People Share The Adult Problems No One Prepared Them For

Being an adult can be hard. You have to pay bills, budget your finances, book dentist appointments, clean your house—and worst of all, no one prepared us for any of it! We learn algebra, the meaning of Romeo and Juliet, how to write a haiku poem and the function of mitochondria but for some odd reason, we're not taught how to file our taxes, how much we should save for retirement or how to find a job. These are essential life skills no one taught us! If you feel like you're failing at adulting, you're not alone. Below, people share the adult problems no one prepared them for.

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#1 Seeing Flaws

Watching your parents age. Also becoming of an age where you’re able to see the flaws in your parents you never saw as a child.

#2 Fragile Friendships

Friendships are extremely fragile. Doesn't matter if you've been close for ten or more years. All it takes is a little bit of distance and maybe a change in occupation or schedule and boom, all of a sudden you haven't spoken in months. Basically, friendships require a lot more preventative maintenance, like your car. If you want it to last, you're going to have to keep in touch and show that it means something to you. Otherwise, it will fall apart sooner or later.

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#3 Having to Give Advice

#4 Banter

Banter. As a kid, being quiet made your teacher's job easier and all that mattered were those test scores. But as an adult? You better laugh at everyone's jokes, smile and be sociable to get ahead!

#5 Sleep

#6 No Passion

For me, it was reaching adulthood and still not having discovered my passion. I see my peers and everyone else has seemed to figure it out. A lot of people are doing what they have known all their lives they need to do. A lot of people are writers, freelance actors, and still others work in marketing or are getting a teaching degree. All over the spectrum, but everyone I know has found The Thing that gives their life meaning.

And I'm in last place, still trying feverishly to unearth my "calling." It's a frustrating experience, because time is passing in the blink of an eye but I keep finding myself with no passion and no ambition. Every day I grow more fearful that I'll live a meaningless experience because nothing truly sparks me to feel alive. They don't tell you about the existential crises when you're a kid...

#7 Time

#8 Feeling Overwhelmed

Not me per se, but many, many people. Your youth is a very automatic stream of progress, you get older, you graduate classes, you eventually finish school, study something, learn a trade etc. Once that is over, many people (at my age especially) feel overwhelmed from the fact that auto-progression is over now and that this motivator is gone.

I'm not even suggesting that this means you need to set your sights on advancing your career further and further (The most miserable people I know are the ones that focused heavily on career) but that you need to learn to deal with that fact, in whichever way works for you.

#9 Household Chores

#10 Loneliness

The crippling loneliness to be honest. Most my friends are doing their own thing and don't mind it because their significant others are essentially the only friends/support they want or need. Me on the other hand, I have never had a significant other and feel like I'm BARELY getting by. My depression gets the better of me and everything starts to hurt.

#11 Three Days Max

#12 Wires

Wiring. My house is full of electricity, which is dangerous, could start a fire, and could kill me. I own the wiring that keeps it useful and not in death mode. I don't know where the wires are. I can't afford an electrician.

#13 Dentist Appointments

#14 Adult Bureaucracy Stuff

How to know 'adult things'. Even today (I'm almost 30), people my age know about permits for stuff and which institution to go in order to get forms to fill in to solve various problems and how to do...bank things and what is 'value-added tax' or whatever it's called in English, and the names of all the politicians and who's the minister of what and so on.

I always thought this was something you kind of pick up along the way, but I never did and now it seems everyone else my age has all this knowledge about it all like they all attended a class course on 'boring adult bureaucracy stuff' that I somehow missed.

#15 Roommates

#16 Healthcare

Navigating the healthcare system. When my wife was 26 years old, she suffered a catastrophic neurovascular injury and I became her primary caretaker. The biggest lesson I have learned is how completely messed up a person can be if they simply follow instructions without questioning anything.

#17 Just Everyone

#18 Parents Aren't Immortal

Realizing that your parents won't be around forever. As a kid, you take that for granted that your parents will always be around. It took me having a stroke to realize this. But now I spend as much time as I can with my parents because I know life is too short.

#19 Noises

#20 Budgeting

Realizing that after you've wasted resources on what you intended to lead to a career, you must now re-evaluate and make a new plan.

#22 No Breaks

It's not just that no one prepared me. Our system actively trains you with the wrong mindset when it comes to breaks and time off. Life through college is a series of sprints. You work your butt off for a semester, then relax a bit on summer or winter break. Or you have a part-time job, but still have most of the day off to just mess around and decompress.

Adult life is a marathon. If you work your ass off at work, you get more responsibility, not a nice break. You come home after work and have to manage your kids or your house. Maybe you have a date night once in a while or a vacation once a year. But even those aren't really breaks because you have to plan them and you have to make sure they actually happen. This is why I think they should do away with summer vacation. It gives kids false hope.

#23 Falling Apart

#24 Picking Friends Based on Finances

#25 Happiness

#26 Workplace Bullying

Bullying in the workplace and friend circles. When you think of bullying, you think of kids being dicks in the playground. You don’t really think it could happen in adulthood but it most certainly does and it’s so much worse. At least when you’re a kid, you (usually) have the option to go to an authority figure for help. But what happens when the authority figure is the bully, or is aligned with them? It becomes so much harder to deal with.

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#27 Loss

#28 Unexpected Setbacks

Every exciting milestone comes with a big adjustment and some unexpected setbacks. Buying a house? Be prepared to spend about double what you expected on furniture and repair projects. Getting married? Talk about an expensive way to find out all your family's hidden hang-ups and issues (because they absolutely will emerge during your wedding planning/day). Adopting a dog? Be prepared for hours of working with her to get into a comfortable routine. Learning to roll with those unexpected setbacks and not let them ruin your excitement at achieving big milestones is tough to do.

#29 You Can't Be Anything

#30 Debt

Debt. Or maybe just money in general. No one in my life (parents, other family, school, etc) properly prepared me to deal with money. I made poor decisions in my 20s, and I've been paying for it ever since then. I know what to do now, but I'm still in the process of crawling out from under the shadow of it.

#31 Getting Rid of Toxic Friendships

#32 Unfriendliness

To be honest, the loneliness. When you walk down the street and say "hi" to people, they just look at you like you're a weirdo. When you're a child people find it "cute" and "endearing". Nowadays, I get looked at like I just escaped a mental asylum. It still doesn't stop me though. I just get so much joy from it, and sometimes you can even meet some new friends.

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#33 Losing Family

#34 Mean Adults

#35 Getting Old

#36 Finding Business-Casual Clothing

#37 Finding a Job

Exactly how hard it is to find a job. When you're a kid, jobs just seem kind of... inevitable. Like picking a character class or something. But christ if it isn't hard to get an interview, nevermind an actual position.

#38 Getting Married

#39 Working

#40 Friends Will Change

#41 Friends Having Kids

Once your friends start having kids it's pretty much game over unless you live ridiculously close to them. Then even when you do make time for each other, you're more of an observer to their traveling family circus than an active participant. As a child-free couple, my wife and I have lost so many friend circles, and each time we lose a circle it gets harder and harder to form the next one, and with each one you have less and less in common with them other than not having children.

#42 Having Kids

Caring for a child. He was unplanned. Dearly loved, and we are incredibly happy to have him! But went from gaming at least two nights a week to max two nights a month. Just so much stuff to do. Can't really go out that easily anymore either. Finding a babysitter is one thing, you also have to pay her. Your nights out will always cost money and it adds up.

Just everything about raising a child! But then you go to a petting zoo with him on Sunday, and you see him laugh at the silly goats and you know he is the most amazing thing ever!

#43 Aging

#44 Failure

#45 Being Tired

Being tired all. the. time.