Welcome To The Learning Curve

Careful It Can Change Without Warning...

I like to think that I know a lot of things. I understand that I am young and still have a lot to learn, but I tend to be under the illusion that I know how to do normal adult things. Key word in that sentence: illusion. Sure I know how to cook food and drive a car, but there are so many additional components that add on to the "cook" and "drive" action. For instance I do not always know how to fix broken components on my car, but I do know when I need to seek professional experience (or most of the time I do). I also am perfectly capable to cook an egg, but might lack the knowledge that if you put a lid over the cooking egg it might explode. Did you know it might explode? I didn't either until yesterday, but it wasn't that traumatizing.

Some things I have learned since starting out:

1. Things will break because they are old, not just because you did something stupid. In this case I call the apartment maintenance people. If you have any questions about why I suggest this, see any of my post about my toilet situation.
2. There is very little you can do about electrical and gas prices, but you can always find ways of cutting back on usage. When I was at school and in my parent's house, I didn't worry about silly things like heating bills and would hardly notice when people would change the thermostat. I happen to like my world a little on the cold side (though with this winter I'm looking forward to swim suite season more and more). I didn't always remember to turn it back up when I had people over and they would end up shivering.
3. A lot of things are expensive. It's not just the gas and electric bills that can be high. Everything is paid for by yours truly now. I have to budget and keep track of my spending. It's tough, but so far I've been successful with it. If I really want something I have to make sure it either fits into the budget or I have to save for it. Maybe I'll do a "How to save in the first year of starting out" for those who are curious as to my method.
4. Making friends is hard especially people your own age. I'm not kidding, unless you are moving to a place where you already know people or there is a great social life just waiting for you (read any major city in America), you might have a hard time figuring out how to make friends in your area and aren't at work. I finally found an Anime club to join and have been going to church. My area isn't exactly hopping with activities for people just out of school and I'm a bit shy about meeting lots of new people right away.
5. You will continue to find out about things you never knew you didn't know about. Hand washing, how to fix the circuit breaker in you apartment, anything bad that can happen to your car, all of these things I never would have thought about before leaving home. I had other people to do these things for me (wow does that make me sound like a spoiled brat). Anyway, now I'm learning all of these things for myself. Some of them are hard to manage (finding a dentist I trust for one). Others make me feel real accomplished for learning how to master (hand washing).

Some of these things are hard to learn (and I'm notorious for learning things the hard way ). But with some patients, a little trial and error and a whole lot of luck, they can be learned and put into practice. I enjoy learning new things and this list doesn't even count the things I'm learning from the work environment. So the next time someone asks a question you feel they should already know, please stop and take a second to consider where they are in life and then help them to understand why its important they learn these things because I'm pretty sure I blew off a few of these lessons in my school days. Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please leave a comment or share it with your friends, family or worst enemy. I enjoy hearing back from my readers and I hope you enjoy my posts. Until next week.