms in the ball of clay is part of the process, whether it is your first time or not. The feeling of annoyance, impatience, moving on to the next one will be part of creating your sculpture. Feelings, and overanalization will hinder the progress of those hobbies and activities. The reluctance to “waste your time” and fear of failure is what could deny you access to what you want. Coding will take time, Sports will challenge your body… So what? You want to learn, right? That is part of the package of learning, hardship. To know what you want to do is an adventure consisting of high highs and low lows. You have times where you think you want to let go of it, and the actual time to get off. It is in your hands to keep on going, make this your calling or just a hobby, either way, the time is ticking.

Growing up is not equal to your age. Not knowing what you want in life will make you miserable in the long run, while regretting not to experiment earlier.

Step back to your work once in a while

The famous saying is “Just do it” in terms of reaching your goal, grinding. To keep on working until you reach your goal, i agree. What i want to add to that statement is to once in a while, think about what you are doing. Yes i fully agree on thinking less and focusing on creating, working. But the statement says Thinking “less”, there are still space for thinking, decision making. How should the thinking part be made of?

Pause. When you are early in your journey to greatness, action is the best focus of your mental energy. You have not built anything yet and you will need to try everything that will stick out and work on from there. Go do the most important thing first thing first, make your product, study, journal, get that rep in. But when you have little succession in your belt, and new opportunities are approaching of you, you might need to start thinking for a bit. Critical in the age of the internet. People will see who you associate with. Maybe you accepted a sponsor which seemed good at first, but turned out to be a shady company. Maybe you were approached by a gambling company to livestream yourself while playing their online gambling website and give you play money to trick your viewers to hop on the gambling trend, or maybe there are some individual who wants to collab with you and use your platform to gain traction to their careers, focusing on becoming rich without thinking about the process on getting there. Yes the goal is to be rich, but you have to think twice if you want to put your reputation in the line. Maybe you are not religious or does not care of morals, and i suggest atleast think about your impact to others, your friends and family. Money can change you for better or worse, and to change you negatively is easy. Men preach about doing the hard work; That could mean two things. The first meaning is working hard like spending most of your time in your work, grinding it out until you became profitable to what you ar working on. The second meaning, is being strict on what to allow. It is harder for you to take the higher path, the righteous path, to not be associated with easy money that could affect you and your business. Is collabing on a porn site good for your company? Is selling yourself out to corrupt politicians and using you for their campaign worth it? You have to tread this with your heart and mind as one. This could crumble your work. Associating yourself with people who does not align to your goals and your ethics is natural, you have point of views that is different from your family and friends, what i’m saying is that in terms of profession, it could destroy what you built, and could change the blueprint of what you will build in the future.

Plan. You paused? Hooray! Now you need to make a plan (again). But if you are starting on your journey, your primary plan is to start. Let’s say you made progress in your endeavors, and you felt nangangalay(tiredness from doing one position, like raising your arms for a long time), and catch your self a breather and when you look around, you are farther away from your initial plan, what now? I suggest look where you were, and look where you at now so that you could plot where you are expecting yourself to be. Maybe you wanted to be a good digital 2D artist, at the start you practiced the fundamentals, you know the fundamentals now. And after a few months, you dont practice said fundamentals, you watched other people talking about the fundamentals, what’s next about to the fundamentals, and you slowly stopped drawing. Now is the time to Plan. There are glimpses of cracks when you are unconsciously just existing. If you can get ahold of yourself in those peepholes to observe that you are drowning in sea of unlimited and timely distraction, you can start to reel yourself back to the shore of limited seconds of focused work. When you have to plan, a simple plan is to address what is your objective and give yourself one thing that will contribute highly to you progress, the fundamentals of your success. And when you finish planning, you know what to do…

Proceed. Well? Do I need to explain this one? Do the thing that you planned. We all know what to do, some have hard time knowing that, but they will soon know. The hard part is the resistance. The barrier against the work, some overpowers this barrier, while some is dragged down, like how gravity keeps us on the ground, but the resistance is heavier than our gravity. This Resistance term is explain by Steven Pressfield, google him about his perspective on the matter. But going back to the resistance of pursuing the work, the simplest answer to that is to start doing even if you don’t want to do it. There are several ways to do it but that is the simplest way. Some like to reward themselves after doing the work, others focus on the mindset to change their belief about their work, several makes bet with their friends that if they did not do the work, their friend gets their money. Whatever that makes you do the work, do that (hopefully your process of doing the progress does not hinder you in other shape or form, like eating a lot of junk foods every time you workout).

Growing up is not equal to your age. Planning will make you responsible and ready versus someone who never grew up learning to make a plan.

Decide for yourself

I just gave you my opinion of the matter, what you do is up to you. That is deciding for yourself. You can search thousands of blog sites on how to do your work. What matters is the final product, if you have done your part or not. I am imagining that the person who is reading this is a beginner to a guy who just started a few months ago. The time will keep ticking, it will not wait for you. You want to know what you do, because if you don’t, others will tell you what you are. Don’t worry if you did not pick the right thing to act upon, as long as you really gave your all on that pursuit, if you studied all that you can learn about your goal. What makes a car run? How to learn a martial art? Learn about politics and law. If you immerse yourself in those things that you thought you wanted, it will spill over to other things that you might see as interesting in the future. Musashi Miyamoto said “From one thing, know ten thousand things.” You will see a pattern from writing to fighting, singing to plumbing, driving to hunting. It might not be an exact match as to what you learned before, but the pieces will resemble what you knew before. So decide what to do, either way, you will thank yourself for doing so.

Growing up is not equal to your age. You will feel that you are still a kid if you still are controlled on how your life should be.

Conclusion

Growing up is not equal to your age. In your younger years, you can get by having no life plan. In you adult life, you want to create one. To have something to work on for whatever reasons; to get rich, financial stability, mastery of a craft, will make you a better person that before. Working for yourself is key to become a competent person. Making time for your goals is a must now that you are an adult, seconds that seem plenty when you were a child will look like expensive to lose. Be conscious as much as possible, to guide yourself to what matters most. Plan on what matters to you. And while you are working on yourself, remember to tend to the relationships that builds you up as a person, find comfort while connecting to them to decrease the stresses and other malaises.

You got this. We got this.