The diary of almost everything

After writing about the myth of “having it all figured out”, a comment mentioned something that stayed with me: the feeling that everyone else must have received the manual for adulthood while we somehow missed our copy.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that if such a manual exists, it must contain a very specific chapter. A chapter with a rather appealing title.
Something like: The easy way out!

Not in a morally questionable sense. I’m not talking about dramatic escapes or questionable life decisions. I simply mean the version of adulthood where things somehow flows a little more effortlessly. The path where the responsibilities remain reasonable, the emails remain manageable, and you never find yourself wondering why you voluntarily signed up for a career that occasionally feels like running a small, mildly chaotic country.

Because if we’re honest, most adults have moments like that.

Moments where you briefly look around your life and think: surely there must have been a slightly easier option somewhere in this maze.
At one point during such a moment, I stumbled across something on the internet that made me pause.

Feet.

More specifically: an entire corner of the internet where people apparently earn money by sending photographs of their feet. Platforms exist for this. Entire communities. Anonymous and surprisingly organized. And, if the internet is to be believed, financially successful.

I remember staring at my screen thinking: well… that is certainly one way to approach adulthood.
Now before anyone jumps to conclusions, I did not pursue a career in foot photography. But the mere discovery of it does make you pause for a moment and reflect on the incredible variety of ways people apparently manage to make money.

Because while some of us are navigating meetings, budgets, and responsibility, somewhere out there a person is uploading pictures of their toes and calling it a workday.
And honestly, good for them.

There is a tiny part of me that admires the efficiency of that career choice. While I’m answering emails and discussing policies, someone else is apparently having a productive afternoon with their camera and their feet.
Adulthood clearly offers a wider range of options than school ever suggested.

Meanwhile, I continue to live what looks like a very respectable adult life from the outside. I run a school. I attend meetings. I make decisions that other people take seriously. I answer emails that multiply with impressive enthusiasm. And most of the time I genuinely enjoy what I do.
Education matters to me. People matter to me. The work itself can be meaningful and interesting.

But that does not prevent the occasional thought from appearing, usually on days when someone is arguing passionately about something that really should not require passion, where you briefly ask yourself: how exactly did I end up with this much responsibility?

On those days I find myself imagining alternative professions.

Perhaps something involving dogs.
A job where the primary requirement is hugging dachshunds and occasionally saying “good boy” in a professional tone. Ideally without needing to perform surgery on them, because that would require a completely different manual.

Or maybe a small café somewhere. Of course, knowing myself, I would probably start working there and within six months accidentally be running the entire place. Which rather defeats the original goal of escaping responsibility.

And then there is the practical side of adulthood.

Money.

The slightly uncomfortable truth is that you do become accustomed to what you earn. I still remember the early years of my career when I earned far less than I do now. Somehow life still worked. I paid my bills, saw friends, occasionally went out for dinner, and the world did not collapse.

But life has a curious way of expanding to match your income. As the years pass, expenses quietly grow alongside it. You buy a house, responsibilities multiply, subscriptions appear in mysterious places.

So when someone casually says, “Why don’t you just do something completely different?”, they are not entirely wrong. Of course it is possible to change direction.

But it does make you wonder whether trading stability for uncertainty is actually the clever escape route it sometimes appears to be in your imagination.
Especially if you might end up with less money and exactly the same existential questions.

Which would be a rather inefficient outcome.

That said, I do allow myself small moments of optimism.

I buy a lottery ticket every now and then. Not because I genuinely expect to win, but because a little hope never hurts anyone. The idea that somewhere out there a shortcut might exist is strangely comforting, even if it never actually appears.

And then there are days like yesterday.
Yesterday morning began with mist. Proper mist. The kind that makes the world look as though it is still deciding what season it would like to be.

By the afternoon the sun appeared, and suddenly I found myself sitting outside with a plate of fresh fish in front of me, sunlight on my face, thinking: this is actually rather perfect.
If someone could package this exact moment: sun, good food, no meetings and turn it into a full-time career, I would be very interested.
Although judging by social media, a number of influencers seem to have already figured out something close to that formula somewhere in Bali. I see those videos sometimes and can’t help but smile.       Either they discovered the manual after all, or they are extremely good at filming the chapters where everything looks effortless.

To be fair, if I were living that life, I would probably film those chapters too.

There is no chapter called The Easy Way Out. No secret shortcut hidden between responsibility and freedom.

The idea of it is comforting though. The thought that somewhere there might be a neat set of instructions explaining how to balance work, money, ambition, freedom, and the occasional plate of perfect fish in the sun.

But adulthood, it seems, is less like following instructions and more like writing the manual as you go along.

Which explains why everyone occasionally looks slightly surprised by the result.

-Sophie Quinn