How Do Your Adulting Skills Measure Up?

About This Quiz

"Adulting" is a  neologism that came about in the last decade to describe the various skill sets that go into functioning successfully in the adult world. While professional skills address how you make a living and personal or soft skills address your relationships, "adulting" covers the whole enchilada. If you pay your bills on time, eat five fruits and vegetables per day, visit your grandma, pay attention to your boo, keep your home clean and fit in three workouts or more every week, you're adulting. Indeed, if you do all that and you're an engaged member of your community, civic-minded, a friend who shows up for his or her friends and a good parent, you're adulting on a very high level indeed!

Of course, all of this depends on a certain degree of luck. If you're disabled, sick, poor, or facing mental health issues, the elements of adulting can be harder. Most people figure out workarounds and hacks that work for them, which is all the more impressive - and for the rest of us, of course, true adulting means knowing not to judge unwisely. We can only evaluate our own progress, goals and limits. Once we take those things into account, then we can truly say whether we're adulting well or not!

Ultimately, some people are great at adulting, and others are less so. Indeed, one of the things you learn, sometime between the ages of 5 and 15, is that absolutely nobody has it entirely together. Everyone lets things fall through the cracks and anyone who seems like they don't is probably outsourcing a lot of the work to babysitters, housekeepers, personal trainers, or agreeable relatives. Still, some of us get closer than others. Are you one of them? Let's find out!