Article February 3, 2020 Issue

“Adulting” without the stress

John Biggs

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column October 11, 2019.

I join countless other young adults who say adulting can be hard! The definition, “the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks” (lexico.com), hints at a reason why many young adults struggle with or even resent it. It’s a view of things that essentially assumes that life is mostly made up of mundaneness, hopefully punctuated with some fun weekends and vacations.

Is it really irrevocably true that life—at any age—is nothing more than a collection of tasks that need to be performed? It certainly may seem like it; people talk about the “daily grind” a lot. But my study and practice of Christian Science have convinced me that the truth is something deeper.

When we’re casting all around, trying to figure out what we need to do next, I’ve found what’s most helpful is to be more conscious of the presence of God. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, has a fascinating and helpful definition of the word day in her primary book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She states that during God’s day, “the objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded” (p. 584).