What is a functional adult?

I think we are seeing many problems in society, many of which can be boiled down into several base concepts each of which affect many things.

1. The lack of functional adults. We have adult children instead.

2. The lack of personal responsibility. The victim complex is easy, this means people don’t have to work on themselves when they can blame other people. This is also a symptom of the personality disorders group.

But what is a functional adult anyway?

They take personal responsibility for their actions.

They pay off their loan obligations. No one forced them to get the loans. They didn’t have to go to college, they chose to. In fact we have a shortage of skilled trades people right now, they are in great demand and get higher wages than many college grads working in an office. Especially if they own their own business.

To take responsibility for one’s actions means the choice you take is often not the easiest. The problem is people often choose the easiest solution, which might work in the short term, but fails in the long term. And they have no idea why they keep failing, or why they are so miserable.

As most of us know, personal responsibility is very inconvenient for some people. Victimhood is related to the lack of personal responsibility. If victims get healed, they no longer get the attention they crave.

They plan for the future.

They can plan for the future, like put money into a retirement fund, and into an emergency fund, and they don’t spend it unless they really have to. It is a bad idea to rely on pensions. Pensions technically have a legal guarantee, that they exist, but the amounts are not guaranteed. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 saw many pensions drop 30-60% or more. This was a permanent change. People lost much of their pension payments, like at General Motors and Delphi Automotive, due to bad management.

Social security payments in the US have not kept up with inflation for 20+ years. Likewise, incomes of nearly all US people have also not kept pace with inflation since 2000. I call this a “slow collapse”. Once you count on someone else to take care of you, you can expect to fail. Socialism only lasts as long as a government can keep getting loans. Or as long as enough people are employed and pay taxes. Social Security has already been going through a slow collapse for 30 years, as noted by the inability of the payments to keep up with inflation. The same goes for Medicare and Medicaid. The deductibles and related payments keep going up over the long term.

Good money management.

Functional adults have good money management, that is, they manage their money, their money doesn’t manage them. But right now the priorities of many people are material things, with lots of debt, and no emergency fund for emergencies. In one poll 30% of people didn’t have $500 in the bank for an emergency. 80% didn’t have $5000 in the bank for an emergency, like a major car repair.

Long term thinking.

The lack of long term thinking has been a problem since at least the 1980s. Even Lee Iococca wrote in his book “Where have all the leaders gone?” he bemoans the lack of good leadership. Good leadership includes long-term thinking. But execs often use short term thinking to meet certain metrics where they will get bigger bonuses for their own pocket. Then they leave the company with other messes that they ignored because they didn’t get a bonus from improving that metric. He took over Chrysler when it was circling the drain and tried his best to make it better, with some success.

In another book intended for management to read, they used a metaphor of the Wizard of Oz characters, and mentioned the lack of long term thinking as a big reason companies big and small failed.

They have willpower.

They have willpower to execute long and short term goals. And they don’t make excuses. If they were unable to save their goal of $200 one month, they make up for it the next month. They stay on task regardless of what happens.

They have commitment.

They stay with a job even if they don’t like it. Work is hard, that’s why they call it “work”. But many people seem too uncommitted, end up job hopping, and whether they show job hopping on their resume, or blank spaces, both of those make them look bad and undesirable.

They are often not committed to relationships, often because they found a partner they are not compatible with, because they don’t understand how relationships work. So they blame the partner, not their lack of understanding.

On relationships.

Most people are terrible with relationships. Good clear communication is essential for a functional adult relationship, but most people don’t have the communication to make that possible. Another key to relationships is introspection, or self-knowledge. They need to have enough experiences to know what they like, what they don’t like, and who they get along with. They need to know what they NEED vs what they WANT.

There is a whole science behind relationships to maximize your success and people don’t even question “What can I do better” and research it. Granted, it’s not all in one place, it’s scattered all over the internet. It’s based on studies and polls. We already know what makes and breaks relationships. I should write an article on that later.

I will be writing an article on men vs women which will help people understand this much unknown fact: men are not women, and women are not men. There are big differences between them and how they interact with each other and the world.

More and more people are somehow damaged and have mental illness so that makes their relationships very difficult, and they have a big problem attracting people who will be good for them. Anxiety, depression, and personality disorders (not the increased entitlement and victim mentality) are much more common than 40 years ago.

Think positive.

Thinking positive does not change the world around you, it helps you get through the difficult parts. Thinking positive must be followed up by actions and decisions supported by good facts.

Learning from mistakes.

Many people make the same mistake over and over again, especially in relationships. Maybe this is a life lesson they have to learn. They seem to be attracted to people who are not good for them. If one doesn’t have the ability to learn from their mistakes life is much harder.

Life is hard enough, but suffering is greater if you don’t think and use facts to make decisions. Emotions have their place, but they should not be used for making big decisions.

Be nice to yourself.

All the concepts of personal responsibility and commitment does not mean you should be overly hard on yourself. Take a break sometimes. Be kind to yourself. Listen to what you tell yourself. Would you say this to your best friend? If not, don’t say it to yourself. Be firm and realistic, but do not beat yourself up. Admit you made a mistake, apologize or make it better somehow, and move on. Do not obsess about the mistake, we all make mistakes. Like my typos. :)

Admit what you are bad at, and what you are good at.

Loving yourself does not mean staring in the mirror thinking “I’m all that and a bag of chips!” It means being kind to yourself, like you are kind to someone you care about. It does not mean overly coddling yourself, there must be balance. It also does not mean avoiding your own problems.

Summary

1. Take responsibility for your actions. You don’t have to stay with someone who is just mean. Leaving them is not easy, but a divorce is much more difficult.

2. Manage your money. Emergencies will happen, you just don’t know when.

3. Think and plan long term. Plan ahead 30 years or more.

4. Think positive, but follow up with good decisions based on hard data.

5. Learn how relationships work, what matters. Although some people say “opposites attract” that will work for them, but that will not work for most people. Compatibility is key for some areas of a relationship.

6. Learn from you past mistakes. Write in a journal if you have to keep track of this. For each past relationship write down what you think you can do better. Choose one item to work on and work on it. Or just ask how relationships work. (I’m a self-published author who wrote a book containing all the key relationship info and studies in one place, to help you and save you tons of time.)

7. Be realistic, but also love yourself.