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I dislike the narrative that you can’t be happy as an adult. Yeah having nothing to do and no responsibilities was cool, but I would not trade what I have now to have it back.
Adult me has an awesome wife and kids, good friends, hobbies that I wouldn’t have dreamed of as a kid, a tool bench full of fun power tools, and freedom to use my free time basically however I want.
I am way happier as an adult than I was as a teenager.
I had a shitty childhood, was miserable in my teens, was possibly even more miserable through my 20s. When I was 16 I told myself if I was still as miserable by 30 I would consider ending it there.
Fortunately around 30, after my low point of the pandemic, is where things started to actually fall into place for me - both in terms of external factors and, slowly, internal monologue.
While I still have a lot of mental holdovers from all that time spent in a depressed state, I would generally say I'm sustainably "happy" these days. Something I genuinely thought I would never reach.
To anyone in a bad place right now, just know that if you stick it out, life actually can be surprisingly worthwhile.
My dad always told me that life begins at 30.
I turn 40 this year, and I really agree with him. The first three decades were just awkwardly fumbling around and getting nothing done because I was a dumbass. The last ten years I really got it together and I feel comfortable with myself for the first time ever.
Hear, hear! Bigger problems nowadays, but more control over my life to compensate.
There's also something that's really calming about having more life experience? Like back in 2013 I was mortified at the prospect of getting bad grades. Missing assignments was the #1 source of stress in my life, and it was all-consuming at the time.
Now? I know not only did that not matter, but that any given thing that stresses me out that badly has a good chance of ultimately not mattering in the same way.
I listened to an interview with a woman who researched aging and spent time interviewing lots of elderly people. The majority of those interviewed called their 60s the best decade of their life. I also dislike the myth that your youth was your peak and it's all downhill from there. There's good in all times of your life, lean into the experiences that are available at the time and don't worry about how good the past was or how the future might be worse.
They may have accounted for this, but I feel like that study would be disproportionately affected by wealth.
Not to say I'm against your overall point, of course.
I'm depressed as fuck but even I agree. At least I'm responsible for my own things now. The grind can be a bitch but I can invest in my hobbies.
tool bench full of fun power tools
More tools than you can count on your fingers, like 4 or so.
This would have been a weird day because I was 40 in 2013.
How did the history quiz go?
He was able to score perfectly having been alive during all the events.
Damn, if the last time you were truly happy was just before your friend came round for a sleepover eleven years ago, that friend must have been a horrendous house guest
"The house never was the same after ... that night"
Lightning crackles
Like the "nobody wants to work anymore" phrase, there's a version of this post for pretty much every generation.
The constant variables are the age of the author and audience with whom it resonates, not the specific changes between the two time periods.
In 6-8 years or so we'll see a new version about TikTok and late night sessions with ChatGPT doing your homework as the good ol' days that have now been ruined by adulthood.
People coming of age with the harsh realities of life will lament their loss of childhood until humanity's final days.
The constant variables are the age of the author and audience with whom it resonates, not the specific changes between the two time periods.
People coming of age with the harsh realities of life will lament their loss of childhood until humanity’s final days.
I agree with your sentiment, but a possible evolution is that "the happiest time of your life" has gradually pushed younger. Young adulthood used to be that sweets spot people would be nostalgic about. You had a low skill (and low expectation) job and a cheap apartment. You got paid decently and multiple pathways for upwards mobility were available. Marriage and home ownership were obvious futures for you in the years ahead. You had the freedom of adulthood to make your own choices, without having the weight of the entire rest of your life on your shoulders. Your friends were all in similar situations. Nostalgia was around drinking too much on a beach during sunset or around a campfire in the middle of a forest. Perhaps traveling to distant destinations for simple exploration and adventure in one friend's clapped out (and paid off) car.
Now, as in the meme posted, the "ideal" nostalgia is being under the umbrella of your parents. Your parents roof. Your parents money. You not able to make adult choices for yourself.
I suspect people view their childhood and/or late teens through rose colored glasses, they remember the isolated moments of joy without the surrounding context, I remember being stressed about exams, unsure about the future, unsure of even my own identity, plenty of other concerns, but sure I enjoyed a few sleepovers and gaming sessions with friends but when we're remembering those days fondly it is from a safe perspective knowing all those concerns were resolved in a positive way, a survivorship bias, those that "failed at life", became homelessness/suicide(drugs etc), aren't here to reminisce with us all about the "simpler" times.
People are always determined to be unhappy. Of course there's reasons to be unhappy about the state of the world today but it's not as if 2015 was a gold period of human history either.
On average things were definitely worse in the past. I would definitely not want to live in the 1950s for example.
everything was better when you were 13.
We were very different ages in 2013, I think, heh. I got laid off from a job, sacrificed basically everything to try life in another country, failed to get a job and visa in time, and later wrapped it up by breaking my leg and ankle rather badly.
Man, this post started off so well. The first line on my phone is "We were very different ages in 2013, I think, heh. I got laid" but things took a sharp turn starting on the next line.
Breaking a leg is supposed to be good luck though so I'm sure everything turned out fine, right?
Well, aside from the fact that I can't run and sometimes simply walking is painful, I suppose it generally worked out well.
"I was much happier when someone else was responsible for me. Now everything and everyone else are the reasons I am sad. No one understands how important this is."
Yeah. A lot of nostalgia gets wrapped up in not having responsibility and the cultural markers around that time.
In 2013 I was almost 30. I was most assuredly not happy because I had much more to worry about than a history quiz on Monday.
On the plus side, we didn't have bullshit history quizzes to deal with.
Man, I was great at tests and history was my favorite subject. I'd love for a history quiz to be the thing I was worried about instead of like, the election and global warming and shit. Don't get me wrong, you couldn't pay me to go back to high school, but at least I could affect the outcome of a quiz, you know?
It 1,000,000 BC
Ug just got new rock. Ug plays with rock.
Ug friend Og comes to cave. He has clubs. Ug main concern is being eaten by dinosaurs.
Ug didn't realize that it would be the last time Ug was happy.
I remember when this meme was about the early '90s. I just turned 40 like a month ago. Now I just feel super old.
Ha I'm about to turn 40 and same. I got married in 2013. No one brought any nerf guns. ☹️
Well, that must've been a boring wedding.
I was homeless.
Weird, I'm homeless again.
Damn! You're in the US?
Yeah, never got a chance to leave.
I was made unemployed for about 5 months in 2013,relying on just my wife's income and we burned through our savings. I was depressed and it was truly one of the worst years of my life.
Dude in 2013 I was working 60 hours a week in a factory that was >100 degrees laughing at the new guys who threw up and passed out because I didn't realize how fucked up it all was
The black forklift boss and the white production line boss had beef so the management arranged a time after hours for them to fight
We got to watch these eggheads from Italy build the new robot production line that eventually took our jobs. Like, they were building right next to us and we got to keep our jobs so long as we were faster and broke less product. They called us the John Henry team
Eveey day I went home and got blackout drunk. At home, because I couldn't afford to go to a bar.
It was not the best time of my life. Or anyone's that I knew, for that matter.
Nah.
My 2013 was spent training the mexican replacements our company brought us for their new positions in the newly built plant in monterrey.
Wonder what the pre/post climate change one will look like.
Still had plentiful food. Power worked all the time and we had air conditioning. The theofascists hadn’t started their holy wars yet. Everyone was still alive.
This was the last time we were happy.
I was 34 and this is still all true.
2013, a yes, rampant school bullying and disappointed family. Nah fam, angry birds and bad piggies weren't better than my current life. My family at least acknowledges that I'm a functioning adult now and all the school assholes are working minimum wage/are ruined drug addicts, because they don't realize that being a massive piece of shit is awarded only in school and not in real life. I have a lot more freedom now than ever. The fact that I now understand that the world is on fire is a lot better than thinking my world is over before it began and never should.
I might had good moments in my life, but I never really felt happy or satisfied with it. But on the other hand I know that people had a lot worse life, so I always tried to not be obsessively negative about it and I always try to go forward, and make at least some sense out of it.
Anyway, life is life (na-na na-na-na).