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The Harsh Realities About Growing Up

A reflection on being a 21 year old adult.

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The Harsh Realities About Growing Up
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I was the person who a long time ago was asking to be grown up and to grow up desperately. Why did I ever want to grow up in a fast time? For anyone who wants too, don't. Other people wish they could be an adult and want to rush thinking that it will be great. What you come to realize is that you should enjoy your youth while you have it. I am still young being only 21 years old, although I miss my younger days. It is ironic when you think deep about celebrating birthdays. Really what a birthday symbolizes is getting one year closer to your demise. What I am aware of now is that I still wish I could reverse time and be 7 years old again. When people see me they still think that I am 17 or 18 years old. They can not believe that I am now a senior in college or that I am 21 years old. It shows that time flies by. I did not think of the different aspects on being an adult and what it entails. When I was younger I took everything for granted. Looking back on it now, I would love to be turn the gears of the clock back to the good old days of my youth.

Being an adult you can start to see the harsh realities that it encompasses and surpasses. You have to learn to do things on your own. The realities that come with being an adult and the worries that are placed on yourself. I can remember the days of being 7 years old sitting on my carpet floor playing video games relaxing or watching television. I had no worries at all in the world. I had fun all the time and never struggled for anything. Now being an adult fills you with worries and struggles almost on the daily. You have to work hard and struggle. My mind wanders and wanders to thinking and worrying. I have enough gray hair on my head to show that I worry plenty in my free time. Even though some of that is due to genetics as well. Worrying that I won't ever make it out, that my dreams and hard work will all be for nothing. The one thing that can not be taken away from me is my passion and hard work ethic. A passion that keeps me awake some nights. Although there are always doubts, I worry about failing and not getting what I want in my life. Sometimes I feel like giving up being an adult and just throwing it all away down the gutter. Ultimately, I do not because I see the consequences that come with it, I never want to be known as a quitter or as a failure.

Over time when I graduate college I will have to live the adult life of working a nine to five job daily. In addition to waking up at seven am daily. So enjoy your youth while you have it where you can relax and get away with things. Being an adult at 21 years old you are able to purchase alcohol. This is a good thing and a very bad thing. As an adult you can make the choice now to abuse alcohol. You meet people that do just that and do drugs on the daily. As an adult you have the choice to do it or not, but you have to witness this all the time and have to make the right choice. In life we all have the choice to do what we want to do. The problem is that we do not always make the right decisions, we try to drink our problems away. Coupled with doing drugs to lower stress and relax and to make our problems go away. In reality, this can not make your problems go away but can make it even worse. These are just some of the harsh realities that you have to deal with being an adult.

As you grow older, you will be told sooner or later that Santa does not exist, the easter bunny too. The same goes for the tooth fairy. Over time you can see that you lose your innocence as you grow older. Things that you used to laugh at or be cheerful about fade away. You see the world in a different light, seeing it for how it truly is. You witness or see bad things that can not be erased from memory. Over time I know for myself that I have lost the ability to cry. I certainly have not lost it 100%, but I cry a lot less than I used to do when I was younger. And now being in my twenties I hear bad things happen to people and just shrug it off and move on. I feel bad for not being able to cry as easily anymore, for not caring or not wanting too.

As you grow older, you can see who are your real and true friends are. The true friends that stick by your side no matter what and help you out whenever you need assistance. As you grow into an adolescent, you see and meet people who are fake and do not care about you at all. When they need you, they will text you and ask for your help on anything. In fact, they are using you. But the thing is when you need help or need something important from them there will be no response or they will make excuses for why they could not help you. It hurts to help other people, but to get nothing back in return. I have learned to cut these kinds of people off and not be friends with them anymore. Continuing to be friends with these kinds of people is like poisoning myself and only holding me back from my full potential. Over time you will see who your true friends are, who stuck by your side no matter what, thank them for what they do. When you have success, you can tell the people who treated you badly how they are feeling now. You will also meet other people who just want to smoke and drink all day. This seems to be the cool thing to do now, nothing else seems to matter. I have seen and heard this a lot in my life, and I can honestly say it is true and I also am not friends with them anymore. The people who brag about getting girls as well. Right now the number 1 priority in my book for me is caring about my family and true friends. My other priority is becoming a somebody and not being a nobody still. I have dreams that I work to become reality. The reality is that I want to be successful and be a good person.

Some people care only about just smoking, drinking and getting with women. That is not what life is all about, there is such much more to it than that. Chiefly, this is what some people really care about. You can talk to someone, have a great time and think you are friends and the next day they will not even talk to you. They can walk right by you and say nothing. Love is being lost even more and more. Fake love is now taking its place, people want to now just hook up or do more and maybe never talk to that person again or even hang out again. Relationships do not last. Individuals you talk to in person will not answer your texts multiple times when you thought you were friends. They can even stab you in the back later down the line. As you grow into an individual, you start to see this. Like seeing homeless people on the street. The world is not perfect, people do make mistakes, but we have to learn from them. We have to prevent them from happening again. I'm not perfect no one is, but now that I am an adult I try to not make as many errors. People change just like the coming seasons. I can remember my younger self, laughing and smiling as I look at a portrait of myself.

As you grow older, you can see what you really want. What's truly important to you. Particularly, you realize that what your family has said to you for years was right, either by your grandmother or mother. Thank them for trying to help you out. You might think they are wrong, but they are not. Being an adult can seem nice at times as being seen as an individual and getting your own freedom. People see you differently and treat you better. You are in control of your own life, just do not mess it up. Being an adult is not easy, but nothing in life is. The sky is the limit, life is short so enjoy it and more importantly enjoy your youth.


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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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