As kids, many of us rushed to come of age and enjoy the freedom we saw grown-ups having. We were envious of how they could stay up late, eat whatever they wanted, and go anywhere without asking permission.
But upon getting there, the realities of adulthood became a sobering splash of cold water in the face. Many people weren’t (and likely still aren’t) ready for “adulting,” and they opened up in this recent Reddit thread.
Some comments spoke about the need to sell yourself, while others discussed the disheartening experience of losing a job. If you have these similar sentiments, share them in the comment boxes below!
#1
How much of your time revolves around eating and/or making food; cooking, washing dishes, cleaning sinks, even just selecting what to eat – so much damn time.
Image credits: johndoe15190
#2
Dust. There is dust everywhere. There is so much dust, and it accumulates so fast!
Image credits: Ahasveros5
#3
You can stay up as late as you want. But you shouldn’t.
Image credits: Jackyonthemove
#4
How much you have to sell yourself. In my younger years, it was enough to just do the work well because the teacher has to grade your work. As an adult, your boss and interviewers may not even look at it, let alone understand what you did.
Image credits: Dances28
#5
Being in charge of your own happiness. Down to what you watch, eat, listen too, therapy. You are in charge.
Image credits: Stunning_Loquat_7323
#6
Feeling so behind compared to others. I have my associates but It doesn’t really do anything for me and people my age are getting into their careers and I have no clue what I want.
Image credits: KiwiTop1109
#7
Just how boring most things are. The days blur together and the next thing you know, your body hurts everywhere all the time and you can’t remember yesterday. But you remember 40 years ago like it was yesterday.
Image credits: MyCheeses
#8
Your parents being way less emotionally mature than you realized.
Or adults in general who you grew up thinking were intelligent, thoughtful, and I formed. It’s shocking when they realize just how clueless they actually are.
Image credits: Personage1
#9
Realising your parents are not the person you think they were as you grow older.
Image credits: rockoboks
#10
How boring being a parent can be….like, my kids are my life and I love them, but sometimes I don’t want another conversation about Minecraft, or Halloween decorations. .
Image credits: SnooPears7162
#11
Regret. Knowing how much better and easier my life could be had a made a few different decisions is [eating me alive].
Image credits: Dudian613
#12
They said “study now and play games later when you’ve made it”. I’ve made it but i don’t have the f*****g time anymore, dad! (play your games kids they lying to you).
Image credits: Geraltofdickia
#13
How fast your battery runs out when you get over 40. There is barely enough juice left after work to do anything before going to bed.
Image credits: Uvi_AUT
#14
Being home alone for medical emergencies. I guess it can happen at any age, but it feels like more of an adult living alone kind of problem.
Image credits: TeamWaffleStomp
#15
How stupid most people actually are.
Image credits: Lucian_Veritas5957
#16
Getting laid off.
Everyone’s working, doing their thing, workload fluctuates and slows down after the pandemic. The expectation is for us to give two weeks notice when we leave but I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a six hour heads up that my computer would lock at the end of the day and my severance check would be in the mail in a week.
Image credits: clovisx
#17
Little kids don’t have an off button. So you go to work, come home to work more, put them to bed for them to wake up throughout the night, wake up to take them to daycare so you can repeat…. For like years. If you’re under 30 you should not have a child IMO. I’d also forego children if not in a 2 person relationship and without a support group. I don’t get how people can do it. .
Image credits: Moron-Whisperer
#18
Managing finances. I learned so much insignificant garbage through all of my education that means absolutely nothing after graduation. I think it would be difficult to do an entire semester on it, but there are other topics that can be added to the “welcome to the real world” class.
Image credits: Faythezeal
#19
Keeping a job. There’s that ‘honeymoon’ period once you start the job. But then as the days turn into months… And the months turn to years… You look in the mirror and say, ‘Is this it? This is all life has to offer?’.
Image credits: Squirrelluver369
#20
How fast fresh asparagus and raspberries go bad 😔.
Image credits: ICollectRatMemes
#21
Dealing with health insurance corporations.
Image credits: roscoe7585
#22
Midlife crisis is real. I’m questioning everything now and it feel unsettling all the time.
Image credits: Infinite-Pepper9120
#23
How to manage loneliness.
How to manage losing faith in a religion you were raised in and followed for 20+ years.
Image credits: _RayDenn_
#24
Nobody told me socializing was a life skill and not just an entertainment activity. As an ostracized kid I always figured I’d have time to figure out how to find decent people as an adult. I didn’t know the barriers I created for myself would impede by daily life and career so much. Things you never think of, like “How am I going to get home from this dental appointment if I’m still affected by anesthesia?”.
Image credits: paleo2002
#25
Having to pretend that coworkers are sane, because if you don’t they go crazy.
Image credits: stupid_whore_energy
#26
How expensive maintaining a car is. Gas, windshield wipers, oil changes, repairs, brakes.
Image credits: FuerGrissa0stDrauka
#27
That stability is a dream. Everything, good and bad, shall pass.
Image credits: Darth_pantro
#28
Laundry mountains that never stop growing.
Image credits: deadbodies
#29
How much health plummets if you’re not on top of things.
Image credits: dangerousily
#30
Outgrowing the people around you and those who raised you, as a person and intellectually.
Image credits: ConsciousAardvark949
#31
How hard it is to meet people/sustain relationships. When you’re young, you are constantly surrounded by people your age, going through on essentially the same schedule as you. But once you’re an adult, it’s really hard to meet people in between the daily grind, and even harder to plan things with people you do know because they are also living their own lives.
#32
Elderly parent losing their mind due to dementia and needing care but nursing homes are 7k per month, in home nurses are 3k per month. Yeah that’s a f*****g problem that no one could have prepared me for.
– edit to add: I found my answers and my parent is cared for now, but the path leading up to the answers was a terrible and scary path.
#33
If you fall, you can actually get hurt. I slipped on ice in my driveway a couple years ago. Didn’t feel a thing until 5 minutes later until my entire left side, from head to toe, was screaming in pain.
I tore some stuff in both my legs. I had no idea until I couldn’t get back off the couch.
Used to be, all I had to worry about was a twisted ankle. Now I have to go through massaging any injury until my body stops screaming “no, stupid, you live here now”.
S**t ain’t right.
#34
How to console your teenager when someone you didn’t like in the first place dumps them. It feels like knowing the end of the movie and your teen has only just started watching. The first breakup after your first love sucks, but I bet there’s a lot of people out there who are grateful that their very first serious relationship didn’t pan out. I know I’m glad that mine didn’t last. But you can’t just say that to your kid, you have to hold space for them and know when to shut your mouth. It’s hard seeing them in pain though.
#35
How many men are abusive, hateful and violent towards women. I used to believe it was a fringe or minority of men.
#36
How little time you have for yourself. You work for 8 hours, get home, make dinner, clean up the kitchen and then you have like 1-2 hours before you need to go to bed so you can do it all over again. Then the chores pile up so you have to waste a big chunk of the weekend as well.
I don’t understand how people can work, have kids, keep their home tidy and go to the gym and get a good nights sleep. Like how?!
#37
How s****y people are. I should not have had to walk around my college campus and worry about getting punched by some m**********r I don’t know because he was having a bad day.
#38
Idk if anyone could have prepared me for it but I was definitely not prepared to be diagnosed with a chronic illness, even before I turn 30. Ik no specific illness is a typical part of adulthood. As in, we can get sick at any time and there’s no age bar. But I personally thought I still had time before I got sick. And to have a condition (fibromyalgia) that I can’t explain to anyone, because it’s not as straightforward, is a whole different frustrating element that makes me want to shut myself off from the world.
I’m in my ranting mood today, apparently.
#39
That the tattletales in elementary school actually got well compensated jobs in a field called “HR”
and will still try to f**k you out of money or a career advancement. They never changed and there’s an actual job for these people.
#40
The realization that times starts moving much much faster and more progressively day by day after leaving high school and that if you don’t take moments to appreciate the moments then you’ll find yourself reminiscing a bit too much.
#41
That living for the weekends makes your precious years fly. Stop and smell the roses means nothing without perspective. I use my neighbors cat for this purpose. She’s really friendly but I used to hate cats. One day i decided to crouch down and pet her. I’m not a cat person now but I am beginning to understand the value of these little wholesome moments. Just slow down a little.
#42
Failing. The constant failure at both big and small things, and how much it can crush your self-worth until you don’t even feel worthy of having a life, let alone living it happily.
I have no clue how to keep going when good things are so few and far between.
#43
Feeling so lonely while married. I know I love him and he loves me, but we both have such crazy schedules it doesn’t feel like we’re a couple or life partners, more like roommates discussing what bill is due or what activity the kids have next. Idk, I miss feeling like I have a companion through life. Now it’s feels like I’m just another obligation to tend to. Crazy thing is I know I’m the not the only spouse that feels this way, it’s just the stage of life we’re in rn.
#44
How absolutely out of reach living a normal life is without working to death.
I don’t get the point of any of this s**t. It’s heart breaking.
#45
Watching a country I grew up thinking was stable, powerful, and plentiful be taken over by the billionaire class and milked dry at the hands of oligarchs who claim that the problem is poor people, immigrants, and queer people.
#46
The relentless admin of life.
#47
Death (family/friends/your own).
#48
How tired I’ll feel all the time.
#49
Understand financial literacy and independence.
#50
Being alone, I don’t mean absolutely no one I still have family in my town. I mean having the feeling of no one for true companionship. It’s gotten to the point of trying dating apps and that tends to ruin myself confidence enough where in person meeting is beyond stressful.
#51
How hard it is making friends .
#52
Being so alone and lonely.
#53
My dad dying, and watching my mom age.
#54
Getting enough sleep. I would shank someone to be able to get 8-10 hours of pure uninterrupted sleep again. Most nights you’re lucky if you manage 5.
#55
Seeing my partner suffering in the hospital. Never gets any easier.
That, and seeing people in authority dehumanizing my partner and others. Dystopian stories don’t quite prepare anyone to see how insidious it can be.
#56
Widowhood. Nobody ever knows how long “forever” is when you see the happily ever afters in movies.
I had it and I lost it. Five years later…i’m still depressed and sad and I’ll be spending my life alone, through the scariest time North America has ever experienced.
#57
Taking the family cat to the vet to be put to rest.
#58
I should probably put this box in the recycling, but maybe I should save it, it is a really nice box.
#59
Life is not promised. You can do everything “right” and things just don’t turn out how you had hoped.
#60
Watching people you love self destruct and being powerless to help them because they don’t want help.
#61
Toilets don’t clean themselves and toilet paper is annoyingly expensive.
#62
Networking and scheduling. No one tells you just how crucial it is to be able to make contact and become a contact. And also how much stress you save by organizing your time and effort. Regardless of your line of work.
#63
Being sicker than a dog and having to drive yourself to urgent care.
#64
Dealing with relatives continuing to infantilize and try to control me to an extreme degree well into adulthood…
#65
Domestic violence. I’ve experienced it and so have lots of friends. I didn’t realise how common it was. I guess I had stereotypes about it.
#66
The dentist and how expensive it is even with insurance.
#67
Hormonal changes as men and women age and the effect on the marriage relationship. It’s so easy to point fingers and bring judgement on couples when things fail but when those changes happen and not voiced…intimacy dies silently. Libidos are either strong or nonexistant depending on the person. Requests are denied, advances stop, insecurity and questioning lack of desire can cause emotional/physical cheating. Then, the marriage ends due to the couple basically being roommates. If this is happening, check in with both spouse doctors.
#68
Dealing with family descending into increasing d**g use. I can see the abyss for them, but am ignored or ridiculed.
#69
Staying out of the trap of tv/Internet. When I was a kid I didn’t understand why my parents just veged so much. Their lives just slipped away. It’s easy to jump into a routine of rinse and repeat. It takes real effort to have hobbies, do things, grow past your 20’s.
#70
If you’re disabled but aren’t in a wheelchair, blind, or terminally ill, you’re f****d employment-wise. No one gives a s**t if every moment of your life is spent in severe pain if they can’t see the reason why, and you probably won’t qualify for disability.
#71
The high school games and popularity contests in the work environment. I thought the bs would end after high school. I was way wrong and have never been able to conform to it.
#72
How much your abilities diminish as you age. And the subsequent depression that follows.
#73
When I was a kid I thought adults pretty much had everything figured out and it was simply my job to learn it. I’ve come to realize most adults are a mess and know next to nothing.
#74
Living paycheck to paycheck. Man, as a kid, even when we were broke, I still had cereal in the morning, lunch, and dinner. I had love from mom and dad.
As an adult, I’m so thankful to not have kids cause, man.. owning a house, grabbing lunch and dinner… s**t is crazy expensive.
I realize this sounds so first world, but, I stress about not being able to make it for a month or two and just… getting lost in debt. I’m barely scraping by.
Haven’t had a vacation in 5 years. Don’t see one soon either.
It’s scary. And stressful.
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