Alright, guys, it's time to be honest. The title of this article bugs me. Because in the end, facing life and adulthood on your own terms of fraught enough without trying to live up to other peoples' expectations of you.
(Editor's note: your buggedness has been noted and ignored.)
But here's the thing—other peoples' expectations aside, self-sufficiency is a big part of feeling like an adult, and if you feel like one, then you're pretty much 95% of the way towards being one. What is adulthood, after all, if not a confidence scheme in every sense? So here are eight household items you need to have around in order to get your stuff together, convince yourself you've got your stuff together, and in turn convince those around you.
Kitchen Essentials
Cooking may well be the single biggest thing you can do for yourself. It's cheaper than eating out (sometimes), especially if you're cooking for more than one day or more than one person. It's a valuable skill to have to show off to your friends or a special someone. It's also a huge confidence builder. Like a lot of skills, it looks harder than it is, and there are a lot of easy places to start learning before you level up to hard stuff.
But first you need equipment.
Most kitchen gadgets are inessential, but you need stuff to cook in, and you need spices. You should also get a can opener, a spatula, and cups and spoons to measure with. If you want to get fancier than that—have at it. But this is the basic gear that will put you on the right culinary track.
A Suit
Barney Stinson was more of a cautionary tale than the role model people tried to make him out to be. But he was right about one thing—suits are, in fact, “the sartorial equivalent of a baby's smile.”
And the thing about suits is that they're good in a variety of situations. They're good for job interviews and work. They're good for dates. If you get invited to something fancier than you're used to, you have something to wear. And honestly, if you're having a bad day, wandering around in a suit's a great confidence booster.
An Iron
In a pinch, you can run your clothes through the dryer to get wrinkles out. But not everybody's living space has room for a washing machine and dryer. Everybody DOES have room for an iron, though. They're tiny.
This goes back to the same principle as the suit. Your confidence shouldn't be tied to your appearance, but looking sharp doesn't hurt anybody. Especially if you're trying to land a job or a date.
A Toilet Brush and Plunger
You'd be surprised how many bathroom-related problems you can fix yourself with a toilet brush and plunger. And even if you've never clogged a toilet in your life,
A: You will.
B: Someone else who comes over to your place will.
A pipe snake wouldn't hurt either.
A Vacuum
Pick up a vacuum, seriously. If you have wood or tile floors, you're not off the hook, either—you need a mop and a broom. Whatever you have, it should be within your power to clean your place. Having dirty surroundings drains your mood more than you might expect. Give yourself the gift of a decently clean place to live.
A Tool Kit
This isn't some huge, macho trip. You don't have to have a workshop full of rotary saws you're never going to use. But you should be able to do some basic repairs.
You'd be amazed how much you can take care of around your home with a screwdriver and a YouTube tutorial. If you own a place, you're about to save yourself hundreds of dollars. If you rent, you're about to be your landlord's favorite tenant, as long as you communicate about what you're doing. Either way, being able to take care of the little problems that come up turns into a big deal over time.
A First Aid Kit
You can buy a basic first aid kit from just about any store worth its salt, and most stores that aren't. Alternatively, you can assemble one yourself if you're feeling ambitious. Get bandages, gauze, painkillers, antiseptic gel like Neosporin, a thermometer…the basics you need to take care of an injury.
Furniture
You don't have to spend a ton of money on furniture. You can go to IKEA; you can go to Goodwill; you can hit up Craigslist; you can pick something up off the sidewalk on moving day if you have to. But if you have someone over, you need stuff to sit on that isn't a milk crate. If you plan on someone seeing your bed, it needs to be on something other than the floor.
And the cool thing is you get to decide what your furniture looks like. If you have the money (or a lot of time), you could go full-on mid-century modern (aka what you see on Archer) or make everything wine-colored or just have big concrete slabs everywhere. Whatever. This is your place. That means you make the decisions.
Whether you want to really take charge and make your home an extension of your identity or just put something together that's functional enough is up to you. But you need something.