In essence, adulting has become
my hobby. On an average day, I
will wake up early, make coffee,
then immediately get to work on
my laptop. But my day is con-
stantly interrupted by unavoid-
able duties such as cooking,
washing the dishes, sweeping,
watering plants, scrubbing the
bathtub, doing laundry, taking
out the garbage, keeping track of
expenses, getting toothpaste
from the drugstore. I do not rush
through these activities with an
attitude of resentment, or be-
lieve I’m too important, or even
too busy, to be completing them
in the first place. Instead, I do
them, consciously – mindfully,
even. Ticking every item off a to-
do list gives me an inordinate
sense of accomplishment.
Ironically, what makes these
tasks enjoyable is the fact that,
technically, I don’t have to do
them any more. We live in a
world of utmost convenience,
where almost every single pro-
saic activity can be outsourced.
We no longer have to learn how
to take care of ourselves, because
as long as we have enough mon-
ey, there is always someone who
can do it for us. There is no in-
centive to cook, thanks to Food-
ora; for driving, there’s Uber; for
leaky faucets or putting together
furniture, there’s TaskRabbit;
and for any random activity
someone is willing to perform
for $5, there’s Fiverr. This aver-
sion to grunt work advances the
mindset that domestic tasks
have little value and therefore
ought to be outsourced in order
to devote time toward more eso-
teric pursuits.
More often than not, these
esoteric pursuits turn out to be
more work. “Free time can al-
ways turn into productivity, so
when productivity is properly
managed, there is no such thing
as free time,” Malcolm Harris
writes in the 2018 treatise on mil-
lennial culture,Kids These Days.
Mr. Harris argues that present so-
cial conditions lead kids as early
as preschool to view themselves
as human capital who must
work toward fulfilling their full
potential or else risk certain fail-
ure. Human capital views time as
an investment: If an individual is
going to be spending time on an
activity, it had better pay off.
Technically, nothing about
these compulsory duties ever
pays off; like a millstone around
the neck, they’re a permanent
weight that never quite lifts be-
cause they invariably need to be
performed over and over again.
A dirty floor will just get dirty
again, so why bother sweeping at
all? Answer: because the routine
completion of these tedious
tasks helps life to flow more
smoothly. If I go through the
trouble of picking up milk while
doing errands, the next morning
I will be able to enjoy coffee
made to my own specifications
instead of frustrated and crabby
at the inconvenience caused by
failing to perform a last-minute
errand.
Earlier this year, writer Anne
Helen Petersen published an
essay on BuzzFeed about her in-
ability to complete these small
tasks. Ms. Petersen self-diag-
nosed her inability to go to the
post office as “millennial
burnout,” a generationwide ex-
haustion that comes with every
moment of one’s life being opti-
mized for work. After the essay
was published, it received wide-
spread praise, then inevitable
backlash: It failed to take into ac-
count the generational trauma
faced by people of colour, and
that the problem of exhaustion
isn’t unique to millennials.
Two months later, Maureen
O’Connor wrote a similar story
for The Cut about the outsourc-
ing economy, admitting that she
eschews trips to the grocery
store in favour of ordering per-
ishables through Amazon Fresh.
(One time, a single onion was
delivered in a furniture-sized
box.)
But while these essays expert-
ly zero in on the locus of a prob-
lem – that the former goalposts
by which we used to measure
adulthood have all but disap-
peared – they fail to provide a
way out of the modern morass of
convenience that has all but con-
sumed our very will to live. Shift-
ing the small acts that make up
“adulting” from drudgery to the
sublime is the only way out of
this bone-tired corner that late
capitalism has painted us into.
If grunt work can be elevated
into something that is inherently
satisfying, it will remove some of
the control capitalism has over
our lives. Sure, I could summon ahot meal or a handyman to my
door with the nimble swipe of a
finger, provided there’s enough
money in my bank account, but
why would I want to? The ability
to cook and clean for myself is
not just an insistence on humili-
ty, it’s a way of taking back pow-
er in a world that not just ex-
pects but profits off of my own
helplessness. It’s never been eas-
ier to figure out how to do things
oneself – “Rule 34,” which dic-
tates that if something exists, it’s
been made into porn, applies
just as much to YouTube instruc-
tional videos as it does smut –
but tinkering as a hobby has
largely been left behind in the
converted garage workshops of
the houses most millennials will
never own.
I come by this desire to DIY
honestly. My family hails from a
rural area where self-sufficiency
is paramount. The majority of
the food they consume comes
from a vegetable patch in the
backyard or livestock raised and
slaughtered by the neighbours;
the surplus is frozen and feasted
upon for the remainder of the
year.
Groceries are supplemental, as
opposed to a necessity. My par-
ents buy next to nothing because
they want for so little, and whenthey do, it can always be found
second-hand. Nothing about
their life could be described as
convenient – they only recently
got WiFi and have a habit of un-
plugging the router when it’s not
in use, terrified some internet
demon will filch their precious
bandwidth – and that’s the way
they like it. They’re essentially
living the modern hipster’s fan-
tasy of farm life, only that’s the
way they’ve always lived.
My boyfriend is convinced my
yen for self-sufficiency is some-
how a marker of lurking conser-
vatism. But just as the Luddites
were painted as the enemies of
technological progress for de-
stroying knitting machines in
the 1800s, my intentions are eas-
ily misconstrued. The term “Lud-
dite” has become shorthand for
technological ineptitude; say, a
mom who refuses to let go of her
landline in favour of a smart-
phone.
But in actuality, Luddites at-
tacked only the factories whose
owners upheld exploitative
working conditions. They were
labour activists, not inept fogeys.
By eschewing the technological
advances designed to make my
life more convenient, I am lead-
ing a quiet one-person rebellion
against the working conditions
that require these services exist
in the first place.
The trick is to view everything
in life as a success, even the most
basic tasks.
Once I was able to accord the
same level of accomplishment to
a trip to the grocery store as I did
a long-held career goal, my life
was suddenly flooded with suc-
cess. For example, if I manage to
put on a great outfit and do my
hair and makeup in a day, I view
that as a success rather than an
integral part of daily life. It’s
gamifying life, only the stakes
are much, much lower. Pouring
my self-image into tasks that I
can actually accomplish, instead
of relying on outside validation,
has done wonders for my self-es-
teem. Simply put, to take radical
pleasure in one’s own mediocrity
is the best way to defang the
threat of constant failure.
Academically, this concept is
called kakonomics, or, as philos-
opher Gloria Origgi writes, the
“weird preference for low-quality
payoffs.” Ultimately, it’s about re-
negotiating expectations toavoid disappointment at all
costs. If an individual puts little
effort into a venture that results
in minimal gain, the outcome
should be more or less expected.
It’s an agreed-upon discount on
quality that makes life more re-
laxing for everyone. Instead of
chasing excellence, why not get a
few loads of laundry done in-
stead?
In the long-term, Ms. Origgi
writes, a prolonged series of
these low-quality exchanges will
erode the system. Kakonomics
regulates exchanges for the
worst, meaning that if individu-
als are continually satisfied with
mediocrity, they’ll never have
the joy of experiencing excel-
lence.
But with the current concern
over climate change that has
turned almost everyone into a
doomsayer, humanity might not
have that much time left any-
ways.
So far, self-care and self-im-
provement have served as a
balm for people hoping to self-
soothe in a broken culture, but
no matter how many face masks
and rose quartz crystals an indi-
vidual buys, they cannot magick
themselves out of reality. Drink-
ing kombucha and lighting
scented candles will not cure
anxiety or depression; the only
surefire way to improve one’s life
is to come to terms with one’s
own inherent mediocrity.
Putting this philosophy into
practice shouldn’t feel like giving
up or a failure, it should feel like
freedom from both society’s ex-
pectations and one’s own unreal-
istic ideas of productivity.
Adulting, when done right, is
a way of creating meaning for
oneself in a world where it’s so
often hard to come by. People
are trained to feel as if executive
duties are a distraction from life
when, in reality, they’re the main
event.
Every time you suspect your
efforts are not enough, I urge
you to accomplish one task that
will make life a little bit easier, be
it wading through the mountain
of dirty dishes in the sink, or re-
turning an overdue library book.
You will be happier for it, I prom-
ise. And frankly, if you can shift
your worldview so that launder-
ing your bedsheets becomes the
height of accomplishment, life
might not be so dire after all.PHOTOILLUSTRATION: THEGLOBEANDMAIL. SOURCEIMAGES:ISTOCKAdulting:Whendoneright,it’sawayofcreatingmeaningforoneself
inaworldwherethatisoftenhardtocomeby
FROMO1Self-care and
self-improvement
have served as a balm
for people hoping to
self-soothe in a broken
culture, but no matter
how many face masks
and rose quartz crystals
an individual buys,
they cannot magick
themselves out
of reality.SATURDAY,NOVEMBER2,2019| THEGLOBEANDMAIL O OPINION | O5