How do you do it all this adultness is poo-poo

[moe darklight]

remember being a kid and having no responsibilities?

I joke with my parents that I'm going through my quarter-life crisis, but I really am!

On one hand I feel like I wasted a large portion of my life and that I haven't accomplished anything important, which I know is ridiculous considering I'm 20... but I can't help feeling that way.

Another thing is that I've been working overtime now in order to save money for when I start university (which I finally decided to do— I've decided to change to Literature/creative writing. It's not a huge change from film to writing; I mean, I've always been heavy into writing; so that's not really a big deal)...

Problem is that when I get home, I'm so tired from work that I don't get anything done. I barely feel like reading; I've started reading a book almost a week ago and I'm not even half way through (usually I read at least a novel a week)... I haven't studied any physics or biology in like two weeks... I've written nothing since I started working overtime (well, I've done some rather extensive revisions to older pieces, but that's more like cheating myself into feeling like I'm doing something productive)... worst of all: I don't even have the energy for PF — certainly there is something wrong with this picture

Anyway, that's my rant that I needed to get out.

Have any of you gone (or are going through) anything similar?

And those of you already past this stage and already full on into adulthood (brrr *shivers* ) — How do you find the time and energy to do the things you enjoy? ... I mean, I'm kind of backwards here because for most of you the science would make up the professional aspect of your life, while the art would make up the recreational aspect of your life. ... but as I'm sure there are many of you who take that recreational aspect (be it painting, or playing music, or writing) as more than just a hobby, and consider it a very important part of who you are, I feel the same way about science and learning.



Or is having 0 time and energy to do the things you love just part of growing up? ... because that sounds lame.

 

[Astronuc]

I'm trying to avoid adulthood for as long as possible - may be putting off indefinitely.

 

[Math Jeans]

remember being a kid and having no responsibilities?

Don't say that to a 13-year-old. You have no idea what I'm going through right now.

EDIT: HORRAY! 100 posts!

 

[Kurdt]

Well you're certainly not alone. I haven't adjusted well at all, and I'm sure there are many others.

 

[moe darklight]

Don't say that to a 13-year-old. You have no idea what I'm going through right now.

why, what are you going through?

I wasn't the happiest at 13... I was on kind of a low, but at least I didn't feel like I do now; I had a full life ahead of me. which, I know, I still do! I'm not saying I'm being very rational here expecting to have accomplished something important at 20, but I can't help feeling that way.

sorry, did I scare you? haha

EDIT: HORRAY! 100 posts!

congratulations

 

[moe darklight]

I'm trying to avoid adulthood for as long as possible - may be putting off indefinitely.

admit it, you grew the beard just so they'd finally stop asking you for ID every time you try to buy alcohol .

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Or is having 0 time and energy to do the things you love just part of growing up? ... because that sounds lame.

That depends. Some people choose to live that way while chasing the diamond carrot, and others seek balance. But, if you ever want to make something of yourself, it will require some dedication and a willingness to sacrifice at times.

On the other hand, if you want to be a student, you will likely have to avoid the overtime work. There is a limit to what a person can manage.

When I was a student and working, it was common for me to go on 0-3 hours of sleep at night. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!

 

[turbo]

Many years ago, my wife and I decided to spend our lives on each other. We both came from large families and neither of us was happy with the result. We have no children, but we have each other and we have nieces and nephews that will pitch in BIG TIME.

 

[Math Jeans]

why, what are you going through?

Being six years ahead at my age is tough. I guess I am just a unique situation. AKA bad example.

 

[Cyrus]

I enjoy being an adult. What fun was there being a kid anyways? Id rather be talking to women at a bar, or doing whatever I feel like doing, than trading comic books or playing video games. The best thing about kids are that they can't fight back. ...uh I can't stand those little rats. I went out to a resturant with two of my friends the other night and every family had their kids at the place. They were runing around constantly. I wanted to trip them.

 

[Astronuc]

I had a job at a bike shop when I was 14. It help me earn a little money and discounts on bike parts.

My folks both worked with overlapping schedules, so I'd get home from school just about the time my mom left for an evening job as a nurse, but my dad didn't get home until around 5:30-6:00 pm, so I was responsible for my sister and youngest brother. I did some cooking, and had plenty of yard work and household chores to do - in addition to homework.

At 16 I got a job at a gardening center, which I kept for about a year, and then at 17 worked for a year at a grocery store. Both jobs on weekends and evenings while I was in high school. Basically my folks told me that if I wanted to go to college, I had to work - so I did. I had two brothers and a sister, so I had to help out since I was the oldest.

 

[JasonRox]

I know what you mean, but I feel school conflicts with what I want to do!

I want to learn Algebra and read the details of every proof and solve most or all the questions. I do have an Algebra class with a Graduate text which is awesome. But my prof. thinks it's a waste of time to go through all the details, like I am, because they will go through it in Graduate school. WHY NOT JUST DO IT NOW?!

Then, I want to read my Topology, but no, all my classes occupy too much of my time. Or read Psychology!? Something I didn't do in awhile.

For the reasons above, I'm think of doing graduate school part-time or not at all because of this. I'm always going in directions I don't want to go with the material! I talked to my prof. about this problem. He does want me to go to Graduate school and wants me to go to a good school. He understands my problem. He think I'll do better if I was just to go out study about like I want. It's really hard to explain.

It's annoying as hell though.

Mark Twain warned me though. Don't let schooling get in the way of your education.

 

[Moonbear]

I think I have to agree with Cyrus ( ). Being an adult is way more fun than being a kid. Maybe it has to do with how strict one's parents are when growing up, but I had an awful lot of rules as a kid that I had to follow.

As an adult, I can do things I was never allowed to do as a kid, like have chocolate cake for breakfast, stay up all night, bring home that adorable kitten without asking anybody, stay out all night, go out on dates without a father giving the guy the third degree first, stay out all night on that date , drive myself wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do.

 

[JasonRox]

I think I have to agree with Cyrus ( ). Being an adult is way more fun than being a kid. Maybe it has to do with how strict one's parents are when growing up, but I had an awful lot of rules as a kid that I had to follow.

As an adult, I can do things I was never allowed to do as a kid, like have chocolate cake for breakfast, stay up all night, bring home that adorable kitten without asking anybody, stay out all night, go out on dates without a father giving the guy the third degree first, stay out all night on that date , drive myself wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do.

That's freedom with responsibility!

Kids have no responsiblity with no freedom and adults have both!

 

[Kurdt]

I don't think anybody is disagreeing with the privileges of adulthood, but rather the annoying responsibility that one inevitably accrues.

 

[scorpa]

Life sucked for me until I turned 18, now I am 20 and all is well. School does conflict with lots of the things I like to do but that's life, it can't all be perfect. Besides I love what I study so that helps, and it's not like I will be in school forever. I think having a few extra responsiblities is worth it...I definitely wouldn't want to go back to my childhood years.

 

[staf9]

When I was a student and working, it was common for me to go on 0-3 hours of sleep at night. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!

Doesn't feel worth it right now!... /sleep

 

[moe darklight]

Yea, I dunno... I definitely wouldn't want to go back to my childhood either. ... my years of grades 2-3 and 5-6 (middle school) were pretty great, but the rest, up to about when I was 16, pretty much sucked. Since then it's been alright though.

I never really fit in with any group; even with my friends now I feel kind of like an outside-observer rather than "one of the guys," if that makes any sense... my parents tell me that in kindergarten all the kids used to make fun of me because I used big words and they couldn't understand what I was saying, but they both decided that it was best for me to stay in my respective class, which I'm grateful for... I mean, then I had that phase with drugs in high-school and ended up staying an extra year... I've never been the most mature person emotionally, I guess.

My biggest problem is that persistent feeling that I should've already accomplished something. And that I feel like I'm not doing enough, yet at the same time feel too exhausted to do everything I feel I should be doing.

Being six years ahead at my age is tough. I guess I am just a unique situation. AKA bad example.

wow, that is indeed a different case. I definitely couldn't handle all this at 13! ... but I'm not that smart, so I wouldn't have to anyway. ... I think emotional maturity as important as mental. If you feel you can handle it all, then you've matured enough to do it.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

When I was sixteen, I started pretending I was an adult. And I've been pretending ever since. - Mark Twain

I think it was Twain. I haven't been able to find this quote on the web. If you can find it for me, I would appreciate it. My version is a paraphrase, I don't remember the original.

 

[Math Jeans]

The best thing about kids are that they can't fight back. ...uh I can't stand those little rats. I went out to a resturant with two of my friends the other night and every family had their kids at the place. They were runing around constantly. I wanted to trip them.

You have the ability to wield a gun, and I have the ability to use a compound bow. I wish we could make peace.

 

[turbo]

I wouldn't want to go back to being a kid. I went to elementary school in a small school in which each teacher would teach two grades in one room, so when I was in the first, third and fifth grades, I learned all the materials for the higher grades and was absolutely bored to tears during the even-numbered grades, and back then a year seemed like an eternity. My parents were not well-off, so if I hoped to go to college, I had to work and save money. I shoveled walks and driveways, raked leave, mowed lawns, etc, and by the age of 14, I was working after school and/or weekends during spring and fall and full-time all summer maintaining the town cemetery. At 17, I flagged traffic for a construction company and greased heavy equipment during my lunch breaks for extra money, and years after and all through college I provided vacation coverage at local wood-working mills - usually as a sawyer or operating shaping equipment. Ah, yes! "Carefree youth." I wouldn't want to re-live that portion of my life, but I wouldn't trade those experiences, either. I knew kids whose parents ran dairy farms, and they worked at least as hard as I did with no pay.

 

[Lisa!]

I think I have to agree with Cyrus ( ). Being an adult is way more fun than being a kid. Maybe it has to do with how strict one's parents are when growing up, but I had an awful lot of rules as a kid that I had to follow.

As an adult, I can do things I was never allowed to do as a kid, like have chocolate cake for breakfast, stay up all night, bring home that adorable kitten without asking anybody, stay out all night, go out on dates without a father giving the guy the third degree first, stay out all night on that date , drive myself wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do.

hmmm...have you told us the truth about your age? I see most of kids say things like what you said!
Anyway I think any period of life has its own joys.

 

[Moonbear]

The best thing about kids are that they can't fight back. ...uh I can't stand those little rats. I went out to a resturant with two of my friends the other night and every family had their kids at the place. They were runing around constantly. I wanted to trip them.

You need to spend more time around well-behaved kids. At your age, I thought very much like you do about kids, because that's the type I was mostly exposed to as well...or at least the ones I couldn't help but notice...the out-of-control brats running around the restaurant or mall or wherever it was that their parents were letting them run around with no supervision. I'd think to myself, and out loud to others, that I'd never want one of those obnoxious little creatures.

And then my friends started having kids, and I started to be around their kids more, and my friends, being my friends and sharing a lot of values with me, raise their kids with rules, consequences, respect, etc. Their kids don't get to run amok in a restaurant. Indeed, if they started to carry on in a public place, they'd get carted right back out and the outing would be over. They're the kids you don't notice when you're at a restaurant, because they're sitting quietly next to their parents, content to color in a coloring book or something else similarly quiet, not making themselves obvious. I still have no tolerance for brats, but have just realized that it's not the kids' at fault but the parents, and I wouldn't raise kids to be brats. Kids are a lot of fun to be around when they've been raised to be polite and well-behaved (and to share their toys!).

 

[LightbulbSun]

moe_darklight,

The biggest thing you can learn to do is to break down the day incrementally.

 

[Cyrus]

You need to spend more time around well-behaved kids. At your age, I thought very much like you do about kids, because that's the type I was mostly exposed to as well...or at least the ones I couldn't help but notice...the out-of-control brats running around the restaurant or mall or wherever it was that their parents were letting them run around with no supervision. I'd think to myself, and out loud to others, that I'd never want one of those obnoxious little creatures.

And then my friends started having kids, and I started to be around their kids more, and my friends, being my friends and sharing a lot of values with me, raise their kids with rules, consequences, respect, etc. Their kids don't get to run amok in a restaurant. Indeed, if they started to carry on in a public place, they'd get carted right back out and the outing would be over. They're the kids you don't notice when you're at a restaurant, because they're sitting quietly next to their parents, content to color in a coloring book or something else similarly quiet, not making themselves obvious. I still have no tolerance for brats, but have just realized that it's not the kids' at fault but the parents, and I wouldn't raise kids to be brats. Kids are a lot of fun to be around when they've been raised to be polite and well-behaved (and to share their toys!).

I should restate what I said. I don't like other peoples kids.

Had anyone of those kids been me, my mother would have grabbed me and smacked me until I stopped running around. We need to bring back hitting your kids in this country.

Personally, I don't want a ball and chain (wife+kids) until I am older than 30. In the meantime, I will enjoy being an adult and doing adult things that you can't do with a ball and chain. So many things you can't do around little kids. Curse, tell dirty jokes, talk about women, watch movies with sex, drugs, and violence. Ahhhh, I love being an adult.

 

[Moonbear]

I
Had anyone of those kids been me, my mother would have grabbed me and smacked me until I stopped running around. We need to bring back hitting your kids in this country.

I don't actually think that's necessary (doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to threaten kids though ). The reason is that if you raise them right from infancy, you just don't wind up in a situation like that where you feel something more drastic needs to be done to put a stop to it. From the time I was old enough to sit in a chair, it was expected that we'd sit quietly at the table for meals, use our utensils, eat what was put in front of us, and did not get up until we were excused from the table. There was simply no other option and we never considered doing things any other way. I remember the first time I was out to dinner with my cousins though...they're about 5 years older than I am (twins), so I was a kid and they were probably early teens at the time...I was SHOCKED when they started throwing food at each other...in a restaurant! My aunt and uncle did nothing to stop it, it was my parents who intervened and told them to knock it off. On the way home, I asked my parents about it, and their answer is that my aunt and uncle never took my cousins out to restaurants with them, so never taught them how to act properly in a restaurant (it's true, my aunt and uncle would leave my cousins with babysitters whenever they went out to dinner or even on vacations...there were no family vacations in their family...very strange). I was never fully satisfied with the answer, because it's not like my sister and I would have gotten away with throwing food at home either, and that I knew better as a child than they did as teens didn't really speak well for their manners or upbringing (I get the impression they were spoiled as the babies, because my older cousins...their brothers...also have at times seemed rather appalled at their sisters' behavior, even as adults...they were never allowed to get away with stuff like that either it seems).

 

[Cyrus]

I was raised the same way as you were. But had I tried and done what these kids do, I would have been hit. Not asked to stop.

 

[Moonbear]

I was raised the same way as you were. But had I tried and done what these kids do, I would have been hit. Not asked to stop.

Yep, I believed that too. Only after I was all grown up did my mom admit she didn't believe in hitting kids and never would have...didn't stop her from convincing me otherwise though!

 

[turbo]

I have grown nieces and nephews with kids of their own, and they don't need to be hit. They are decent kids who love us, and they ask us what is permitted and what is not if they are unsure (like "is it OK to climb the big apple tree?"). My nieces' and nephews' kids are sweeties, as their parents were when we invited them to share weekends with us and our ferrets.

 

[LightbulbSun]

I think giving your kids limited free will is a good thing. I've noticed people who are raised in a strict upbringing can't think for themselves.

 

[Garth]

When I was sixteen, I started pretending I was an adult. And I've been pretending ever since. - Mark Twain

I think it was Twain. I haven't been able to find this quote on the web. If you can find it for me, I would appreciate it. My version is a paraphrase, I don't remember the original.

Then there is always the quote: "When I was ten, I thought my parents knew everything. When I became twenty, I was convinced they knew nothing. Then, at thirty, I realized I was right when I was ten." Mark Twain

Garth

 

[Moonbear]

I think giving your kids limited free will is a good thing. I've noticed people who are raised in a strict upbringing can't think for themselves.

There's a big difference between making every decision for your kids so they never learn to think for themselves, and setting rules where they learn there are bad consequences for bad decisions...just as there's a big difference between both of those and letting your kid do anything they want.

Some decisions can be up for discussion, and of course what those decisions are depends on the age of the kid. When I was a young child, I was not given a choice about eating vegetables with my dinner, for example, but I was given choices like, "Do you want broccoli or green beans?" When we went to restaurants, I was shown the kids' menu and could choose whatever I wanted off it, but if I acted up inappropriately, I would quickly find out that the consequence was being unceremoniously carried out under one arm.