a guide to pretending to adult for people who can’t adult at all

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt since ‘growing up’ and ‘becoming an adult’ it’s that literally nobody has a fucking clue what they’re doing. Quite literally, everyone is just winging it. That’s straight up real talk: from the CEOs to the shelf stackers, noone really and truly knows how to adult, and yet they manage to keep up the façade and convince other people they’re doing alright.

It’s a trade secret – like the one where George Clooney is secretly gay – all adults know just how much bullshite goes into their everyday routine and into the routines of all the other supposed ‘adults’, and yet nobody wants to admit it for fear of being outed as a life-fraud.

It’s all an act.

Indeed, the adults I come into contact with every day don’t seem to truly have a clue what it is their job entails, or how they actually ended up where they are. We all sit at our desks / general working location and think “how the fuck did I get here?”, we all struggle to navigate the washing machine and we definitely all still call our mums for help in any ‘crisis’ (such as locating the cold meats aisle at Sainos).

Sure, GCSEs taught us that a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared and that JFK may or may not have been shot from more than one angle, but that’s probably the most intellectual thing anyone actually stores in their brain, if anything at all.

Here are some tips for people pretending to adult and failing miserably:

1. Perfect the act of bullshitting. It is the most valuable life skill you will ever possess; infinitely more valuable than basic skills like walking and talking. If you know how to bullshit and how to make any small sentence sound like a sonnet from Shakespeare then you’re going places in life.
2. Befriend important people. Keep in mind that said important people most likely don’t have a fucking clue how to adult either and so will revel in the fact that you think they’re important enough to have their arse kissed. They’ll reward you with life advancements and then you’ll have to learn a whole new level of bullshit to navigate your promotion.
3. Have mum on speed-dial. It is a little-known fact that out of all the fake adults on earth, mums are the closest thing to genuine adulthood. They know just how you should be stacking the dishwasher and they can usually be persuaded to fork out for those life essentials you didn’t factor into your monthly budget (which you don’t have, because you can’t adult).
4. Google it. One of the main reasons your mum is a more qualified adult than you is that she grew up without the help of Google, and as such had the hard task of learning life lessons from the internet. Google can help pretty much anyone do pretty much anything, and have you acting like a real life adult in a few swift clicks.
5. Shan it off. If you really can’t be arsed pretending to adult then there’s something to be said for ‘going travelling’ to ‘find yourself’ and putting off the inevitable clash with the ‘real world’ (where noone actually has a clue about anything).

Enjoy. And remember, even Kim Kardashian is an adult and she clearly has absolutely no idea what’s going on. If she can be worth millions of dollars, so can you.