True or false? Score 1 point for every true answer.
1. You frequently find yourself asking, “What should I do with my life?”
2. Watching sitcoms from your adolescence on Netflix makes everything feel better.
3. You still keep loads of stuff in the house you grew up in.
4. You still keep loads of stuff in the house you grew up in because you still live there.
5. You wonder whether you’ve really got any friends anymore.
6. You feel out of place at church because everyone else seems to have kids, a perm or a teddy bear (because they’re either a parent, a pensioner or four years old).
7. You dread family occasions because relatives will ask you what you’re doing with your life.
8. Life was definitely better when you were a teenager.
9. You suspect that quitting everything and going travelling might just solve all your problems.
10. Social media leaves you with the miserable suspicion that most of your friends have more fun/a better relationship/more money/a better house/more friends than you do (1 point for each).
11. You’ve ended up in a job that has absolutely nothing to do with what you dreamed of doing when you were six (or eleven, or sixteen).
12. You don’t know how to do grown-up things like defrosting a freezer or paying your bills without looking it up on the internet or calling a real adult.
13. You suspect your mother is a little bit sad that you’re not married by now.
14. You’re a bit sad that you’re not married by now.
15. You are married and you’re still a bit sad right now.
16. You’re worried that everyone at work will find out that you’re secretly terrible at it.
17. “Buy a house? WITH WHAT MONEY?”
18. You worry that you’ve got God’s plan for your life wrong.
19. You worry that God’s got his plan for your life wrong.
20. Looking closely in the mirror is an increasingly distressing experience.
21. You’d really like a job that you’d find more fulfilling… but you’ve got no idea what that would be.
22. You sometimes quietly wonder if you should give up on God.
23. You’re just… a bit bored of life.
24. The way you wander aimlessly around Aldi or Walmart wondering what to have for dinner is a metaphor for your complete inability to make decisions. About anything.
25. Everyone else seems to be having babies, and you wonder how you got to this stage of life so quickly.
26. You didn’t expect that being an adult would involve this much life admin.
27. Your back hurts.
28. Your bank account is like a black hole: no matter how much you earn, or how little you spend, there’s never much left at the end of the month.
29. You catch yourself talking about the pros and cons of various household appliances with your friends and then saying, “WHEN DID WE GET THIS OLD?”
30. You find yourself asking, “Is this it?”
31. You’re a parent to someone who would answer “true” to a lot of those questions, and you thought they’d have grown up by now—and you’re not sure quite where things got stuck. (Add 5 points.)
A personal journey through the challenges of adulting, revealing the difference Jesus makes
You’ve reached the age that you thought you’d have life figured out by—and you’re disappointed to find that you don’t. Welcome to the club. This book is aimed right at you.
You’re doing an OK job at keeping it together as a fully-functioning grown-up. Some days you even do your own laundry and eat the recommended number of fruit and vegetable portions. Other days you lie in your bed with your duvet over your head when the alarm goes, asking “Why?” You need to read this book.
Well, OK, you seem to be more or less keeping it together—but who doesn’t want to buy a book with an avocado on the cover. Besides, you probably know someone who needs this book. Or maybe you’re a student and you still have most of this ahead of you. In which case, read this book to prepare you for the day you find yourself wailing down the phone to an unsuspecting friend or relative, “WHAT AM I MEANT TO BE DOING WITH MY LIFE?”
Is This It? by Rachel Jones is a personal journey through the challenges of adulting, revealing the difference Jesus makes to your 20s. Sooner or later, most of us find that adult life is not all it’s cracked up to be. At some point we take a look at where we’ve got to and wonder: “Is this it? Why did no one warn me that adult life was going to be this… difficult?” If that's you, find out more about the book here.
Rachel Jones is the author of A Brief Theology of Periods (Yes, really), Is This It?, and several books in the award-winning Five Things to Pray series, and serves as Vice President (Editorial) at The Good Book Company. She helps teach kids and serves on the mission core team at her church, King's Church Chessington, in Surrey, UK.