People share adult problems that 'nobody prepared you for' and it's so true

Children look forward to an independent life as grown-ups but then adulting hits an individual with its own set of challenges. As prepared as one may be to embrace life, unexpected struggles and situations catch people off guard and they are left trying to figure out how to handle them. The entire concept of adulthood takes people for a ride and sometimes we're horribly impressed yet trapped by things such as career, relationships, health, and finances.

u/Frequent-Pilot5243 called on users to share bits from their adulthood which caught them off guard. "What is an adult problem no one prepared you for?" the post read. Sharing experiences that had hidden lessons, people talked about every way in which they have been tormented by adulting. Although more than 17,000 people shared their blunders of adult life, here are the top 25 that are a shocker. 

1. Lack of purpose

"All your young life you are given the purpose of passing exams and learning, then all of a sudden you are thrown into the world and told to find your meaning." -u/CaptainSnow "This is a huge thing for me, I completely agree. I’m in a decent job in a long-term relationship with a girl I love. And it’s just like, I think this is it? Like now just to do this for the next 40 years? Really f*cks with me sometimes." -u/AstronautGuy42

2. Unable to draw a line

"Not having an end date/break is the worst. In grade school and college, I would constantly say to myself, 'This too shall pass.' Then I graduated and started working and realized I couldn't say that anymore, and it caused so much anxiety. Also, I worked in an office, so I was processing that anxiety while stuck at a desk. I eventually quit and tried different jobs and schedules over 15 years to find something that gave me balance. Last year I started a job in a school. It's the most free I've felt since I got out of college, and I'm so much happier both in and out of work." -uSgnificantOtter

3. How quickly life changes 

"I'm closer to fifty than forty, would have been nice to be better prepared for some of the ways your body starts to change at this point that doesn't normally get talked about. For instance, your teeth will start to shift from the general aging of your gums." -u/dayburner"I'm at 50, and yeah, every bruise takes twice as long to heal, and every ankle twist takes a week before it's back to normal. I'm starting to see why old people move so slowly. One little screw-up and it would take forever to recover." -u/Jaycatt

4. Dealing with adults is hard

"I didn't know that other adults have the emotional intelligence of teenagers and it's almost impossible to deal with logically." -u/user "The older adults get, the more surprised they seem to be at how old they are. It reminds me that just because someone looks 50 doesn’t mean that they aren’t pretty much a teenager on the inside."-u/sarcastinymph "I expected people at university to be more serious like teachers but instead, they are just as silly as my classmates." -u/nir109

5. Friendship is a funny concept

"Outgrowing friends is such a sad reality."-u/LATY "Yeah, the friend cycle. Sucks because the memories are still so good just not when they tell them. Over, and over. Trying to relive those good and cringe times, it's sad to watch, to be honest." -u/dubblies "And nobody prepares you for how much harder it can be to make new friends as an adult once your high school and college friends are out of the picture." -u/Generico300

6. Moment when you realize 'I am an adult' 

"I, for whatever reason, thought I would just evolve ‘adult ways’ of dealing with things and not have to work at it. Like I would just stop getting frustrated at bad situations or something. My biggest ‘I need to grow up’ moment was the sudden realization that there will always be situations where I feel shitty but the onus is on me to not act like shit and it’s not easy but I need to do it." -u/keyspam102

7. Being constantly burntout

"I had no idea burnout could be so intense. I was completely dismissive about the concept and thought people were exaggerating. Then I got so burnt out that I had heart palpitations that made me feel like I was having a heart attack that went on and off for over a year. I felt dead inside. I got twitches in my body and uncontrollably sighed all the time. It was mentally and physically exhausting. It never got better until I got a new job. It's insane how much stress harms your body." -u/OllieOllieOxenfry

8. Knowing the value of money

"$5K is a lot to owe, but not a lot to have." -u/Upper-job5130 "It took me about 3 years to pay off $5k of debt. I took the least stressful way of just being patient, making monthly payments, and occasionally throwing some extra towards the principal. Once I paid it off I felt… nothing. I then made a goal to save $1,000 and I hit that rather quickly in comparison."-u/jtrdrew

9. Parents aging and declining

"I began to see her a lot differently after I grew up. When I was a kid, she seemed invincible and able to do anything. Now? She's aging and slowing down... and I'm much more aware of it. She's told me that this is just the way of life and that I shouldn't be sad because she's enjoyed her life and plans on enjoying whatever life she has left, but I'm definitely more aware of her health problems and general condition and it destroys me to see her growing older like this." -u/HumbleGrumble

10. No pre-defined goals after college

"Growing up, my goals were set for me: get through elementary school! Then middle school! Then high school, and get into college and get a degree, then get a job, and then...? Vague. "Advance in your career, buy a house, find a spouse, have a kid or multiple, then retire." At 22, I had no idea how to break that down more granularly. Until then, the biggest choice I'd had to make was my college major - even my choice of school was mostly determined by scholarships and location! And then I had to find and choose a job all by myself! And then decide for myself when to leave it and find another! It was overwhelming." -u/user

11. Ways of the corporate world

"This may just be because I’m on the spectrum but networking for jobs. My parents had the same jobs since I was born so I never saw them or anyone else look for one that wasn’t a temporary job for a college student so I didn’t know. I thought hard work would basically show employers I was worth hiring. Despite burning myself out, I still lost out to people with half my ability because they were more sociable was baffling to me for a long time." -u/TPrice1616

12. Looking after oneself

"As a kid, I never understood why anyone bought frozen dinners or prepacked meals. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where my parents liked to cook, and the TV dinners always looked so bland and unappealing in comparison. Nowadays half or more of my diet is prepacked meals. I get now the appeal of not having to spend hours cooking and cleaning after a long day of work and you wanna just veg out on the couch for a bit." -u/ArseneLupinIV

13. Constant pressure of responsibility

"You are held to account for bad behavior for which you are negligent even if you had no intention to cause harm. As a lawyer, I see this all the time. People don't think they're responsible for mistakes. You are."-u/blablablerg "If you fail to heat up food properly and someone dies from food poisoning, you could be liable. Doesn't matter if you had no subjective intention to harm that person. Someone has to be held responsible and that person is you." -u/grishamlaw

14. Keeping up with life

"We have kids and full-time jobs and a big house and I cannot keep up. I get a meal on the table every night because the children have to eat but the rest gets so out of hand SO fast. Today I said to my kids 'we need to get this house cleaned up this evening when we get home,' and one said, 'we just did that yesterday.' Yeah, dude, you’ve been busy living your best 7-year-old life." -u/user

15. Being efficient 

"Millennials have more modern everything pressures. We have access to so much information and are so interconnected that we seem incompetent or dumb for doing anything less than perfect. 'Oh, so you work? You should work in IT. Oh no, working is for losers, you should own a business!' 'You don't save? You should budget! Oh, you've been saving? You should've invested in an index fund. Index funds are for dummies, you should've invested in Bitcoin.'" -u/Pavorleone

16. Finding true happiness

"Figuring out what makes you happy. Everyone keeps trying to get you to do things you're good at, or that make you money, but never to pursue what you enjoy."-u/Eternalwanderer5 "Struggling with that now. I spent a good half hour today just wandering my house trying to think of some way to spend my time and feeling pressured to enjoy myself bc it’s the weekend but not thinking anything sounded fun." -u/Cumulativehazard

17. The loop of creativity vs productivity

"I think we have mistaken and confused the yearning to create with being productive. On the surface being productive can feel great. But creating something just hits differently and I think that's what we need more of in our lives.... Well at least I do, shouldn't speak for all of you." -u/Hillyjokokomo " Yeah, it's honestly a little diseased how we're instilled with guilt for using our limited time on earth to enjoy ourselves." -u/awnawkareninah

18. Frogetting how to take it easy and have fun

"I also hate the expectation that you should always be improving at your hobbies. I love snowboarding, but I don’t love breaking bones, so at this point in my life, I’m more about enjoying my time going down the slope instead of always trying to get faster and faster, like most of the guys I used to snowboard with in college. I’m just out there to have a good time, I don’t need to be expert-level at everything I do." -u/paddlesandchalk

19. The fear of messing up 

"How easy it is to feel stuck in a bad situation (job, relationship, etc) just because the cost and effort of getting out can seem daunting. And sometimes you just have to accept a figurative bowl full of shit because you can't afford to blow up your life." -u/Movieguy5453 "Being able to do so many things because I'm an adult but too tired to do any of them." -u/london82

20. Economy and cost of living

"One adult problem nobody prepared me for is how expensive everything is. I always thought that as an adult I would be able to afford the things I wanted, but it turns out that's not always the case! I've had to learn how to budget and save up for the things I want, and it's been a difficult process."-u/Dulldog8126"I remember being shocked at the price of a rug the other year. A rug, a rectangle of carpet, some $800." -u/obscureferences

21. Mental health crisis

"How prevalent depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation is. At this point, I think every adult has been through it at some point in their lives." -u/ojazela "Yeah. How important it is to take care of your mental health. I'm positive I was depressed in high school and didn't know it. I wish I had started therapy then." -u/YumiRae "There was a study a while ago of sewage water in rich and poor neighborhoods. In the rich ones, the top two were vitamin supplements and citrus fruits, and in the poor ones, two of the top three were antidepressants and painkillers." -u/allaballa8

22. The monotonous cycle of cleaning

"How much do you have to clean? Like you are always cleaning something. I hate it." -u/iljam16 "How did I never notice that there was dust fucking everywhere? I swear to go I turn around from dusting and there’s more dust. I can’t keep up with our house. We are 2 adults and a dog. The dining room is in constant disarray because that’s where we let the dog go outside. Amazon packages pile up. Why am I so f**king tired? We are 26 and 32." -u/Unlikely-Yam1695

23. Doing it all

"I was relatively warned about how high rent is, car bills and repairs, how buying healthy food is expensive as hell but important for your health, and how to exercise and save what you can. My parents did their best to fill in my knowledge about taxes and healthcare and insurance that my schooling missed. About driving and cleaning a household, about setting boundaries at work but working hard and getting ahead if you can. About charity and what it means to take care of a pet and others, about being a good partner if you were lucky enough to have one, about how dark and messed up the world is when you just read the news and what all that means to me and my community." -u/ThatNoNameWriter

24. Meal prepping

"Planning meals. It’s such a chore to feed yourself every day, plan your meals, budget meals, and make sure you like it and don’t get sick of the same meal because it is tasty and easy to make." -u/GlitterDancer_ "Add kids to this and it’s 1000x worse. If I don’t feel like eating I can just skip a meal or eat a few snacks instead but with kids, you actually gotta create a sustainable meal for them." -u/Seducedbyfish

25. The mundanity of life

"Once you are 'stable' your life is fu**ing Groundhog's day. Every day is basically the same. The same person I already married, the same house I already have and already decorated, the same job every day, the same foods over and over. Same damn shows and movies and songs... Boring and sometimes I have a crazy spell because I just can't stand it... dysphoria sucks." -u/gyre-and-gimble