In a week or so I will have left my twenties behind for, I’m told, my thirties. I’m not much of a birthday celebrater, but I have been reflecting on the past decade, and marveling at how little I seemed to have learned during it. Sure, I managed to pay my taxes, and apply for a couple of apartments. I can hold a job. Well, I can hold a job where the boss is my sister.
But I can’t do a lot of things. I don’t really drive. I’m too scared to cook most meats. I’ve never ironed anything—I do a poor man’s steam, which is when you hang your garment in the bathroom while you shower and hope the heat gets the wrinkles out. The other day I called my dad to ask how many thousands are in a million. (It’s a thousand!)
Turns out a lot of people in my generation are similarly, woefully, worrisomely, underprepared for their adult years. So for this week’s column, I decided to go deep into the world of adult education to see what we can do about it.
Life Is In Session
In an airy, wood-accented event space in Brooklyn, a few dozen adults gathered to talk about their next phases of life. A pregnant woman was gearing up for a cross-country move. A young Brit was finishing up graduate school and preparing to leave the States. A woman just lost her job and isn’t sure what comes next except for her wedding, which is in two weeks. A professor was facing the prospect of being an empty nester. A middle-aged dad was navigating a divorce.
There was much nodding. A lot of mhmms. After introducing ourselves, with our name and a life change we were anticipating, we were invited to reflect on transitions we’d gone through in the past, before partnering up to share notes.
Young people today have fewer kids, no houses, and finance everything from clothes to concerts with layaway plans.
“Remember,” Alex Simon, the facilitator of this workshop, called out to the room, “Listen deeply. No fixing, no problem solving.” The class, Life Transitions: Crisis and Change, is part of a series she started. It’s called Lifeshop. Simon, 29, started teaching it to undergraduates at Yale two years ago, then adapted it into a three-month course open to the public in New York. It began in March, and since then, she estimates that 900 to 1,000 people have come through the doors.
“It’s all the things that I wish I learned in college but never did,” said Simon.
Those things include: how to listen, how to fight with someone you love, how to apologize, and how to deal with a friendship breakup, as well as navigating big life transitions. You know, those things that every single person has to do but which make most of us feel completely unprepared.