Hello and welcome back to savvy psychologist. I'm Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

This week, do you take odd pride in knowing how to clean the dishwasher filter?

Do you tell your friends in a conspiratorial whisper about the miracle of compound interest?

Does going to bed at 930 give you a high? If so, congrats. You are adulting.

Adulting, which the Oxford English Dictionary shortlisted for Word of the Year in 2016,

along with Alt-Write, Hooger, Woke, and Post Truth is behaving in a manner consistent with responsible

adulthood.

And this can be little things like cleaning snow off your windshield with an actual snow brush rather than your

flailing late-to-work arms. Or it could be making a dentist appointment without your mother

reminding you. But it can also be the big things, figuring out your values, learning how to take care of yourself,

and taking responsibility for your life rather than blaming traffic, your little brother, or Jack Daniels.

Now, much of adulting consists of working against human nature.

We humans tend to focus on whatever shiny thing is directly in front of us.

So adulting often means taking the long view, saving

for retirement, doing cardio, taking your vitamins. But as the name implies, it's also simply

the process of growing up.

Adulting occurs as you trade dependence for independence and self-centeredness for community.

And over the years, out of all the college seniors I've worked with in treatment,

100% have freaked out about graduation in one way or another.

It is normal.

So for example, one woman obsessively read personal finance books to cope with her anxiety about supporting herself.

Another, after triumphantly turning in her thesis, fell into a deep slump, and another questioned the decades that lay before him.

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