When you’re a kid, you just can’t wait to get older. And then, inevitably, you grow up, and you realize that there are so many things you’re entirely unprepared for. Well, Redditor schrodingerscatalyst asked, “What’s an adult problem nobody prepared you for?” Here’s what people said.
1.
“How tired I’d feel. My mom used to say, ‘I need to go lay down.’ Now, I, too, mostly want to lay down.”
2.
“The extent to which you are in charge of your own happiness from what you watch and eat to what you listen to. Or even the decision to go to therapy. You are in charge.”
3.
“The endless cooking and washing dishes. I’m young and child-free, but I can’t even imagine feeding offspring every day.”
5.
“Dust. There is dust everywhere. There is so much dust, and it accumulates so fast!”
6.
“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.”
7.
“Having an elderly parent who is 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 problem that no one could have prepared me for…”
8.
“How hard it is to meet people and sustain relationships. When you’re young, you are constantly surrounded by people your age who are on the same schedule. 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.”
9.
“How much of your time revolves around eating and/or making food, cooking, washing dishes, cleaning sinks, or even just selecting what to eat? It takes up so much damn time.”
10.
“Life is a relentless army of little things that NEVER stop. Going to the dentist every six months, filing taxes every year, remembering to take the cat to the vet, sending a birthday card to your in-laws, remembering that your partner likes cheddar cheese (but not that brand!), vacuuming the house (oh, look, it’s dirty again less than 48 hours later), arguing with your WiFi provider over a price increase, doing the laundry, adhering to the new low sodium diet the doctor recommended, contributing to the potluck at work, doing your research before voting, paying the auto insurance bill…None of it is big stuff. They’re just non-stop things that kill your joy.”
11.
“How much you have to sell yourself to succeed. In my younger years, it was enough to just do the work well because the teacher had to grade your work. As an adult, your boss and interviewers may not even look at it, let alone understand what you did.”
12.
“Coming to terms with the fact that getting up every morning to go to work for decades really does kill your soul.”
13.
“Getting laid off. Everyone’s working and doing their thing, and the 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.”
14.
“The midlife crisis is real. I’m questioning everything now, and it feels unsettling all the time.”
15.
“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.”
16.
“Feeling so behind compared to others. I have my associates degree, but It doesn’t really do anything for me when people my same age are getting into their careers, and I have no clue what I want.”
17.
“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?'”
18.
“Living with regret. Knowing how much better and easier my life could be had I made a few different decisions is killing me.”
19.
“They said, ‘Study now and play games later when you’ve made it.’ I’ve made it, but I don’t have the time anymore, Dad! (play your games, kids, they’re lying to you).”
20.
“Managing finances. I learned so much insignificant garbage through all of my education that means absolutely nothing after graduation. It would be difficult to do an entire semester on it, but other topics can be added to the ‘Welcome to the real world’ class.”
21.
“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.”
Do you have something to add? What is an “adult problem” that you were not prepared to deal with? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.
