INTRODUCTION

Almost nobody actually feels like an adult. And yet, at some point, almost all of us start being expected to act like one. People stop rescuing you from your own mistakes. They stop cleaning up after you. They stop telling you what the heck you’re supposed to be doing. You start having to take responsibility for things like work and taxes and cleaning and your health and the health of houseplants and animals and even actual babies (but you’re the baby!). And sometimes it seems like everyone else is just breezing through and you’re the only fraud.

But again, almost nobody feels like an adult—we promise! Because adulthood isn’t a feeling. It’s a set of skills. And if you don’t have those skills, you can get them. In fact, getting the adulthood skills you don’t have yet is one of the most important adulthood skills.

That means you’re on the right track, and you’re in the right place.

This book probably can’t solve every single one of your grown-up problems. But it can give you enough background knowledge that when life throws adult stuff at you—a tire you have to change, a lease you have to sign, a button you have to replace, a baby you have to hold—you won’t feel like you’re starting from zero. And there’s fun stuff in here, too, about making friends and throwing dinner parties and finding a cause you believe in! Adulthood isn’t all chores and insurance forms.

People probably still won’t clean up after you, or save you from your mistakes, at least after the first ten or fifteen—but we lied when we said nobody would tell you what the heck you’re supposed to do. We’ll tell you! It’s all here.