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40 Bitter Truths About Being An Adult That Usually Don’t Cross Teens’ Minds, As Pointed Out In This Viral Thread
When you're a kid and a teenager, the idea of adulthood can seem like a promise of a brand new world full of thrilling opportunities and all sorts of amazing things. You finally get your well-deserved freedom, there's absolutely nobody to tell you what to do, you can create and live your life however you want and, most importantly, you finally have the liberty to go to sleep whenever you'd like, right?
In reality, once the long-awaited adulthood finally visits, stuff tends to get a tiny bit more complicated, and this AskReddit thread with over 74k upvotes is the perfect proof of that. The thread was started by the user u/berkel-is-a-madlad who asked fellow community members "What is something that sucks about being an adult that most teenagers don’t realize?" With that being said, Bored Panda invites you to look at some of the best answers we managed to find. As always, feel free to answer the question yourself in the comment section.
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#1
For me it's watching my parents get old.
As a teenager I thought they were all about keeping me restricted and controlled. Now I realize they're just two people who never had a kid before, did the best they knew how, and fu**ed up at times like all other humans on the planet.
I never realized how much I needed them emotionally until I saw my father through his open heart surgery, and saw Parkinson's take my mother's independence.
So here I am still feeling like a teenager on the inside, staring down the barrel of 50, wondering what the hell happened.
BastWren 3 years ago
Here's a good lesson, then. Tell your parents that you love them now, rather than after the fact when they are gone and won't know. Even with their faults (we all have them) try to appreciate them for who they are. Keep in mind that they will not be here forever; life is ephemeral and one day (whether through accident/illness, etc., or due to age) they will be gone, often suddenly. I realize that this doesn't apply the same for people who have parents from hell...I mean for everyone else.
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#2
Planning dinner every damn night.
hyperunknown 3 years ago
Our everyday struggle - "What do you want to eat today?" - "I don't know" - "Me either" .. Not the worst problem in the world obviously but still :p
#3
You don't fundamentally change, you are still you, even if you are older. It's the same you, you just need to survive in the adult world.
You don't gain adult powers, you just have to do adult things.
Happi doggi 3 years ago
It’s like when a girl gets her first period. Does she suddenly have infinite information about it? No, she just has to figure it out and survive having it every month for the next 50 years.
#4
You can do whatever you want, but most of the time you either have commitments that prevent it, or you can't afford it.
#5
One day your body will betray you.
Nikki Sevven 3 years ago
Getting hurt in your 20s means actually doing something that screwed up your body. Getting hurt in your 50s: you slept wrong.
#6
Being lonely. Making friends as an adult is difficult, sometimes verging on impossible. You don't see people in your age group who are doing the same things you are every day anymore.
#7
You are always cleaning the kitchen
#8
You come home from work and you're tired and if you don't feel like making dinner, then you're not eating dinner.
#9
The repetition makes you lose time. Having the same job, workout regimen, schedule in general makes days blend into one another
Edit. Thanks for all the replies. I just want to point out I didn't mean life becomes boring. I was just talking about lack of those major separators we had as children like summer vacation, new school, your first kiss, etc. Due to those major separators missing I don't recall if I did something a year ago or 3 years ago. It's a little blurry if something happened 2 weeks ago or 4 months ago. This is because once you have a career and a home you're doing a lot of similar things most days(work, chores, cooking, hobbies, etc). This is why the days start to blend into one another, at least in your memory.
#10
When something goes wrong or something unexpected happens, there’s no one else to deal with it.
Plugged toilet? You gotta clear it.
Car outta gas? You gotta fill it.
Run out of clean undies? You gotta do laundry.
From small things to massive things, there’s no one to make it go away but you.
#11
That ordering food is actually expensive and your parents weren’t lying to you
#12
There’s never enough time for all the things you need to do. Definitely not enough time for the things you want to do
#13
Life revolves around grocery shopping, preparing food, washing dishes, doing laundry, vacuuming and tidying up. It does not stop, don't let it pile up for the weekends or else you waste your weekends stuck indoors.
Alcohol is not your friend, it does not have the answers you are looking for, and usually gets you in even more trouble. Drink with friends to celebrate, don't drink alone in silence.
#15
When all the cliches that used to piss you off start making sense and meaning something, but you can’t explain it to younger people because they haven’t lived that life experience yet.
Helen Haley 3 years ago
As I age I just find those cliches more and more reductive and less helpful.
#17
Each day is desperately short. Work consumes 75% of the time you’re awake. And the time you’re free is spent doing chores and being tired. Hobbies slowly cease to exist and you just start to look for quick escapes.
#18
That you had no idea what you were talking about when you were a teenager
#19
Dental care. It’s so damn expensive if you let your teeth degrade. Please floss my dudes.
smugdruggler 3 years ago
Yeah, if I could go back in time and give myself some advice I would say "look after your teeth and take care of your back".
#20
Forgetting your age is a real problem. The only people who remind me how old I am are my kids, and i often have to double check. I used to ask my parents how old they were and they always "cant remember" or said "21" and it confused me. I get it now.
#21
Even though February is the shortest month, the rent is still the same
Charlie grace 3 years ago
I knew someone whose tenant thought she didn't need to pay rent when she went on holiday for 2 weeks because she wouldn't be there :)
#22
You know all those things you thought you would do when you were out on your own? They cost money, and you have to work for it...
#23
The adult part.
The moment you need to pay for everything and the realization that fresh food spoils faster than you ever noticed before was eye opening
#24
The importance and scarcity of time. Your "you time" gets seriously reduced as you get older and your other responsibilities mount up. I used to think that spending half an hour cleaning 3 times a week was the worst thing ever. Now I spend about an hour cleaning pretty much every day. Between work, maintaining a house, and raising kids, the amount of you time gets reduced to.minutes a day. Anything else you want to do means sacrificing sleep.
The other thing is how true "time=money" actually is. Simply existing and breathing costs money. Food, rent, bills, transport cost money. Often the difference between happiness and unhappiness for me was comfortably making it to my next paycheck.
#25
Adult acne. It doesn’t magically go away when you turn 18
#26
You need to be mentally prepared for the "benchmarks" in your life to not happen or for them to not happen on the right schedule. The big events in your life up to now have been driven and put into place largely by governments and parents and teachers. This is by design - to slowly teach you the relationship between efforts and results. The accomplishments you have laid out as an adult in front of you are largely up to you, and your place in society has a lot more to do with luck than you'd probably like to think.
As a teenager you tend to think "I will get married at 28, have a kid at 30 and 33, but only after I've graduated from the elite engineering program of my choice." You may not achieve any of those things, and the obsession with delivering them on schedule will cause you deep frustration or even grief. You may not find a spouse, or have a child, or own a house, or even remain relatively healthy.
Learn to give yourself a break now before you spend years of your life grieving the future you believe you screwed yourself out of.
#28
Forty eight here
Bills don't stop or go away. Ever.
Work sucks. That's why they pay you to do it because nobody's doing that bullsh*t for free. Think of it as a means to your life and avoid it becoming your identity.
The term "work life balance" is HR code for "We own you. You're at our disposal 24/7/365"
Nobody owes you a damn thing and ain't nobody gonna give you nothing for free. They're much more likely to try to take what you have.
If not married, we're pretty sexually promiscuous and don't always adhere to the strict rules that we put on you - except that we're generally better with birth control and usually more fastidious about STD status.
You can choose one of two paths - shi**y life now or shi**y life later. The one thing I'd change about everything is to choose the shi**y life early on. Living life all YOLO or whatever you kids say when I was in my twenties came with consequences that persisted for decades and will likely render me unable to ever retire.
Time accelerates. Forty is but a blink away. So seize the opportunity you have today because it'll be gone in an instant.
#29
Metabolism does not go brrrrrrr
#30
You're at a time in your life when you see your friends almost every day at school. That should be cherished, because it's vastly simpler than maintaining friendships as you enter adulthood and you don't have that constant contact.
Life as an adult is change, most of it outside of your control. People change, circumstances shift...all of that work you put into your adult friendships can vanish in an instant, and you just have to adapt and move on.
Helen Haley 3 years ago
I had friends once upon a time. Now I live in trump country, finding someone with whom i have anything in common is just not going to happen.
#31
Money loses value QUICKLY as you get older. Give me $1000 at 15 and I would have been in heaven buying video games and gadgets candy and all sorts of stupid nonsense. Give me $1000 at 36 and it's going towards paying off the crushing debt that comes with adulthood and car repairs that I've put off way too long and all sorts of totally un-fun things.
#32
By the time you're 30 you are going to be lucky to see whatever close friends you have left more than a couple times a year. And it's considered normal.
#33
You can't just quit your job if you dont like it.
MB 3 years ago
I disagree…I spent years working a job I hated and was miserable. People have to stop putting this idea into others heads. You can leave whatever job, whenever you want, you just have to do it the right way and make sure you don’t leave yourself stranded. But their is no reason to stay at a job if your not happy with it. No way. Get the hell out as soon as you can. Work is not supposed to suck.
#34
You can be homeless.
#35
coming home from work and still work at home
#37
Money adds up quick. You see something cheap that you want as a teen and think “It’s only $5.” Yes it is only $5, but when the end of the month comes, all those “only” purchases add up really fast.
#38
Waking up and just aching for non discernible reason other than having slept ‘a bit funny’.
Oh, and the 3 day hangovers that make it barely worth drinking more than a couple glasses of wine
#39
Losing your identity and sense of purpose once you graduate and enter a job that sucks up all your time.
You have no energy to pursue the hobbies or interests you once had. You're also no longer able to be the Smart Kid or the Theatre Kid or the Jock or whatever -- you're just another depressed 20-something trying to survive, playing 1 hour of a video game you'll never finish per night just to feel something in between cooking, chores, and your depressingly early bedtime.
Patti Vance 3 years ago
the identity thing was something that i realized back in high school. i was a military brat so that meant i ended up moving/living in areas that other kids were born and raised. some of the 'townies' were so wrapped up with their position in the community - like the 'mayor's daughter' or the 'doctor's son' and acted like the rest of us needed to acknowledge they were 'special'. i called this the big fish in the little pond syndrome and always wondered how they were going to handle the real world when there would be bigger fish that could snap them up easily
#40
Discipline is very hard to maintain when you are lacking purpose.
When you are a teenager there’s so much you think you can achieve:
“I’ll get into that college.”
“I’ll get that degree.”
“I’ll land that cool job after.”
“I’ll date that person who will fulfill me.”
However, what happens when those things fail and you have to readjust? What if the idea of progress turns into an idea of just sustainment?
My advice to teenagers: The most important thing you need to work towards figuring out as you enter into early adulthood is your purpose. It can change over time of course, but never be without it.
What do you think ?
Kari Panda 3 years ago
Adult life comes with a lot of responsibilities and challenges, but I find this post paints a too dark picture. You can still have happiness as an adult and can find fullfillment in things you gave no thought about as a teenager.
Ozacoter 3 years ago
I agree. In HS and even college I was always busy after class with essays, examns and so (and housechores). Once I started working I was sueprised of how much free time I had. Yes I needed to do more chores than before but after work I had a lot of time. And while I didnt have a lot of money I had some and independence.
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Rens 3 years ago
I became disabled and chronically ill at 46, from walking 4 miles a day for fun, to being in a wheelchair within a week. I've had to come to terms with the fact that there are so many things I will never do, or do again. I never appreciated my body and my health until I became ill and had to medically retire. Don't put things off like taking a course or following a dream because your life could change in an instant. I am well educated, hard working, intelligent and kind; I had a mental health breakdown, was made homeless twice through no fault of my own, and had to start my life over from scratch; it can happen to anyone.
GoddessOdd 3 years ago
I am so sorry for your troubles. I learned this too, first, when I was a little kid, and we went from comfortable middle class to homeless because my father abandoned us. Then, plenty of health crises over the years. I am now over 60, and working on getting my strength and mobility back, but it gets harder all the time. I am sending you good wishes and all good fortune from now on.
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NsG 3 years ago
Yet another wake up call for how lucky and privileged I am - I'm 41 and I hardly recognise any of the disillusionment present in these posts.
AndThenICommented 3 years ago
I’m not 40 but in my 30’s and I hear you. It’s not perfect but man I don’t see age as a barrier. My partner and I even talk a lot about how at 40 we plan to switch up the hobbies and careers and just have a go at new things. Probably the same at 50
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Kari Panda 3 years ago
Adult life comes with a lot of responsibilities and challenges, but I find this post paints a too dark picture. You can still have happiness as an adult and can find fullfillment in things you gave no thought about as a teenager.
Ozacoter 3 years ago
I agree. In HS and even college I was always busy after class with essays, examns and so (and housechores). Once I started working I was sueprised of how much free time I had. Yes I needed to do more chores than before but after work I had a lot of time. And while I didnt have a lot of money I had some and independence.
Load More Replies... Rens 3 years ago
I became disabled and chronically ill at 46, from walking 4 miles a day for fun, to being in a wheelchair within a week. I've had to come to terms with the fact that there are so many things I will never do, or do again. I never appreciated my body and my health until I became ill and had to medically retire. Don't put things off like taking a course or following a dream because your life could change in an instant. I am well educated, hard working, intelligent and kind; I had a mental health breakdown, was made homeless twice through no fault of my own, and had to start my life over from scratch; it can happen to anyone.
GoddessOdd 3 years ago
I am so sorry for your troubles. I learned this too, first, when I was a little kid, and we went from comfortable middle class to homeless because my father abandoned us. Then, plenty of health crises over the years. I am now over 60, and working on getting my strength and mobility back, but it gets harder all the time. I am sending you good wishes and all good fortune from now on.
Load More Replies... NsG 3 years ago
Yet another wake up call for how lucky and privileged I am - I'm 41 and I hardly recognise any of the disillusionment present in these posts.
AndThenICommented 3 years ago
I’m not 40 but in my 30’s and I hear you. It’s not perfect but man I don’t see age as a barrier. My partner and I even talk a lot about how at 40 we plan to switch up the hobbies and careers and just have a go at new things. Probably the same at 50
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