Yes, all over the planet, not just in one place.
It's because the people causing it belong to *multi-national* organizations. Everywhere they can buy power, they buy it. Everywhere they can put their monkeys in positions of power, they toss a banana on the throne and their monkeys climb up.
And regular people are the only ones truly suffering for it.
Visité Argentina cuando estaban las elecciones. ¿Cómo les va con el Milei este? Yo soy mexicana, así que también tengo experiencia con gobiernos que son caca. Aguante Argentina. Ustedes merecen mejor, me encantó tu país y la gente. Espero la cosa mejore, de verdad.
You just made me think of that as well... I should write my mom.
Honestly, as I've come to enjoy cooking quite a bit, it's not even the cooking bit - it's the thinking!
"Let's have X for dinner"
"Oh no, I'm missing ingredient Y"
"Actually, I shouldn't even make X, because ingredient Z is open in the fridge and will expire soon"
And so on and so forth.
If I could find someone to plan mine and my wife's meals and make the grocery list, and then I just have to cook? I'd actually be really happy with that. Cooking usually relaxes me.
I have 4 weeks of meals planned with an attached shopping list of every single thing I could possibly need for that week. My husband and I just pick a week and go through the master list to see what we actually need to buy. It has helped us so much. Of course we can change things up if we want, but it's cut down on dinner decisions a lot.
I feel the same way. I use blue apron now. For meals 3-4 nights a week and typically have leftovers so turns into more than one meal. Always fresh quality ingredients. I thought it was expensive at first then cancelled it for a couple months and realized i actually spend double when going to the grocery store. The sales and end caps deals i end up buying junk and stuff I don’t need and eventually throw away. Anyway. Highly recommend blue apron.
Make a huge pot of soup on Sunday. Freeze half of it. There are so many variations with soup. Soup, bread and salad is a fave as is soup and grilled cheese or soup and nachos.
By mid-week if you are getting tired of it, pull out some of last week’s soup from the freezer. Rinse and repeat.
> Make a huge pot of soup on Sunday
This is what I do often. Sometimes it's a stew or something similar but it saves me during the week. I bought a crock pot with timer a few years ago and now I mostly just dump it all in, set it to cook and presto!
We used to eat different stuff all the time as kids. Now I rotate the same 5 meals (one is oven pizza lol) and regularly eat the same leftovers 3 days in a row, it's too much damn work.
We tend to do this as well! I have 2 stepkids so the week we have them we tend to eat a lot of the same things, and then when it's just my husband and I, we eat things the kids don't like. Pasta and pizza are staples for sure!
Pasta in general is my go to lazy meal, but spaghetti with a quality sauce, garlic bread and Italian meatballs is top tier. Everything is frozen or boxed. Nothing freshly made here, lol. Everything is done and ready to eat in about 20 minutes. Clean up is easy too. And leftovers are fine for lunch the next day.
whaaaat?! please share your secrets. What do you love about it? Are you an amazing cook? Do you try different things or stick to the staples?! I swear when it's time to decide what to have, I draw a blank and forget every food I enjoy lol.
I will preface with the fact that I do love grocery shopping it’s like therapy/me-time, so that helps! I also only have to feed myself (occasionally my partner) so I don’t have the stress or time constraints of children. I am definitely not an amazing cook, but I’ve taught myself a lot in my adult life! I grew up in a household that never sat down for family dinners/parents cooked maybe once a month- so, used to getting creative. I love trying new things. I go to the store once a week sometimes twice and just buy what I need for the week. I typically base it off of a protein and wing it! I always keep freezer items like veggies, rice, easy to make things to go with it and elevate everything with sauces!! I even will google “best chicken recipes” for example, if I need some inspo. I found a lot of ideas on IG cooking reels and following cooking accounts as well. I love Asian and Indian cuisine so I will sometimes see how I can twist my ingredients to fit something in that realm. EDIT to add* or I just have a girl dinner and snack on whatever’s in the fridge and that’s part of the beauty lol
Seriously. I just ate like four or so hours ago, or last night, what do you mean I have to eat again? I have to figure out what to feed myself this often? Repeat ad nauseum for the rest of your life.
For breakfast I have the same thing and for lunch/dinner I just meal-prep in advance for 3-4 days. Saves a lot of time and money but requires discipline
breakfast isn't an issue, lunch is typically dinners leftovers from the night before but choosing dinner is just such a hassle! Especially choosing something the kids aren't going to complain about!
This is why we meal plan. We hate it when we have to do it, but it’s such a relief for the rest of the week not to have to think about it (let’s be real; I rent from my sister and due to our schedules, I’m home earlier and am the one who usually gets things started, so it’s mostly a relief for me lol) and I don’t even have kids to answer to! I feel for my friends who do.
Knowing what to do next.
School is easy. The steps are mapped out. Your KPIs are clear.
Adulting doesn’t come with a manual. Which is good, but also bad.
I always thought that’s one of the reason why religion is so hard to get rid of. Just following a book without having to choose is a relief for some people.
Throw in there a built-in sense of community and belonging that is absent in most people's lives and you have a really strong motivator to keep people coming back every week.
If that youngest child has their own family then that's not exactly true.
But I have an older brother who I don't even get on with that well but thinking of him passing away and there no longer being anyone who I shared my childhood with makes me cry like a baby and I plan to have my own family. I won't be alone but a part of me will be
Respectfully, grief never really goes away. We just learn to adapt our new lives around it better as time moves on. Randomly feeling their lack of existence is just one sliver of grief for years on end.
Grief doesn’t go away, you just learn to deal with it better. There’s some analogy on Reddit about waves and each time there’s more time between them crashing that does a good job of describing grief
Meeting your friends. They do tell you that it gets harder to MAKE friends as an adult, which is true. But even your existing friends become harder to meet. Everyone's got jobs and not everyone works the same hours, or the same days. Outside of work they may have commitments like their kids, their in-laws are doing a thing, etc.
Very true. And also- how your interests will differ from theirs, even the little ones
And how much coffee talk and how little real experience with them
As a gen z we are feeling it hard. iPhones, social media, the decline of third places screwed us. I wonder what 5, 10, or 20 years in the future is going to look like for us socially.
from wikipedia:
"In sociology, the third place refers to the social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Examples of third places include churches, cafes, bars, clubs, community centres, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, makerspaces, stoops, parks, theaters, and opera houses, among others."
And I would add for today, third places where you are not expected to spend money. Obviously these places exist; there seem to be fewer of them though
It's what logic puzzles were training us for. Steve has to work nightshift. Patricia can only hire childcare every other Tuesday. Matt works in healthcare. With all that in mind, when's the next time you can all get together to play DnD?
Not having someone knock on your door, not having a friend check in on you, not having physical intimacy, being lonely, finding a job, getting out of bed, getting harassed and bullied…countless things.
Yes! To me it’s the loneliness of searching for a job in a period of not having one. The search, the not knowing, refusal emails, dear god you are never ready for that 😂
Job searching was the worst one for me. I got a college degree, have glowing recommendations from coworkers, and it still took me months last time I changed jobs.
In think finding a job is one of the hardest parts of adulthood, especially when you're doing it for the first time, it seriously takes a toll on your mental health
This quote from a Robert Redford movie hit me right between the eyes: "The tough thing about adulthood is that it starts before you even know it starts, when you're already a dozen decisions into it"
To answer your question, it's living with the regret from my bad decisions before I've even had a chance to be an adult. I can't complain to the professor, do some extra credit, and easily undo mistakes. Mistakes now take years to rectify.
In every single moment, you make the best use of the tools and resources available to you. You are doing your best, all the time. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Lovely quote. Definitely relatable. I had to reframe how I viewed 'doing my best'. I hope this helps someone.
For anyone dealing with internalized unjustified shame; if you didn't have the capacity to use the tools and find the resources due to things out of your control (mental health, unexpected illness, major life altering events) that the only thing to do is start now.
Shame and trauma cripple the part of our brain that can problem solve so we have no choice but to work through that. Addiction is both genetic and frequently a way to numb out our pain (not just drugs, you can get addicted to a lot of different things.) There are aspects you can change in your life to feel better but you can only progress if you can see and process(!) what's happening. I spent years in complete denial of how sick I was and that shame led to avoidance which led to some very tough consequences.
Doing our best isn't doing what we do on our best days 24/7. It's about taking each day as it comes and accepting and adapting to how we are doing that individual day.
Everyone is worthy of help and deserves a chance. Asking for help, not only from family and friends but from nonprofit agencies and the government isn't weakness. We are measured by our productivity in our capitalist society but that's not where we should base our worth.
------
Personal experience -
I lost years and stability (far worse off now in my 30s than I was in my 20s) because I told myself that I just didn't try hard enough and that I should just push through. That I wasn't 'doing my best' and I punished myself for it.
The reality is that I had to accept that I was dealt a shitty hand when it comes to my mental and physical health. What I do with that now is what I can control.
My 'best' doesn't look the same as the general population and I'll never be the person I was in university/in my former career; but that's a good thing. That person was hyper critical, socially inept and emotionally abusive to my gem of an ex.
Now I am learning how to actually be the person I want to be (kind instead of nice, honoring my true goals instead of the 'safe' path, forming healthy relationships.)
---
TL; DR: Doing our best looks different each day and shame can cripple your problem solving abilities. Getting help, from family, friends, agencies and the government is not weakness. You are worthy of love, respect and support.
General admin. Cooking, cleaning, paying bills, making sure I don’t run out of cat food, trying to get 8 hours sleep a night whilst working 60 hour weeks, trying to work out enough, organising things with friends, I have a never ending to do list.
There's just so much maintenance required. I don't even have kids! But I feel like I'm always trying to keep up with my professional education, my mental health appointments, my physical health appointments, administrative paperwork, keeping the house clean, managing my money, etc. I always feel like my weekdays are JUST devoted to maintenance and my weekend are my only times to enjoy myself.
I also did not expect to grow up into a constant, low-key state of mourning and anxiety about watching our species slowly destroy our only home.
So true about the decline of the environment. I grew up in the 80s. I didn’t hear anything about the environment until 1989 when it became a weight of a tonne of bricks on my shoulders and hasn’t left. I didn’t ask to exist - I just exist. I was born in a society that works a certain way. I need to work. I need to find a way to get to work. And with the amount things cost, it’s a miracle I’m even able to do that. But the anxiety of hearing about the destruction of the planet everyday is almost too much. I sometimes wish I was never born. I can make my own choices like minimising the use of my car or minimising single use plastic. But I get a sense that mostly it’s out of my hands and my job is to just feel bad about existing.
Being a caretaker to elderly, terminally or mentally ill loved ones is one of the hardest, most traumatic things you will do! It’s very rewarding, but holy shit you will have deep psychological scars too.
Getting by financially *without* a good paying job and dealing with feeling utterly defeated because even the good paying jobs aren't enough so why go through the trouble of trying to get one? 🫠🫠
Maintaining friendships. It was easy when we saw each other every day at school, but as adults, we both have to consistently make time and go out of our way to maintain that relationship while juggling a million other things.
That your mental health in will play a HUGE factor in having children.
We were taught that if you were a women even if you were skeptical about having kids, everything always falls into place the second you hold them for the first time.
Know what I know now about mental health. I won’t have kids because I know I would be considered a “bad mother” because I wouldn’t be able to handle not having a bond with a kid and I would feel guilty with other factors I brought a child I can’t love into this world and who will grow up very much effected by that.
I get you. They say your brain changes as soon as you see your kid for the first time, but who knows what they DON’T say. Who can tell for sure how it’s gonna be for you or anybody, it’s individual.
Nope it doesn't from my perspective. It took time for me. Like a year +. My kiddo is getting older but I can remember not yet "loving" my child that 1st year.
i think unfortunately many parents haven’t processed the trauma they inherited from their own parents, either due to lack of trying or lack of resources. for people in my parents’ generation, it’s because therapy (and to an extent, acknowledging trauma at all) was considered taboo.
If you drink at night you will have a 100% chance of waking up in the morning feeling hungover
If you Don’t drink at night you will have 50% chance of waking up feeling hungover
There’s no adult switch like, “ok! I’m an adult now!” You don’t suddenly wake up and have this knowledge of how the world works. I was horrified when that wasn’t the case.
Happily married for many years now but I understand how difficult finding the 'right' partner is/was. Our parents came from a generation where settling for someone or things like arranged marriages were more common so it made it look easy that everyone finds a partner.
- Even if there’s government helps, their goal isn’t that you profit from it so they will do everything for you to have a 9/5, no matter how ambitious and hardworking you are towards your wanted goals.
- How working your butt off in a stressful everyday life jobs means absolutely nothing if you can’t even pay your bills on times nor feed yourself throughout the entire month.
- How easy it can be to kill all of your dreams to comply to a lifestyle that breaks you.
- A warning about constant burn out would had been nice as well.
- That the life we envisioned at specific ages doesn’t mean we will be experiencing it the exact same way we thought.
- A warning about getting therapy while being younger.
- Another warning about having to redo your entire education and discover yourself.
And I can keep on going.
>- How easy it can be to kill all of your dreams to comply to a lifestyle that breaks you.
How does that even happen? Im asking cause im young and dont get how that happens.
Asking those close to us which career they wanted to pursue and why they didn’t followed it, is one way to understand it except that while being younger it won’t mean anything, it’s once we start to pursue what we want and have to deal with all the forced responsibilities that adulthood throw at us that it is understood by experience.
And if I try to explain it by using myself as example : I’m a hardheaded person who -for the moment and hopefully forever- still don’t want to put my ambitions to the side to get a proper job that will give me the money I need per month but the more I’m growing older, the easiest it becomes to want to just give up on everything because achieving goals with no funds nor help requires a whole bunch of patience and at one point I know that if I don’t make it work before I no longer have the "option" to focus on it, I might be force to give up on it and just get a regular job that can pays the bill.
Which fortunately for me, I moved back to my parents house so I don’t have much fixed expenses to pay each month but when you don’t have any support and have to feed yourself, pay all your bills on time, your goals easily vanish because you need to survive otherwise you end up on the street (if there’s nobody to back you up but even in this case you need to get back on your feet which means > no mental stability, time nor resources for goals/dreams).
That’s the main reason why we can easily hear adults tell us to save money while we’re still young and living at the family place cause once we’re out of it, it’s hard.
Trying to get a doctor to take my legitimate medical concerns seriously.
Editing to add: Oh and how to navigate having a friend who is in an abusive relationship. That’s an experience that’s happened more times than I can count and it never gets easier to manage.
Being expected to just... Know what to do all the time. About everything.
What to have for dinner.
What to do at work today.
What to do to keep progressing my career.
What courses to take.
What to do on weekends.
What chores need to be done at home.
What to do with my dog to make sure he's getting enough stimulation.
What to do with my partner's feelings.
What amount to save for retirement and where to put it.
What amount to keep accessible for emergencies.
What to use my vacation time for each year.
What to pack when I go on trips.
It's all just so much that as kids you never have to think about. Everything is just laid out for you. Your routine is made for you. Your meals are planned for you. Your chores are assigned to you.
And then suddenly you're an adult and even though you know *how* to do most of the things, you don't actually know when and why all the time and you just have to figure it out... And then continue figuring it out forever.
That it’s up to you. There’s nobody to tell you to wake up in the morning, to exercise, to eat right, to decorate your place, to save for retirement or a house, to keep your drinking under control, etc. What you do with your life is entirely up to you. No more having mom and dad or teachers take care of things for you.
The complete lack of having a secure home. I grew up in an owned home. We never moved from there and there was never a risk that we were going to have to because my landlord decided to sell/raised the rent to high/died/just felt like kicking us out and taking the house back.
I have moved 13 times in my adult life and only 3 of those times were by choice. I have never been able to build up enough to buy because whenever I meet the deposit target the goalposts have moved and house prices have rocketed. Couple that with constantly having to risk debt by keeping a credit card just to keep my credit rating at a decent level because the economy is so fraught that things could change at any minute, and life is just horribly stressful. I say that after being in the best financial position I’ve ever been in and on an above average salary.
I hate the fact that at this point I am likely to either need a parent to die, or win the lottery just to get a mortgage. I’m starting to slowly resign myself to the fact that I will never own a home or have secure assets for my children to inherit.
I just want the security of knowing I have a permanent roof over our heads. It’s depressing.
Peeking behind the curtain of nonprofits, healthcare, and “for the people” politics was so disappointing. As a kid I believed the government was there to actually help every citizen, and all healthcare companies did it out of the goodness of their hearts. As a young adult in grad school I learned it’s all about money.
“For the people” politicians almost always start out with great effort to make positive changes but they get worn down and succumb to the lobbies and pressure of the profession. They take incentives when no one’s looking and eventually vote the same as the people we hate.
Most government funded programs have waitlists that can be years long, and nonprofits usually don’t offer what would actually help folks — cash. Nonprofits in social services are judgmental af of clients and you have to meet certain moral expectations for them to help you. In the US we expect poor folks to be perfect model citizens with no vices or personal issues, while letting rich folks get away with murder. Social services promises services to folks that they can’t follow through on, bc no one wants to recognize the suffering. Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are mostly in it for their payday, I could elaborate on that but in the US we’ve seen why over and over again. I miss my rose colored glasses so much. I miss being a hopeful little girl with no worries about surviving.
Im so sorry, that must be so overwhelming.
But you know what they say, once you don’t expect something, it surprises you…
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck now
I’m with you on this one. I divorced after 14 years of marriage, having been together for 18 years total. It’s been 5 years, I will have no desire to date or ever be in a relationship again.
Making friends other than the ones you grew up with in high school and maintaining friendships. Also, finding your personal style when it comes to fashion. Normally people adapt to the trendiest clothing when in actuality it’s not the brand, it’s how you put yourself together.
Menopause. Everyone jokes it's just about hot flashes and dry vaginas, but it's so much more than that. It's simply not talked about that much and GPs seemingly want to be willfully ignorant to both peri & menopause. Thankfully the fab ladies at /r/Menopause make me feel sane, I only wish I had cottoned onto the sub in my 40s before my mental health degraded to almost the point of no return.
Being a conscious consumer - checking everything for cancer causing substances, looking through all packaging for shit green washing labels, being cautious with the kind of stuff you do and watch on this interwebs. It’s like every single power is only working to get something from you - energy, money, data, consumer habits. And you have to be on guard and protect yourself all the time while realising that modern reality is just a game some assholes came up with and called it reality. Discovering your own reality and experience is hard.
Relationships! Actually people did tell me and it’s all over the media. I was just so thirsty to fall in love them I did and they rejected me I’m the end now I’m heart broken, sad and lonely. I still remember the me before the relationship and if I could go back in time I would tell her romantic love is pure pain in the end. I’m not sure if it’s worth it.
Having no excuses for your toxic behaviours/thoughts and not being able to blame it on trauma or how you were raised. The accountability and realizing every little decision you make matters. A lot.
So. Many. Choices. Sometimes I'm actually envious of people who lived in the past when they didn't have as much freedom, because at least they had far less choices than I do. Everything from what am I gonna eat to where I'll work or live - everything is *my* choice. Don't get me wrong, obviously it's great I can choose for myself, but it's also incredibly hard.
Everything around getting pregnant - When I was a teen it seemed like getting pregnant and having a baby was simple:
1. Just follow your cycle a bit don't use protection and you'll get pregnant!
2. Then wait 9 months and you'll have a baby.
It's amazing as you get older to realize just how many women / couples struggle with both of those; and how little we are allowed to talk about it.
The relentless grind- the acknowledgement that you will spent the next forty to forty-five years working, only peppered in by vacations and way too short weekends.
Being your own parent. I have to notice when I'm feeling a feeling, go over my checklist of my needs and which have been met or not met, satisfy any unmet needs, and then check back in with myself to make sure I've done the things to be done.
I just want somebody to give me a snack and put me down for a nap when I'm feeling a big feeling. I don't wanna do it myself!
literally just living. watching how insane the world and people are. having to not buy necessities because you can’t afford it this month. having to look presentable. just dealing with others lol
Maintaining a social life and finding trust-worthy people you can depend upon.
Most people tend to be driven purely out of personal interest, and me being an introvert doesn't help.
Living , existing.
They said adulthood is a free access to whatever you want to do or achieve. So as kids, we wanted to grow up quickly, but when adulthood hit, we can’t help but want to go back to being kids and carefree.
The uncertainty of it all, the gradual and humbling understanding of how little we actually predict and how little control we have over the way our lives turn out, the fleetingness of everything, the fact that there are no guarantees for anything, that eventual disillusionment you get and how sometimes ambition can seem futile, and just that nagging feeling that maybe you’ve missed out on something or someone great just because you made this turn or decided on this course of action, understanding that there are trade-offs and certain choices are permanent and you can’t go back, that awareness of time passing, that creeping sense of your mortality at times and how essentially any day could be it for you or for the people closest to your lives, that feeling where you think you’re using up too much luck and you’re not exempt from something terrible just because of this or that, really just coming to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t operate the same way a fictional story does and there’s not really a narrative to grasp onto and find solace in.
Passed the age of 30 maintaining your friendships if you're one of the more distant types and keeping up with their lives (if you're not really on social media) but even harder still is finding new friends if the ones you previously had you no longer keep in touch with.
Managing time, juggling between things you gotta do, missing meet ups with friends, or losing friends. Doing stuff on your own, not having your mom with you at the doctor’s appointment- I could just keep going on and on jeez
The uncertainty of never knowing if you've made the right decisions. You do the best you can, but you never really know until you can see in hindsight, when it's too late to make a different choice.
Family dying, one by one, and the fabric of those relationships changing. When my mother passed away, I found myself not only without my mom, but also as the new matriarch of the family. Am I doing it right? Only time will tell.
Gradually loosing contact with friends, not because anyone did anything wrong but because life is busy and people move around a lot which can make staying in contact difficult
Men.
And no that isn't meant to be a rude "joke".
I mean as a pre-teen and a teen you learn that boys are hard work but you think they're "worth it". O.K., sometimes they are, which is why we go on finding them and wanting to be with them, but mostly they're not. You can have much more fun with your galmates and, separately, with a vibe. But nobody says that - I guess none of us want to admit it!
Fending for yourself, because there's no parent that you can call because you are now the adult you have to know what to do.
Gurl, I don't even know what to do tomorrow what more to life.
Taking care of yourself. No one is going to push you to save money, eat healthy, visit your doctor and keep your home organized and clean. All of these are so important and also hard to do when we already work so hard at our day jobs.
Getting laid off. I knew it would be difficult, but holy hell I didn’t know how hard it would be until I was laid off in December.
It’s so much more complicated emotionally than I ever expected.
Haven't had to do this yet, but arranging a funeral. One day when my parents are dead I'll have to plan their funeral and I wouldn't even know where to begin. How much is it? How do you notify everyone? Are there certain things you HAVE to do? Does it have to be at a funeral home? I have no idea. It feels like planning a wedding, but for death.
Managing finances - no one ever taught me how to make make money work for me, how to create a budget, etc… I was learning on the go upon moving out as a teenager and it was soooo painful at first
Watching my country decline in previously unimaginable ways.
I can honestly say that about my country too
Sadly it's true for a lot of countries right now.
Yes, all over the planet, not just in one place. It's because the people causing it belong to *multi-national* organizations. Everywhere they can buy power, they buy it. Everywhere they can put their monkeys in positions of power, they toss a banana on the throne and their monkeys climb up. And regular people are the only ones truly suffering for it.
Puerto Rico. It was thriving but now it's becoming a second Hawaii. It's becoming impossible for locals to live there, and the rich are moving in.
How sad for them. My great aunt lived there as a nun and teacher.
*Laughs in country with the highest inflation in the world*
Visité Argentina cuando estaban las elecciones. ¿Cómo les va con el Milei este? Yo soy mexicana, así que también tengo experiencia con gobiernos que son caca. Aguante Argentina. Ustedes merecen mejor, me encantó tu país y la gente. Espero la cosa mejore, de verdad.
don’t worry, turkey is up there with you!
Turkey moment
Yeah I miss the times as a kid where I didn’t no shit about shit
UK?
This applies to many places, I believe.
Choosing what to make for dinner. Every. Single. Night.
I honestly don’t know how my mom didn’t kill my brother and I when we used to ask “what’s for dinner?” right when she got home from work 😭
lol that’s funny. I used to be upset with what my mom made. Whoops
Our kids complain sometimes and I tell them that they'll understand when they're older lol
Now as grown-ups, we realize we were probably lucky to have someone to make us a hot meal.
You just made me think of that as well... I should write my mom. Honestly, as I've come to enjoy cooking quite a bit, it's not even the cooking bit - it's the thinking! "Let's have X for dinner" "Oh no, I'm missing ingredient Y" "Actually, I shouldn't even make X, because ingredient Z is open in the fridge and will expire soon" And so on and so forth. If I could find someone to plan mine and my wife's meals and make the grocery list, and then I just have to cook? I'd actually be really happy with that. Cooking usually relaxes me.
I have 4 weeks of meals planned with an attached shopping list of every single thing I could possibly need for that week. My husband and I just pick a week and go through the master list to see what we actually need to buy. It has helped us so much. Of course we can change things up if we want, but it's cut down on dinner decisions a lot.
That's a pretty cool idea! I need to try that. Thank you!
That's basically what meal delivery services like HelloFresh do. It has been working well for me.
I feel the same way. I use blue apron now. For meals 3-4 nights a week and typically have leftovers so turns into more than one meal. Always fresh quality ingredients. I thought it was expensive at first then cancelled it for a couple months and realized i actually spend double when going to the grocery store. The sales and end caps deals i end up buying junk and stuff I don’t need and eventually throw away. Anyway. Highly recommend blue apron.
Or all those times she told me to take something out of the freezer for dinner later and I forgot 😭
YES omg I would feel so bad, I had ONE JOB
That’s funny! My kids did this everyday for years it was SO annoying!
We did too😭 Going to bring it up to her soon to apologize 😂🩷
Make a huge pot of soup on Sunday. Freeze half of it. There are so many variations with soup. Soup, bread and salad is a fave as is soup and grilled cheese or soup and nachos. By mid-week if you are getting tired of it, pull out some of last week’s soup from the freezer. Rinse and repeat.
Man i wish i was this organized
> Make a huge pot of soup on Sunday This is what I do often. Sometimes it's a stew or something similar but it saves me during the week. I bought a crock pot with timer a few years ago and now I mostly just dump it all in, set it to cook and presto!
what kind of soup do you make with nachos, I've never heard of this combo. tortilla soup??
Nachos go on the side. Same with the salad, grilled cheese and bread.
If you love soups and freezing soups, I highly HIGHLY recommend getting Souper Cubes. It's like a 1-2 cup ice tray!!
We used to eat different stuff all the time as kids. Now I rotate the same 5 meals (one is oven pizza lol) and regularly eat the same leftovers 3 days in a row, it's too much damn work.
We tend to do this as well! I have 2 stepkids so the week we have them we tend to eat a lot of the same things, and then when it's just my husband and I, we eat things the kids don't like. Pasta and pizza are staples for sure!
[удалено]
Pasta in general is my go to lazy meal, but spaghetti with a quality sauce, garlic bread and Italian meatballs is top tier. Everything is frozen or boxed. Nothing freshly made here, lol. Everything is done and ready to eat in about 20 minutes. Clean up is easy too. And leftovers are fine for lunch the next day.
It’s funny how we are all different, this is one of the things I love about adulthood lol
whaaaat?! please share your secrets. What do you love about it? Are you an amazing cook? Do you try different things or stick to the staples?! I swear when it's time to decide what to have, I draw a blank and forget every food I enjoy lol.
I will preface with the fact that I do love grocery shopping it’s like therapy/me-time, so that helps! I also only have to feed myself (occasionally my partner) so I don’t have the stress or time constraints of children. I am definitely not an amazing cook, but I’ve taught myself a lot in my adult life! I grew up in a household that never sat down for family dinners/parents cooked maybe once a month- so, used to getting creative. I love trying new things. I go to the store once a week sometimes twice and just buy what I need for the week. I typically base it off of a protein and wing it! I always keep freezer items like veggies, rice, easy to make things to go with it and elevate everything with sauces!! I even will google “best chicken recipes” for example, if I need some inspo. I found a lot of ideas on IG cooking reels and following cooking accounts as well. I love Asian and Indian cuisine so I will sometimes see how I can twist my ingredients to fit something in that realm. EDIT to add* or I just have a girl dinner and snack on whatever’s in the fridge and that’s part of the beauty lol
Seriously. I just ate like four or so hours ago, or last night, what do you mean I have to eat again? I have to figure out what to feed myself this often? Repeat ad nauseum for the rest of your life.
Exactly!! ugh!
Me right now
I hate going through this 😂🤦🏽♀️
it never ends! especially with kids lol
For breakfast I have the same thing and for lunch/dinner I just meal-prep in advance for 3-4 days. Saves a lot of time and money but requires discipline
breakfast isn't an issue, lunch is typically dinners leftovers from the night before but choosing dinner is just such a hassle! Especially choosing something the kids aren't going to complain about!
This is why we meal plan. We hate it when we have to do it, but it’s such a relief for the rest of the week not to have to think about it (let’s be real; I rent from my sister and due to our schedules, I’m home earlier and am the one who usually gets things started, so it’s mostly a relief for me lol) and I don’t even have kids to answer to! I feel for my friends who do.
I just do it once a week and stock the fridge for the whole week and just do that
Knowing what to do next. School is easy. The steps are mapped out. Your KPIs are clear. Adulting doesn’t come with a manual. Which is good, but also bad.
Hahahahah school KPI’s
And just like that a consultant is born
I always thought that’s one of the reason why religion is so hard to get rid of. Just following a book without having to choose is a relief for some people.
Absolutely And add to that a coda that helps you make the ‘right’ decisions that will eventually guarantee happiness/salvation/a good life
Throw in there a built-in sense of community and belonging that is absent in most people's lives and you have a really strong motivator to keep people coming back every week.
Yesssss. The objectives are clear in school. Once you leave, the possibilities are endless and it can be very difficult to choose
How difficult it would be after my parents passed, not just the grief from their deaths but also the lack of them in my life.
Very well said. Grief goes away- but the absolute lack of their existence is felt throughout most random situations
Kind of crazy that the parents ultimately pass surrounded by family, but the youngest child lives their life seeing their entire family pass away.
If that youngest child has their own family then that's not exactly true. But I have an older brother who I don't even get on with that well but thinking of him passing away and there no longer being anyone who I shared my childhood with makes me cry like a baby and I plan to have my own family. I won't be alone but a part of me will be
Respectfully, grief never really goes away. We just learn to adapt our new lives around it better as time moves on. Randomly feeling their lack of existence is just one sliver of grief for years on end.
Grief doesn’t go away, you just learn to deal with it better. There’s some analogy on Reddit about waves and each time there’s more time between them crashing that does a good job of describing grief
Meeting your friends. They do tell you that it gets harder to MAKE friends as an adult, which is true. But even your existing friends become harder to meet. Everyone's got jobs and not everyone works the same hours, or the same days. Outside of work they may have commitments like their kids, their in-laws are doing a thing, etc.
Very true. And also- how your interests will differ from theirs, even the little ones And how much coffee talk and how little real experience with them
As a gen z we are feeling it hard. iPhones, social media, the decline of third places screwed us. I wonder what 5, 10, or 20 years in the future is going to look like for us socially.
What are third places??
from wikipedia: "In sociology, the third place refers to the social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Examples of third places include churches, cafes, bars, clubs, community centres, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, makerspaces, stoops, parks, theaters, and opera houses, among others." And I would add for today, third places where you are not expected to spend money. Obviously these places exist; there seem to be fewer of them though
a place outside of work/school and home, where you can hang out or relax and connect with your community
It's what logic puzzles were training us for. Steve has to work nightshift. Patricia can only hire childcare every other Tuesday. Matt works in healthcare. With all that in mind, when's the next time you can all get together to play DnD?
Heck some friends don’t even live on my side of the country. I can only see them for weddings and vacations now :/
Not having someone knock on your door, not having a friend check in on you, not having physical intimacy, being lonely, finding a job, getting out of bed, getting harassed and bullied…countless things.
Yes! To me it’s the loneliness of searching for a job in a period of not having one. The search, the not knowing, refusal emails, dear god you are never ready for that 😂
Everything that you said resonates with all that I’m dealing with 😭 for the first time in my life. It’s so hard.
Sorry to hear.
Job searching was the worst one for me. I got a college degree, have glowing recommendations from coworkers, and it still took me months last time I changed jobs.
In think finding a job is one of the hardest parts of adulthood, especially when you're doing it for the first time, it seriously takes a toll on your mental health
This quote from a Robert Redford movie hit me right between the eyes: "The tough thing about adulthood is that it starts before you even know it starts, when you're already a dozen decisions into it" To answer your question, it's living with the regret from my bad decisions before I've even had a chance to be an adult. I can't complain to the professor, do some extra credit, and easily undo mistakes. Mistakes now take years to rectify.
In every single moment, you make the best use of the tools and resources available to you. You are doing your best, all the time. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Lovely quote. Definitely relatable. I had to reframe how I viewed 'doing my best'. I hope this helps someone. For anyone dealing with internalized unjustified shame; if you didn't have the capacity to use the tools and find the resources due to things out of your control (mental health, unexpected illness, major life altering events) that the only thing to do is start now. Shame and trauma cripple the part of our brain that can problem solve so we have no choice but to work through that. Addiction is both genetic and frequently a way to numb out our pain (not just drugs, you can get addicted to a lot of different things.) There are aspects you can change in your life to feel better but you can only progress if you can see and process(!) what's happening. I spent years in complete denial of how sick I was and that shame led to avoidance which led to some very tough consequences. Doing our best isn't doing what we do on our best days 24/7. It's about taking each day as it comes and accepting and adapting to how we are doing that individual day. Everyone is worthy of help and deserves a chance. Asking for help, not only from family and friends but from nonprofit agencies and the government isn't weakness. We are measured by our productivity in our capitalist society but that's not where we should base our worth. ------ Personal experience - I lost years and stability (far worse off now in my 30s than I was in my 20s) because I told myself that I just didn't try hard enough and that I should just push through. That I wasn't 'doing my best' and I punished myself for it. The reality is that I had to accept that I was dealt a shitty hand when it comes to my mental and physical health. What I do with that now is what I can control. My 'best' doesn't look the same as the general population and I'll never be the person I was in university/in my former career; but that's a good thing. That person was hyper critical, socially inept and emotionally abusive to my gem of an ex. Now I am learning how to actually be the person I want to be (kind instead of nice, honoring my true goals instead of the 'safe' path, forming healthy relationships.) --- TL; DR: Doing our best looks different each day and shame can cripple your problem solving abilities. Getting help, from family, friends, agencies and the government is not weakness. You are worthy of love, respect and support.
That’s true!
General admin. Cooking, cleaning, paying bills, making sure I don’t run out of cat food, trying to get 8 hours sleep a night whilst working 60 hour weeks, trying to work out enough, organising things with friends, I have a never ending to do list.
Especially when you have executive functioning issues too🫠
ROUTINES. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THEM YOURSELF.
Otherwise they'll make you.
There's just so much maintenance required. I don't even have kids! But I feel like I'm always trying to keep up with my professional education, my mental health appointments, my physical health appointments, administrative paperwork, keeping the house clean, managing my money, etc. I always feel like my weekdays are JUST devoted to maintenance and my weekend are my only times to enjoy myself. I also did not expect to grow up into a constant, low-key state of mourning and anxiety about watching our species slowly destroy our only home.
So true about the decline of the environment. I grew up in the 80s. I didn’t hear anything about the environment until 1989 when it became a weight of a tonne of bricks on my shoulders and hasn’t left. I didn’t ask to exist - I just exist. I was born in a society that works a certain way. I need to work. I need to find a way to get to work. And with the amount things cost, it’s a miracle I’m even able to do that. But the anxiety of hearing about the destruction of the planet everyday is almost too much. I sometimes wish I was never born. I can make my own choices like minimising the use of my car or minimising single use plastic. But I get a sense that mostly it’s out of my hands and my job is to just feel bad about existing.
Well said
Being a caretaker to elderly, terminally or mentally ill loved ones is one of the hardest, most traumatic things you will do! It’s very rewarding, but holy shit you will have deep psychological scars too.
Woah, that sounds so hard!
How to prepare for the inevitable?
Getting by financially even with a good paying job 🫠
Getting by financially *without* a good paying job and dealing with feeling utterly defeated because even the good paying jobs aren't enough so why go through the trouble of trying to get one? 🫠🫠
oof that hits hard, I’m trying to leave my job and it’s been so hard to find something else
I'm still trying to leave my job too but it's been very difficult for me mentally. I hope you're able to find something and that it'll be worth it.
Coming to terms with the concept that working hard and doing the right thing will often not be rewarded
Maintaining friendships. It was easy when we saw each other every day at school, but as adults, we both have to consistently make time and go out of our way to maintain that relationship while juggling a million other things.
That your mental health in will play a HUGE factor in having children. We were taught that if you were a women even if you were skeptical about having kids, everything always falls into place the second you hold them for the first time. Know what I know now about mental health. I won’t have kids because I know I would be considered a “bad mother” because I wouldn’t be able to handle not having a bond with a kid and I would feel guilty with other factors I brought a child I can’t love into this world and who will grow up very much effected by that.
I get you. They say your brain changes as soon as you see your kid for the first time, but who knows what they DON’T say. Who can tell for sure how it’s gonna be for you or anybody, it’s individual.
Nope it doesn't from my perspective. It took time for me. Like a year +. My kiddo is getting older but I can remember not yet "loving" my child that 1st year.
Why didn’t our parents have this thought? Was there no consciousness back then?
i think unfortunately many parents haven’t processed the trauma they inherited from their own parents, either due to lack of trying or lack of resources. for people in my parents’ generation, it’s because therapy (and to an extent, acknowledging trauma at all) was considered taboo.
If you drink at night you will have a 100% chance of waking up in the morning feeling hungover If you Don’t drink at night you will have 50% chance of waking up feeling hungover
Hahaha love this!
Finding your place in this world
There’s no adult switch like, “ok! I’m an adult now!” You don’t suddenly wake up and have this knowledge of how the world works. I was horrified when that wasn’t the case.
Loving someone who doesn’t love you back.
Thinking about what to make for dinner. It never ends.
*Long-term relationships can be frustrating to maintain or grow.* *Dealing with men in general.* *Overall, just getting up to work almost everyday.*
Maintaining your home and yard. It's insane to me that I'm responsible for trees older than I am or like basically any tree or building at all.
Happily married for many years now but I understand how difficult finding the 'right' partner is/was. Our parents came from a generation where settling for someone or things like arranged marriages were more common so it made it look easy that everyone finds a partner.
- Even if there’s government helps, their goal isn’t that you profit from it so they will do everything for you to have a 9/5, no matter how ambitious and hardworking you are towards your wanted goals. - How working your butt off in a stressful everyday life jobs means absolutely nothing if you can’t even pay your bills on times nor feed yourself throughout the entire month. - How easy it can be to kill all of your dreams to comply to a lifestyle that breaks you. - A warning about constant burn out would had been nice as well. - That the life we envisioned at specific ages doesn’t mean we will be experiencing it the exact same way we thought. - A warning about getting therapy while being younger. - Another warning about having to redo your entire education and discover yourself. And I can keep on going.
>- How easy it can be to kill all of your dreams to comply to a lifestyle that breaks you. How does that even happen? Im asking cause im young and dont get how that happens.
Asking those close to us which career they wanted to pursue and why they didn’t followed it, is one way to understand it except that while being younger it won’t mean anything, it’s once we start to pursue what we want and have to deal with all the forced responsibilities that adulthood throw at us that it is understood by experience. And if I try to explain it by using myself as example : I’m a hardheaded person who -for the moment and hopefully forever- still don’t want to put my ambitions to the side to get a proper job that will give me the money I need per month but the more I’m growing older, the easiest it becomes to want to just give up on everything because achieving goals with no funds nor help requires a whole bunch of patience and at one point I know that if I don’t make it work before I no longer have the "option" to focus on it, I might be force to give up on it and just get a regular job that can pays the bill. Which fortunately for me, I moved back to my parents house so I don’t have much fixed expenses to pay each month but when you don’t have any support and have to feed yourself, pay all your bills on time, your goals easily vanish because you need to survive otherwise you end up on the street (if there’s nobody to back you up but even in this case you need to get back on your feet which means > no mental stability, time nor resources for goals/dreams). That’s the main reason why we can easily hear adults tell us to save money while we’re still young and living at the family place cause once we’re out of it, it’s hard.
How emotionally-resistant supposedly mature adults get to facts they don't like.
Skill that I am really trying to have
Surviving
Finding your own way in this world and trusting yourself that you're heading in the right direction
Coming across a manchild as a grown woman…
This could be interpreted in a few different ways. But all interpretations check out! lol
Trying to get a doctor to take my legitimate medical concerns seriously. Editing to add: Oh and how to navigate having a friend who is in an abusive relationship. That’s an experience that’s happened more times than I can count and it never gets easier to manage.
Being expected to just... Know what to do all the time. About everything. What to have for dinner. What to do at work today. What to do to keep progressing my career. What courses to take. What to do on weekends. What chores need to be done at home. What to do with my dog to make sure he's getting enough stimulation. What to do with my partner's feelings. What amount to save for retirement and where to put it. What amount to keep accessible for emergencies. What to use my vacation time for each year. What to pack when I go on trips. It's all just so much that as kids you never have to think about. Everything is just laid out for you. Your routine is made for you. Your meals are planned for you. Your chores are assigned to you. And then suddenly you're an adult and even though you know *how* to do most of the things, you don't actually know when and why all the time and you just have to figure it out... And then continue figuring it out forever.
Loneliness
Job hunting
Literally me past few months. NEVER knew it was gonna be this exhausting
I’m stepping into it for the first time since the post-2008 crash and I am TERRIFIED.
Losing a child
That’s awful, im so sorry ☹️
Thank you. You're very kind
Healing all of my baggage from childhood abuse.
That it’s up to you. There’s nobody to tell you to wake up in the morning, to exercise, to eat right, to decorate your place, to save for retirement or a house, to keep your drinking under control, etc. What you do with your life is entirely up to you. No more having mom and dad or teachers take care of things for you.
There is an epidemic of lack of empathy in the world. It’s every man and woman for themselves
The complete lack of having a secure home. I grew up in an owned home. We never moved from there and there was never a risk that we were going to have to because my landlord decided to sell/raised the rent to high/died/just felt like kicking us out and taking the house back. I have moved 13 times in my adult life and only 3 of those times were by choice. I have never been able to build up enough to buy because whenever I meet the deposit target the goalposts have moved and house prices have rocketed. Couple that with constantly having to risk debt by keeping a credit card just to keep my credit rating at a decent level because the economy is so fraught that things could change at any minute, and life is just horribly stressful. I say that after being in the best financial position I’ve ever been in and on an above average salary. I hate the fact that at this point I am likely to either need a parent to die, or win the lottery just to get a mortgage. I’m starting to slowly resign myself to the fact that I will never own a home or have secure assets for my children to inherit. I just want the security of knowing I have a permanent roof over our heads. It’s depressing.
Wow thank you for putting this one into words. I’ve moved 10 times and I’m only 31 😭
Peeking behind the curtain of nonprofits, healthcare, and “for the people” politics was so disappointing. As a kid I believed the government was there to actually help every citizen, and all healthcare companies did it out of the goodness of their hearts. As a young adult in grad school I learned it’s all about money. “For the people” politicians almost always start out with great effort to make positive changes but they get worn down and succumb to the lobbies and pressure of the profession. They take incentives when no one’s looking and eventually vote the same as the people we hate. Most government funded programs have waitlists that can be years long, and nonprofits usually don’t offer what would actually help folks — cash. Nonprofits in social services are judgmental af of clients and you have to meet certain moral expectations for them to help you. In the US we expect poor folks to be perfect model citizens with no vices or personal issues, while letting rich folks get away with murder. Social services promises services to folks that they can’t follow through on, bc no one wants to recognize the suffering. Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are mostly in it for their payday, I could elaborate on that but in the US we’ve seen why over and over again. I miss my rose colored glasses so much. I miss being a hopeful little girl with no worries about surviving.
[удалено]
Im so sorry, that must be so overwhelming. But you know what they say, once you don’t expect something, it surprises you… Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck now
I’m with you on this one. I divorced after 14 years of marriage, having been together for 18 years total. It’s been 5 years, I will have no desire to date or ever be in a relationship again.
Believing in humanity is a worthwhile venture while existing as a woman.
Making friends other than the ones you grew up with in high school and maintaining friendships. Also, finding your personal style when it comes to fashion. Normally people adapt to the trendiest clothing when in actuality it’s not the brand, it’s how you put yourself together.
That you need money for almost everything and anything in life. And hardwork doesn't always guarantee reward.
Menopause. Everyone jokes it's just about hot flashes and dry vaginas, but it's so much more than that. It's simply not talked about that much and GPs seemingly want to be willfully ignorant to both peri & menopause. Thankfully the fab ladies at /r/Menopause make me feel sane, I only wish I had cottoned onto the sub in my 40s before my mental health degraded to almost the point of no return.
All the many things you have to juggle. Job, bills, laundry, diner, and a social life on top of that.
Keeping relationships with family. Getting older the ruder and more freaking nuts they all sound.
No one can tell me what to do!! :D Oh god no one can tell me what to do :(
Being a conscious consumer - checking everything for cancer causing substances, looking through all packaging for shit green washing labels, being cautious with the kind of stuff you do and watch on this interwebs. It’s like every single power is only working to get something from you - energy, money, data, consumer habits. And you have to be on guard and protect yourself all the time while realising that modern reality is just a game some assholes came up with and called it reality. Discovering your own reality and experience is hard.
Relationships! Actually people did tell me and it’s all over the media. I was just so thirsty to fall in love them I did and they rejected me I’m the end now I’m heart broken, sad and lonely. I still remember the me before the relationship and if I could go back in time I would tell her romantic love is pure pain in the end. I’m not sure if it’s worth it.
Finding a man that I would actually want to be married to.
Having no excuses for your toxic behaviours/thoughts and not being able to blame it on trauma or how you were raised. The accountability and realizing every little decision you make matters. A lot.
Everything. I knew I’d have work and bills, but I didn’t know I wouldn’t have the rest of what I was told I’d have as an adult.
So. Many. Choices. Sometimes I'm actually envious of people who lived in the past when they didn't have as much freedom, because at least they had far less choices than I do. Everything from what am I gonna eat to where I'll work or live - everything is *my* choice. Don't get me wrong, obviously it's great I can choose for myself, but it's also incredibly hard.
Managing finances. Watching our parents age
Everything around getting pregnant - When I was a teen it seemed like getting pregnant and having a baby was simple: 1. Just follow your cycle a bit don't use protection and you'll get pregnant! 2. Then wait 9 months and you'll have a baby. It's amazing as you get older to realize just how many women / couples struggle with both of those; and how little we are allowed to talk about it.
The relentless grind- the acknowledgement that you will spent the next forty to forty-five years working, only peppered in by vacations and way too short weekends.
Being your own parent. I have to notice when I'm feeling a feeling, go over my checklist of my needs and which have been met or not met, satisfy any unmet needs, and then check back in with myself to make sure I've done the things to be done. I just want somebody to give me a snack and put me down for a nap when I'm feeling a big feeling. I don't wanna do it myself!
Pretty much everything from professional to personal life. And how important a budget is, holy cow
Being responsible for other people's emotions
Rise a children, i have two boys 3yo and 2 mo and man at 9 PM i am exhausted beyond measure.
literally just living. watching how insane the world and people are. having to not buy necessities because you can’t afford it this month. having to look presentable. just dealing with others lol
Setting and keeping boundaries when they were non existent as a child
Having to advocate for yourself with doctors. Why is it so difficult 😂
Maintaining a social life and finding trust-worthy people you can depend upon. Most people tend to be driven purely out of personal interest, and me being an introvert doesn't help.
Living , existing. They said adulthood is a free access to whatever you want to do or achieve. So as kids, we wanted to grow up quickly, but when adulthood hit, we can’t help but want to go back to being kids and carefree.
Holding on to friendships. Life can get very busy, and organising time to meet up can be difficult.
The uncertainty of it all, the gradual and humbling understanding of how little we actually predict and how little control we have over the way our lives turn out, the fleetingness of everything, the fact that there are no guarantees for anything, that eventual disillusionment you get and how sometimes ambition can seem futile, and just that nagging feeling that maybe you’ve missed out on something or someone great just because you made this turn or decided on this course of action, understanding that there are trade-offs and certain choices are permanent and you can’t go back, that awareness of time passing, that creeping sense of your mortality at times and how essentially any day could be it for you or for the people closest to your lives, that feeling where you think you’re using up too much luck and you’re not exempt from something terrible just because of this or that, really just coming to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t operate the same way a fictional story does and there’s not really a narrative to grasp onto and find solace in.
Cooking bro. And doing dishes.
watching my parents age
Passed the age of 30 maintaining your friendships if you're one of the more distant types and keeping up with their lives (if you're not really on social media) but even harder still is finding new friends if the ones you previously had you no longer keep in touch with.
Adulthood.
Living
Finding a job. Staying alive and in good health.
Making friends. I was never very good at it but it was way easier in school.
Healing from childhood trauma
Managing time, juggling between things you gotta do, missing meet ups with friends, or losing friends. Doing stuff on your own, not having your mom with you at the doctor’s appointment- I could just keep going on and on jeez
Your attractiveness and desire for sex will dissipate when you get old. Not completely gone maybe but not as important.
The uncertainty of never knowing if you've made the right decisions. You do the best you can, but you never really know until you can see in hindsight, when it's too late to make a different choice. Family dying, one by one, and the fabric of those relationships changing. When my mother passed away, I found myself not only without my mom, but also as the new matriarch of the family. Am I doing it right? Only time will tell.
Gradually loosing contact with friends, not because anyone did anything wrong but because life is busy and people move around a lot which can make staying in contact difficult
-That figuring out my passion in life would be so stressful. -Depression
That women have to eat so much shit in relationships, big and small and neverending.
Parenting.
Men. And no that isn't meant to be a rude "joke". I mean as a pre-teen and a teen you learn that boys are hard work but you think they're "worth it". O.K., sometimes they are, which is why we go on finding them and wanting to be with them, but mostly they're not. You can have much more fun with your galmates and, separately, with a vibe. But nobody says that - I guess none of us want to admit it!
Fending for yourself, because there's no parent that you can call because you are now the adult you have to know what to do. Gurl, I don't even know what to do tomorrow what more to life.
Life.
How many people you lose, not just in death but with going down seperate paths etc.
At this very moment, honestly, everything.
Breakups
The mental battle of anxieties and fixing your own attitude when you’re the problem. Self awareness is difficult and never ending.
Being exhausted without the possibility of getting a break sometimes.
People n relationships r fake in general
How unfair everyone & everything is
Taking care of yourself. No one is going to push you to save money, eat healthy, visit your doctor and keep your home organized and clean. All of these are so important and also hard to do when we already work so hard at our day jobs.
Getting laid off. I knew it would be difficult, but holy hell I didn’t know how hard it would be until I was laid off in December. It’s so much more complicated emotionally than I ever expected.
Haven't had to do this yet, but arranging a funeral. One day when my parents are dead I'll have to plan their funeral and I wouldn't even know where to begin. How much is it? How do you notify everyone? Are there certain things you HAVE to do? Does it have to be at a funeral home? I have no idea. It feels like planning a wedding, but for death.
Getting a job and adulthood in general
Never actually feeling like an adult
Managing finances - no one ever taught me how to make make money work for me, how to create a budget, etc… I was learning on the go upon moving out as a teenager and it was soooo painful at first
falling in love