When did you start to feel like a proper adult?
We can all point to our parents and go, “Yup, that’s an adult.” So is it simply a matter of having children? Make sense, right? When you’ve got a whole other being wholly dependent on you, there’s no other option but to be an adult.
I asked my friend who recently had twins whether indeed there was a switch. He replied to the negative. Whatever transformation that exists happens too gradually to notice. The stress of having to totally care for another person doesn’t allow time for reflection. He is just doing the best he can with the information that is available.
Through no fault of the friend, that was not a satisfactory answer. But it’s also not clear to me what sort of answer I was looking for. Is the question even worth asking? What have feelings got to do with it? Society deems you an adult soon as you’re able to sign your life away to go to war. Which is why they should lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. As far as I am concerned, you deserve a (legal) drink if you’re capable of dying for the country.
Perhaps it’s the looming existential crisis of turning 40 that’s got me reflecting on my current trajectory. There’s no denying that 40 is middle-age adult territory. You are most definitely no longer a kid. Mike Gundy famously exclaimed that he’s a man because he’s 40. Because of this demarcation, I looked inward to see whether I am where I’m supposed to be. (The merits of whether or not what society dictates is appropriate will not be debated here.)
Does anything have to change? Not really. I’ve long since moved out of the family home. I’ve got a long-term stable job that I can see all the way through to retirement. I think a good metric for being an adult is the capacity to fully take care of oneself on their own. No problems on that front over here.
But I’m talking about feelings (not practice). I don’t feel very adult. Even with the laundry list of adult things done behind me, I still feel as if I’m on a super extended college stay away from the family. An adolescent with more money and time than responsibilities.
It probably doesn’t help that my place of employment is the very university that I attended.
That’s it - responsibilities. What makes a person feel like an adult is having responsibilities outside of satisfying their own personhood. The time of self-indulgence is over. The vitality of others is entirely on your shoulders. You therefore have no choice but to act and feel accordingly.
So maybe it is about having children.
Honestly, I am not quite there yet. I remain too selfish to my own desires. Hanging out with my nieces and nephews reveal this. The wondrous curiosity and boundless energy of children demand constant attention from the adult playing with them. Especially during the ages before their respective parents stick them with an iPad to keep them occupied. The attending adult - me - must humor them to the full extent. No questions are too silly, and no requests - short of immediate bodily danger - too absurd.
Needless to say, my introverted social battery gets drained rather quickly. When inward attention is drawn outside of me for an extended period, the mind fights to bring it back in. In a sort of fear-of-missing-out kind of way, hanging out with my younger relations trigger a sense of scarcity. The time that’s spent here is great, but it could be so much more productive if it were for me. That’s another 50 pages of that novel I could have read.
It’s the same situation with pets. I enjoy pet-sitting for my friends. But when I return to own life there’s a sense of being behind on what I need to do.
Again, I’m too selfish. At least playing with children and pets - not of my own - have a finite end time. The respective parents have to deal with them 24/7, 365. That’s not a reality I am ready to accept for myself. Imagine waking up in the morning and the first thing isn’t to attend to my own needs. Fine in short spurts - the aforementioned pet-sitting, but not yet for an indeterminant amount of time.
I guess I shall continue to not feel like an adult for a bit longer.
It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what you want in life. Around middle of this year I was looking into buying a one-bedroom condo. Firstly, I am nowhere near the income to be able to afford a condo of any size in San Francisco. Especially once you factor in the exorbitant HOA fees. I saw one listing where the fee was $1,500! At that price it had better include nightly hookers for those who are wont to partake in those activities.
Anyways, San Francisco has a below market rate (BMR) buying program for peasants like me. How else can I compete against the legion of AI tech bros for real estate supremacy. So I diligently took the eight hours of seminars, plus an hour one-on-one consultation. Got preapproved for a mortgage, then it was just a game of waiting. I was ready to pounce on any upcoming units, either on the resale market, or newly built ones.
A few factors went into deciding to buy a condo. The biggest of which is that impossibility of otherwise affording a single-family home in the greater San Francsico Bay Area. A condo with SF’s BMR program is the only way to own real estate that’s within reasonable distance to my work, family, and friends. For sure I can buy a house way out in the suburbs, but do I really want to have an hour commute both ways to get to work? Especially considering the stark contrast that I currently walk to work.
The other factor is that I have a chunk of money to spend. Notice I said spend, not invest. A home to live in will never be an investment in my eyes. No matter if you’re renting or paying a mortgage, the exchange of money is for a secure roof over the head. The fact that way down the line the mortgage might amount to some gains is but a side benefit not worth considering.
Because what’s most important to me is security. Since moving to America at age eight, I’ve lived in enough rental situations to know the precariousness of it all. San Francisco’s often times unfairly iron-clad renters protection isn’t applicable when you’re renting an undeclared in-law unit from a relative. (Doing business with family is always tricky.) Or if you’re in a townhouse situation and you’ve got a neighbor from the depths of hell. Or if management finds out you’ve got people not on the lease living in the unit and therefore the lease is void.
When a house is not a home, it’s psychologically damaging. Having grown up with some version of what I just listed out led me to greatly value housing security. And therefore willing to trade good money to get that guarantee. Armed with a sufficient amount for a downpayment - because I am not a degenerate on r/wallstreetbets, the opportunity to execute opened up in 2025.
I had thought a condo via the SF BMR program was what I wanted, until another event in this year informed me otherwise.
I’ve owned my 2021 BMW M2 for five years, and it’s been an incredible car. The positives have been waxed on poetically on these pages. I was content to keep it for the long term, if not for the pesky issue of insurance. You don’t need me to tell you how unholy high auto insurance has gotten since the pandemic. With the M2 it’s increased to a sum where it was not worth the premiums for a car that I seldomly drive (as I said, I walk to work). That monthly outlay can be put towards something more productive, like a mortgage payment.
So I sold the M2 for something much more economical: a 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to fuel, cheaper to own. A downgrade in a mathematical material sense, but not in the gauge of fun. People chase after ever faster and more expensive sports cars, when in reality all they really need to satisfy their craving is a proper hot-hatchback. Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen may scoff at front-wheel drive, but car enthusiasts that drive on real-world streets - not on perfectly paved racetracks - know their quality.
A problem with buying a used car is that I have to fix the flaws left behind by the previous owner. A Carfax report is only good for seeing if a car has been in an accident (and even then it’s not completely fool-proof). Any scheduled maintenance listed in the report has no bearing on what’s to be done going forward. Shortly after purchase, the GTI received all new fluids and tires. I didn’t care an oil change was supposedly done shortly before purchase. The car’s entire maintenance schedule is effectively reset to a starting point where I can then follow.
Maintenance aside, the GTI got a proper cleaning inside and out, and has got - or will be getting - replacement parts for worn out or unsightly items.
What I realized is that I was having fun with all of this. Taking a used car and bringing it up to my own personal standards is a thoroughly enjoyable process. Each successive checked off item is a well-earned dopamine hit (sure beats scrolling endlessly on the ‘Tok). Instead of sleeping in on Saturday mornings, I awoke before my usual alarm time because I was so excited to get started working on the Volkswagen.
What gets you excitedly out of bed in the morning: that’s a good metric for determining what you want to want (roll credits!), isn’t it? So enamored with a thing you are that you’re willing to sacrifice peaceful sleep. This morning I was pumped to get out of bed to start to writing this 2025 reflection post. A good novel will also get me out of bed, anxious to see what the next chapter unfolds. The day before getting on a plane somewhere? Forget about it.
Of course, the ultimate triumph is to be excited to get out of bed for work. That means you’re doing something for money that you’re absolutely passionate about. I envy and salute the many that have achieved this for themselves. If the golden handcuffs of a public employees pension wasn’t a thing, I too would make the jump. That’s why despite the mass layoffs affecting many industries in 2025, I wasn’t too worried about my own position. Getting laid off would simply be the push off the precipice to follow my passions.
I digress. So it turns out I greatly enjoy working on car! A rather peculiar thing to say for a car enthusiast. I’d thought I only care about the driving part of car enthusiasm. Maintenance was a mere annoyance to get out of the way, in order to keep on driving. The M2 was so clutch in that regard because I only had to take it into the dealership for servicing once a year.
The weekends since I purchased the GTI was a revelation because they have been full of bustling activity. The quest to make that car that much closer to perfection. I’ll never get there, obviously, but continuously getting close to that tangent is where the fun lies.
The desire for working on cars then presents a new challenge: the lack of space. A car enthusiast’s dream is to have a space - often the garage of their home - to safely park and work on their cars. A place to store the myriads of tools. A place unbothered by municipal restrictions such as street cleaning or time limits, which is what I have to deal with in street parking the GTI. Did you know that in San Francisco it’s actually illegal to mechanically work on vehicles on public streets?
This circles us back to buying a BMR condo: I don’t think it’s what I want in a home. Half of the available BMR units don’t even have assigned parking. And the ones with parking rightfully prohibits vehicle servicing. That does not fit with how I want to live, given that it will be the biggest expense I will ever make in this lifetime.
What I want is a typical house with a garage. One of those around here is decidedly out of my price range. To the far-way suburbs it will have to be. Am I willing trade a soul-sucking commute for some quality passion-pursuing time on the weekends? I will have to be if that’s what it takes. Society lied to us when it says we can have everything. We absolutely cannot. Just ask any parents of newborns.
Often times we’re simply robbing Peter to pay Paul, and that’s okay. Which is why figuring out what you want to want is so important. Because then you’ll be okay with forgoing whatever that is you’ve traded away. You can focus solely on the positives of the choice you made.
For better and worst, I was the English interpreter for my parents. That’s the way it goes for the children of immigrants. For sure the parents themselves should have learned the local language, instead of pushing the task off towards literal kids. I can argue that having your 10-year-old interpret a bank letter for you is a form of child abuse. I don’t begrudge my parents: they did the best they can, even though in hindsight indeed they should have tried harder.
It was funny to realize I was the interpreter for a second language when I traveled to South Korea with my father back in spring. After a decade of self-taught Korean learning, I felt confident enough to play the tour guide. This time, instead of resentment - as it were with being the designated English translator here in the States, there was immense pride.
Whether or not my father was proud is irrelevant (I’m sure he is). My own satisfaction with how far I’ve come since picking up a copy of Elementary Korean back in 2015 is more than enough. The intense daily four-hour study sessions in the early years were a worthy tradeoff in order to have the experience of showing my father around a foreign country. I don’t think about or care at all what else I could have done with that time, because learning Korean is something I wanted to want.
What gets me excitedly out of bed is going to be a continuous gauge on whether I am doing what I actually want to do. I’ll be ready to feel like a proper adult when the responsibility for another being is what has me looking forward to for the weekend. Until that time, I shall continue to indulge totally in my own personal growth.
I wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2026.
Top 10 Songs of 2025
1. ILLIT - Jellyous
2. Yeji - Air
3. Hearts2Hearts - The Chase
4. ILLIT - Magnetic
5. Seulgi - Baby, Not Baby
6. KiiKii - Dancing Alone
7. aespa - Flowers
8. LE SSERAFIM - Pearlies (My oyster is the world)
9. MEOVV - Drop Top
10. LE SSERAFIM - Perfect Night