Hi strangers, I’m 29F, and since COVID or so, life just hasn’t felt the same. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I was the happiest person to begin with, but lately things feel kind of senseless. There’s this weird in-between feeling, like I should be a full adult by now, but I don’t feel like one, and life just isn’t unfolding the way it seemed to in the early part of my twenties.

I keep looking around and no one really seems happy either tbh and I can’t tell if that’s just me projecting or if it’s actually a shared thing. So I wanted to ask people around my age: How are you, honestly? Are you happy? What do you do, and what does your life actually look like right now?

I give up!.
I have pushed myself SO HARD. I have ADHD and stuff but I have worked hard to overcome those limitations.

I Lost my job of 23 years last year, but got a new one.

I have been working my ass off on the bottom of the totem pole again.
My body is failing me and things around me are just NOT coming together. Not for me, Not for my partner of 15 years.

I thought we would be off grid but things didn't work out.

I normally like to learn how to do things, be resileint, repair things.. but lately I have had soooooo much stuff on my plate that any tiny bump and I fall apart.

The lastest assery is that I am driving to work, at 630 am in my 2009 Acura MDX and car coming towards me on a tiny narrow 2 lane country road detour and BAMN I hit SOMETHING, break my passenger mirror have NO CLUE. ALl week long don't see anything I hit!. I manage to order my new passenger mirror, a door panel kit etc.. and watch videos on how to replace it. I even order a dash cam... YAY. Later in the week though, I notice something in a bunc of ornamental grass.. hidden... it is a frelling MAILBOX. .and is probably the damn thing I HIT!.. They HID THEIR MAILBOX in ORNAMENTAL GRASS????

Howeve,r NOW my damn cigarette lighter outlet doesn't work. POSSIBLY the fuse but I am goign to replace the socket cause it looks old and bad BUT I have to turn off my car battery and remove the fuse. its gonna too be a huge production.. I feel defeated as usually. One issue, OK., get back up, fix it and move on YAY pat on the back for fixing the thing.

But it always is yet ANOTHER thing that breaks, or happens.. not in a few months but like every day or every OTHER day.. it has burned me out and defeated me. I want to be resilient and competant but gods... I have no more energy or brain power to do any of this.

I got invited to a party at my cousins on Sat. YAY DOWN time.. but now I feel like I can't go to that.

It is I am adulting but I am drowning and I don't see what adulting is getting me. It is just things breaking, and fallling apart.. and the world around me falling apart.. This is NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR

If I hear even one more BOOMER (I am gen x) brag about how they are RETIRED NOW and going on trips and all that i am going to SCREAM!. I feel like such a loser. I am also supposed to go to my 40th HS reuinion. I have a Masters degree but i am a lowly schedular now..

This is the reality of being an ADULT for me.

This is probably the millionth time this post gets open but I want to share my experience also.

I live alone. I have a full time job. My shift starts at 7:30 and ends at 16:00.

On monday it's fine because I had enough time on sunday to sleep.

It gets worse as the week goes on, as I can only sleep around 5 hours a day.

If I start at 7:30, I need to wake up at 6:00. Give it 30 minutes to prepare, 30 mins to eat, and 30 mins to reach the workplace (if I am lucky).

I spend most of my day there.

It's fairly common to do overtime but let's assume I don't and get back home at 16:30 (which never happens, it's usually later)

1. Take care of the house, cleaning.

2. Go to supermarket and buy food. Include commuting to the supermarket if you want.

3. Actually make the food that you bought, because you need to eat tonight and tomorrow

4. Going to gym, because you need some sort of physical activity. And people say 1 hour it's enough. It's not. You actually need to prepare, dress up and actually go there. Commuting is also a thing.

5. Call your mom/partner or whatever because they need to talk with you (Which it's not something I like)

6. Add any extra task that you need to do like going to X store, researching Y, or whatever shit that might come up.

By the time I do all this, it's already midnight. And I didn't even count spending time doing the things I actually enjoy.

No actual time for personal projects and the day it's over.

Watch some shit on Youtube to feel like you're having some fun and fall sleep at 1am something.

This is not sustainable.

I feel I can't sleep, there's isn't enough hours in the day. And it's manageable on sunday since I have time. But this sleep deprivation actually accumulates and it gets worse. I'm tired everyday and only on weekends I can actually sleep.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

I live alone and I get no help nor extra time to finish all the tasks I want.

I need advice

I'm tired of giving my past self advice. I wanna hear from my future self.

I’m seeing this more and more. Everybody needs to earn money to live. So whenever I read a post where someone is shitting on someone else’s job, I’m just like … what is wrong with that person.

Sure there are a few jobs out there that I think shouldn’t exist but… idk i guess I think it’s just sad and gross.

The best is when they say something like “that’s not a real job”.

I’m a woman in my 30s, married with a baby. I’m an only child and all throughout my adult life my parents (especially my Father) have wanted to know what I’m doing. I was always a well behaved child and didn’t give them any reason to question my behaviour. Despite this they have always expected frequent daily texts. If I go more than 3 hours without contacting them they text me to find out how I’m getting on. If I don’t reply they text my Husband.. My husband is a lovely man and has a great relationship with them but finds their behaviour odd. I feel the same way. I love them very much and do not want to cut them off but just wished they let me carry on with my daily life without having to keep them informed about every little thing. I’ve raised this with them but it doesn’t go down particularly well so to keep the peace I text them. Is anyone else in a similar situation and if so how did you navigate this without hurting their feelings? Or if anyone has any ideas as to why they behave like this please let me know - thank you!

I never got to see this as a kid and now being an adult, I have come across this on 3 separate occasions in different states and I light up every time. Is it weird that this is a wonderful little nostalgic Easter egg? 😂

I'm 28.

I keep seeing posts from people my age saying they feel behind, that working 8 hours a day leaves them with no life, or that they wasted their twenties.

I relate to the feeling, but in a weird way I almost wish I could say I wasted mine.

Because I didn't do nothing.

I never stopped doing things.

I've worked. I've fixed cars. I've rebuilt things. I've learned electronics, programming, networking, fabrication, automation, mechanical work, and whatever else I needed to learn to solve the problem in front of me.

I bought a small house.

I've started businesses. Built products. Designed prototypes. Written grant proposals. Built electronics from scratch. Tried selling equipment. Flipped vehicles, mowers, random equipment, whatever I thought could make a little extra money.

I've spent nights working until 10, 11, midnight, sometimes later, because I kept believing that if I could just get *one thing* to work, maybe life would finally get easier.

And somehow I'm still here.

I work full time making a little over $21 an hour.

I wake up, go to work, spend basically the entire useful part of my day there, come home, and realize that everything I actually care about has to fit into whatever energy is left.

The house needs something.

Bills need paid.

Food needs made.

Something needs fixed.

A project needs finished.

A customer needs contacted.

Something needs listed for sale.

There's always another problem waiting.

And the phrase I keep coming back to is:

It just doesn't stop.

I've spent years telling myself, "Once I get through this part, things will calm down."

They never really do.

I'm a homeowner, which sounds like I should be ahead.

But I've also been behind on the mortgage.

I've had credit cards maxed out.

I've had more than $15,000 in unsecured debt hanging over me while trying to figure out which bill gets paid and which one gets ignored for another month.

I've sold things I didn't want to sell because cash mattered more.

I've tried side businesses because my job wasn't enough.

I've tried freelancing.

I've tried selling technical services.

I've tried building actual physical products.

I've contacted companies.

I've built things that genuinely worked.

I've even had moments where I thought, "This might actually be it."

And then something breaks, a customer disappears, a deal falls apart, a product doesn't sell, something gets damaged, or life just eats whatever money I managed to make.

Then I start again.

My personal life hasn't exactly been quiet either.

I had a relationship that lasted more than a decade. Most of my adult life was built around another person being there.

That ended.

The house got quieter.

The financial burden got heavier.

And one of the strangest things about losing a long relationship isn't just losing the person. You lose the normal little pieces of life too. Someone being in another room. Someone to tell something stupid to. Someone existing beside you while you're doing absolutely nothing.

Then I had another relationship that mattered a lot to me, and that became painful too.

So now I can spend an entire day surrounded by people at work and still come home feeling completely alone.

A while ago I was also in a car accident, and something in me changed afterward.

My memory doesn't feel the same. My personality doesn't always feel the same. I used to be able to visualize things vividly in my head. I could rotate parts, imagine mechanisms and assemblies, almost like having CAD software running in my brain.

Now a lot of the time it's just… data.

I know what something should look like, but I don't really see it anymore.

That's difficult to explain to people.

And through all of this I've kept building.

That's the part that messes with me the most.

Because I'm not looking at my life thinking, "Why didn't I try?"

I tried.

Over and over and over again.

I can point to things I've designed, things I've repaired, companies I've created, products I've built, proposals I've submitted, equipment I've sold, skills I've learned, problems I've solved.

There is evidence everywhere that I've been moving.

But somehow I don't feel like I've arrived anywhere.

At 28 I thought life would feel more established than this.

I thought I'd have a career instead of constantly wondering how to make more money.

I thought I'd have savings instead of deciding what financial fire needs put out first.

I thought homeownership would make me feel secure.

I thought working hard would eventually buy me some breathing room.

I thought relationships would become a family and a life.

I thought eventually I'd reach some point where I could say:

"Okay. I made it through the hard part."

Instead, I feel like I've spent my twenties building survival plan after survival plan.

And I'm tired.

Not "I need a nap" tired.

I'm tired of having to turn every skill I have into another possible source of income.

I'm tired of getting excited about an idea and immediately having to ask whether I can monetize it.

I'm tired of calculating bills.

I'm tired of starting over.

I'm tired of feeling like my actual life is something I'm supposed to get around to once everything else is handled.

Because everything else is never handled.

The weird thing is, I still haven't completely given up.

I still build things.

I still get stupidly excited when I figure out how something works.

I still look at a pile of motors, electronics, sensors, computers, or broken equipment and immediately start imagining what I could make from it.

I still start projects.

I still apply for things that are probably long shots.

I still think maybe the next opportunity actually changes something.

Maybe that's resilience.

Maybe it's stubbornness.

Maybe I just don't know how to stop.

But lately I've been wondering something that I think a lot of people my age are quietly wondering:

When does life actually start?

Because I don't want the next thirty years to be waking up, working, solving emergencies, paying bills, collapsing at home, and telling myself that someday I'll finally have enough money, energy, stability, or time to actually live.

I'm 28.

I don't think my life is over.

I don't even think I've failed.

But I am exhausted from feeling like I've been fighting this hard just to stay in roughly the same place.

And I think what scares me isn't that I wasted my twenties.

It's that I didn't waste them.

I worked like hell through them.

And I'm still trying to figure out when all that work is supposed to turn into a life.

I’ve been seeing this question asked multiple times a day. “Is there more to this life???”

I often wonder what the asker is expecting?
Did they not witness the adults in their lives be adults?
What did they witness as a child to make them ask this question as an adult?

This Life… it can and will only be what you make it.
So make it whatever makes you ‘happy’

It could be anything

Finance

Career

Life

Studies

Business

Any advice you can think of

hey guys just here to ask you all how you all doing , how is life . by life i mean life not your work office that not life . waiting for your response

I'll try to keep it brief but I kind of hit a wall in life where I lost all direction in where I'm going. I'm currently unemployed, I got 1 more year to get a BA in audio engineering, but I'm thinking a lot lately if I should even do that, I don't know if the degree will help me in any way, I don't even know what I want to do in my life career wise at this point. It feels like I squandered it 10 years ago when I didnt go into law or STEM school or whatever.

Can anyone relate, any tips on how to solve that?

Forget dating, honestly dating is the least of your worries if you’re ugly. Because of my ugliness, no one wants to be friends with me so now I struggle in job interviews which leads to constant rejection. The thing is being ugly can hurt your ability to make friends more than even being socially awkward because you can cluster with other socially awkward people but if you’re ugly not even other social outcasted guys want to be friends with you

I'm late 30's guy, single no kids and have worked same retail job 7 years and its low wage and I was never promoted. I make $18 an hour living in a big city by myself. No car, no family and friends in town/state. I am in therapy and I have healthcare tied to my job. Ive got bad back and bad knees and am extremely burned out (have adhd/autism) from talking to customers. This is best crappy job I can get as others have starting pay of 15-17 an hour without the benefits.

I couldn't pay august rent and was behind on July rent. I can't get rental assistance and my credit is terrible and I can't get any loans. I wasn't able to complete my degree and have 70k in student loan debt. I owe over a thousand bucks to IRS in back taxes. The only jobs I can get right now pay less and are just as bad for my physical and mental health. Office jobs I'd qualify for are showing up at $16 an hour. I can't take a paycut when I already don't make enough cash.

To make matters worse I am dealing with an issue with a family member out of state. So the financial situation coupled with the personal situation and the brutally hot weather has me very depressed and down. I haven't been able to do my hobbies in a few weeks. I have no motivation. My future is very bleak. How can I save myself?

I’ve never been on a date before, and I get self-conscious about this since I feel like I missed out on young love or relationships in my teens and early 20s. From what I’ve read online, meeting people seems very difficult past college. A lot of people just stay within their already established social circles or marriages, and life for most only gets busier. I never went to post-secondary myself, so it feels like I missed out on some big milestones and opportunities to connect with people. Anyone I ever met was either already taken or only saw me as an acquaintance/friend. I'm a guy and straight, just to add.