The Inspiring Humility of Breakfast Cereal Appreciation

Adulthood has been very humbling for me.

I imagined saving the world, and doing fantastic things and feeling REALLY EXCITED about doing them.

The truth is that I get up in the morning and make breakfast, and I walk my dog, and I go to my office. The same office that I go to every day. And my days are not made up of dramatic moments in capes or global-coups, but rather small moments of standing in my dingy office kitchen, waiting for a cup of coffee to brew.

Olivia Pope on Scandal is the closest I can come to describing what I thought adulthood would be like. Except not even that, because if the president were dating me, he had better be home for dinner too.

Either way, Olivia Pope on Scandal is a far cry from my quiet duplex on a gravel road in a sleepy college town where I've been to every restaurant at least twice. But it's not even the context of where I live that I'm referring to.

I've changed careers and directions multiple times. I've lived in big cities and among rural farmland. I've been so insanely busy that I didn't have time to eat lunch, and I've moved at a pace so slow that breakfast was hardly done by noon. I have followed my bliss at times, and at others I have done what I was supposed to do. In spite of all of those new beginnings and fresh starts and bold decisions, every morning, I get up, and I make breakfast, and I walk my dog. I shower. I figure out what clothes to wear. I start my day.

My vision of adulthood did not include the mundane actualities of life. I did not envision my morning commute, or desperately searching for a plastic fork in my office kitchen, or sorting my mail every day. I definitely had no idea how much time I'd spend reading and responding to emails and bemoaning my lack of inbox organization.

I thought that both relationships and jobs were magical places where the world would fall away and I would stand in the midst of perfection, endlessly overcoming challenges and difficulties with witty retorts and effortless up-dos. Like jobs, I have found relationships too can be somewhat less than idyllic. Relationships can involve actual conversations about whether or not it is OK to pop someone's backne. And who is going to empty the dishwasher next. Or when we last went on a date. Or what a date even is. Or if we could afford to both eat dinner. At Chipotle.

It was easier to have things figured out when my mom said "hey, next year, you go to Kindergarten." And then sure enough, I did! And when I had to walk into school, I never questioned "why am I not getting a ride?" because I didn't even know other kids got rides. Do you remember that time when snowbanks became potential snow forts, and hills were places to race down? Because that was the entire world: the walk into school.

And then it was all pretty straightforward for a while. I knew what grade came next. I knew when my next spelling test was. I knew where the cafeteria was and that every other week I'd get that great cardboard pizza the teachers had to come around with spatulas to de-crust from the tin foil. It was a pretty good life.

Yeah, that kid was a sucker.

That kid thought cardboard pizza and salisbury steak were the highlights of fine dining. That kid didn't ask questions about that brutal mile of snow banks and harsh winds, uphill both ways. That kid needed to have adventures on the walk to school, because very little else about life was mysterious or unpredictable. (Aside from the ongoing suspense about the realness of Santa Claus and why the tooth fairy gave other kids better stuff when they lost a tooth).

That kid was a sucker, and that kid was also ridiculously happy about choosing between Froot Loops and Lucky Charms for breakfast. I remember the first time I got to try Count Chocula -- I'd had to lobby for that one. I thought I had won Monopoly that day. Cocoa Puffs. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Trix. Reading the backs of the boxes in my footie pajamas.

That was the world of choice for me as a kid: "what do you want for breakfast?" my dad would crack open my door and ask me. And I could imperiously choose anything at all that we had in the cupboard. I could even cry if we ran out of something.

Now, I ask myself if I am inspired by my work. I ask if I'm really making the biggest difference possible. I worry about my health. And my sanity. And my legacy. And my income. And how long it has been since I last took the garbage out. Do you know what I eat for breakfast now? Me either. Because I'm allergic to everything delicious.

My questions got so much bigger, but my world, really, did not. And Olivia Pope doesn't have it all figured out with her adulterous boyfriend, and workaholic gladiators, and questionable ethical decisions either. She too has to get up in the morning and eat breakfast. And while she never looks tired, I suspect that coffee in her hand is not merely a prop. And I suspect she falls asleep at night wondering what, the fuck, she is doing with her life.

No matter how big your cape, the questions are still there. What am I doing with my life? Is this...it?

How come I didn't ask that when I was choosing between Lucky Charms and Froot Loops? How come I didn't wonder then about the meaninglessness of my life? How come I just shrugged and thought "this is what being a kid is like"? Was I just oblivious? Naively content? Unimaginative?

The danger of adulthood is that it is easy to think we have immeasurable control. We can do anything, be anything, live anywhere, have anything we want. And nobody tells us that we're going to spend half of our time even figuring out what we want, and then ruling all sorts of things on that list out, because we realize getting those things would be more trouble than we're willing to take on. And then, even if we decide we want something, the truth is that the simple pleasures of a delicious breakfast in very real ways actually make us much happier in an ongoing sense than impressive promotions or professional achievements.

Except I don't want just a delicious breakfast anymore. I probably don't even think I have time for breakfast most days. I want meaning and flowers and sunshine and rooms in my house that look like they're from a magazine, but that some elf comes in and keeps pristine for me while I take over the effing world.

And that is the disconnect. I thought when I was a grown-up I could do whatever I wanted. And in some ways, yes, I absolutely have more control and agency than children do. Like, for example, I would never bring a box of Froot Loops into my house now. Because I don't want to die of a sugar coma. But I also thought that being able to make those choices would lead to a happiness more enduring and more profound, and just, well, bigger, than playing in a snowbank did.

Except all of those choices didn't lead to more bliss, but infinitely more choices, and inevitably, questions.

And the fabric of happiness didn't change just because my access to choice did. The fabric of happiness is still mostly, and enduringly appreciating simple pleasures as they appear, in the middle of my otherwise mundane days.

In recognition of this, I have stopped trying to find the perfect job, or the perfect apartment. For the first time, I'm living in the same place two years in a row. I have accepted that my friends are painfully imperfect, as am I. And that the carpet in my office is very ugly and very much stained, and I actually can live with that.

I don't make these choices in a move towards fatalism or depression or giving up, but rather, because I want to live my life. Right now. Here. Before I'm old from all of this waiting for things to begin or my carpet to be replaced. I often hear that if I'm not striving to be the most awesome version of myself that I'm settling. But do you know what I think is settling? Living a life where I'm not ecstatic to get out of bed in the morning, just because it's morning.

Every morning, every single morning, Bandit gets excited to get out of bed. He acts like it's the most thrilling thing we could possibly be doing with our lives. And considering that he pees in his diaper, this is not the dancing of a full bladder either. He loves it. We are GOING TO GET UP!!!!! AND GO OUTSIDE!!! IN THE SAME EXACT YARD WE WALK IN EVERY MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOGETHER!!!!!!!!! Every morning, I get up with him, except my experience of the same event is "I have to walk my dog. I wonder if he'd get mad if I made tea first. How cold is it outside? Do I need a jacket? What does my hair look like? Am I going to scare the neighbors? Maybe I could sleep for ten more minutes... or someone else could walk him..." Because, in my head, I should be able to do anything I want. And in his head, a morning walk is the entire world of morning possibilities.

And that pretty much encapsulates why Bandit and Froot-Loop Selecting Sandy are so much more content and happier than adult Sandy. I think by embracing what I have, and not asking for more than that, I can be a little bit more grateful for what I have within the constraints of what I actually have, rather than within the constraints of all possible existences I might potentially live. Forget opportunity cost. Spending all this time wanting and waiting costs more than hypothetical missed opportunities. I mean, if Bandit and I are going to go on a morning walk every day, I'd kind of rather respond like he does.

So, adulthood has been humbling for me. It is not the fantasy I'd imagined it would be. And talking to friends, I know it isn't always so easy for them either. I mean, that's why we love to watch New Girl right? It's not just that we all have a crush on Zooey, but that also we too are thirty-odd-year-olds choosing our breakfast each morning, confused about how other people seem to have it all figured out, but pretty sure that they don't. They might be better at pulling together an up-do, and looking awake with their coffee, but they don't seem excited about their cereal either.

This is my advice. Go write your screenplay, your zombie novel, or your haiku to end all haikus. Find your own way and don't stop believing that you're awesome. But realize that most of the time, most of your happiness is going to come from a really good box of Count Chocula, with a really tricky maze on the back of the cereal box. Maybe, just maybe, figuring out that maze while appreciating the finest dining breakfast cereal can be the source of your happiness rather than your angst. Because you can't actually climb the Himalayas, while writing your inspiring life story, and eat your breakfast cereal all at the same time. So start with the cereal. Because we kind of have to. And if you can get excited about that, then maybe you're ready to move on from there.

It's a pretty good place to start.

Namaste.