40 Bitter Truths About Being An Adult That Usually Don't Cross Teens' Minds, As Pointed Out In This Viral Thread

Even though February is the shortest month, the rent is still the same

You know all those things you thought you would do when you were out on your own? They cost money, and you have to work for it...

The adult part.

The moment you need to pay for everything and the realization that fresh food spoils faster than you ever noticed before was eye opening

The importance and scarcity of time. Your "you time" gets seriously reduced as you get older and your other responsibilities mount up. I used to think that spending half an hour cleaning 3 times a week was the worst thing ever. Now I spend about an hour cleaning pretty much every day. Between work, maintaining a house, and raising kids, the amount of you time gets reduced to.minutes a day. Anything else you want to do means sacrificing sleep.

The other thing is how true "time=money" actually is. Simply existing and breathing costs money. Food, rent, bills, transport cost money. Often the difference between happiness and unhappiness for me was comfortably making it to my next paycheck.

Adult acne. It doesn’t magically go away when you turn 18

You need to be mentally prepared for the "benchmarks" in your life to not happen or for them to not happen on the right schedule. The big events in your life up to now have been driven and put into place largely by governments and parents and teachers. This is by design - to slowly teach you the relationship between efforts and results. The accomplishments you have laid out as an adult in front of you are largely up to you, and your place in society has a lot more to do with luck than you'd probably like to think.

As a teenager you tend to think "I will get married at 28, have a kid at 30 and 33, but only after I've graduated from the elite engineering program of my choice." You may not achieve any of those things, and the obsession with delivering them on schedule will cause you deep frustration or even grief. You may not find a spouse, or have a child, or own a house, or even remain relatively healthy.

Learn to give yourself a break now before you spend years of your life grieving the future you believe you screwed yourself out of.

The pain. Bodies start breaking down.

Forty eight here

Bills don't stop or go away. Ever.

Work sucks. That's why they pay you to do it because nobody's doing that bullsh*t for free. Think of it as a means to your life and avoid it becoming your identity.

The term "work life balance" is HR code for "We own you. You're at our disposal 24/7/365"

Nobody owes you a damn thing and ain't nobody gonna give you nothing for free. They're much more likely to try to take what you have.

If not married, we're pretty sexually promiscuous and don't always adhere to the strict rules that we put on you - except that we're generally better with birth control and usually more fastidious about STD status.

You can choose one of two paths - shi**y life now or shi**y life later. The one thing I'd change about everything is to choose the shi**y life early on. Living life all YOLO or whatever you kids say when I was in my twenties came with consequences that persisted for decades and will likely render me unable to ever retire.

Time accelerates. Forty is but a blink away. So seize the opportunity you have today because it'll be gone in an instant.

Metabolism does not go brrrrrrr

You're at a time in your life when you see your friends almost every day at school. That should be cherished, because it's vastly simpler than maintaining friendships as you enter adulthood and you don't have that constant contact.

Life as an adult is change, most of it outside of your control. People change, circumstances shift...all of that work you put into your adult friendships can vanish in an instant, and you just have to adapt and move on.

Money loses value QUICKLY as you get older. Give me $1000 at 15 and I would have been in heaven buying video games and gadgets candy and all sorts of stupid nonsense. Give me $1000 at 36 and it's going towards paying off the crushing debt that comes with adulthood and car repairs that I've put off way too long and all sorts of totally un-fun things.

By the time you're 30 you are going to be lucky to see whatever close friends you have left more than a couple times a year. And it's considered normal.

You can't just quit your job if you dont like it.

You can be homeless.

coming home from work and still work at home

You will be held accountable. No excuses, no blaming.

Money adds up quick. You see something cheap that you want as a teen and think “It’s only $5.” Yes it is only $5, but when the end of the month comes, all those “only” purchases add up really fast.

Waking up and just aching for non discernible reason other than having slept ‘a bit funny’.

Oh, and the 3 day hangovers that make it barely worth drinking more than a couple glasses of wine

Losing your identity and sense of purpose once you graduate and enter a job that sucks up all your time.

You have no energy to pursue the hobbies or interests you once had. You're also no longer able to be the Smart Kid or the Theatre Kid or the Jock or whatever -- you're just another depressed 20-something trying to survive, playing 1 hour of a video game you'll never finish per night just to feel something in between cooking, chores, and your depressingly early bedtime.

Discipline is very hard to maintain when you are lacking purpose.

When you are a teenager there’s so much you think you can achieve:

“I’ll get into that college.”

“I’ll get that degree.”

“I’ll land that cool job after.”

“I’ll date that person who will fulfill me.”

However, what happens when those things fail and you have to readjust? What if the idea of progress turns into an idea of just sustainment?

My advice to teenagers: The most important thing you need to work towards figuring out as you enter into early adulthood is your purpose. It can change over time of course, but never be without it.