5 Evidence Why Adulting is Hard

It goes without saying that being an adult is hard. Many people in their twenties find it hard to go from the relatively stable childhood they had to the unpredictability of adulthood. Staying at home with your parents no longer gives you the full range of material and emotional resources it used to. This makes the journey into the lonely, big, unknown world of adulthood less cushioned. Creating your own identity can be hard and nerve-wracking.

Many young people find it hard to grow up because they fear it instead of looking forward to it. Many young adults have trouble reaching developmental milestones or dealing with mental health problems like depression, anxiety, anorexia, or drug abuse. This is not surprising. We are having a hard time right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is made worse by the fact that we have less to choose from, our daily routines have changed, and we don’t have as many people to talk to in person. People are living with their parents or in empty apartments, which cuts them off from all their friends.

At the moment, young adults have to deal with the following big problems:

1. Academics

Many people between the ages of 18 and 24 are not ready for the higher level of academic rigor that comes with going from high school to college or from college to graduate school. It’s hard to find a good work-life balance and be a good student at the same time. Teenagers and young adults can have low self-esteem and self-doubt if they don’t do well in school.

When it’s time to start a career, young people who are still figuring out who they are and what they like can feel lost. Traditionalists in the workforce face the same difficulties finding work as everyone else. About 80% of HR professionals surveyed at the end of 2020 thought that competition for open jobs would get tougher the next year. Also, many jobs require applicants to have relevant experience, which can be hard for people who just graduated from college to get.

When students move from the safety and routine of high school to the chaos of college, they move into a new and exciting place where they are constantly surrounded by their new group of friends and depend on them a lot. On the other hand, going from the social college environment to the more lonely early professional life might be a wake-up call that life isn’t always a party. When trying to make new friends and keep old ones, people face different problems at different points in their lives.

2. Relationships

In love relationships, adolescence is a time of tentative ties, but adulthood is a time of stronger ties. Young adults today are less likely to date casually and have one-night stands like they did when they were younger. When people move in with a partner or get married at a young age, they leave behind a group of singles who are still trying to figure out who they are. It’s no secret that romantic traps cause a lot of stress in the lives of many young adults, whether they fall into them directly or are constantly shown them in media and culture.

3. Finances

Depending on how they were raised, young people today may not have the financial tools they need to make and manage their own money. They might have worked part-time when they were younger to help pay the bills, but now that they are adults, it is their job to pay all of their own bills. It’s hard enough to find a job and keep it without also having to save money and make plans for the future. Some young people may not be ready to deal with complicated bureaucracies and professional relationships when they have to do adult things for the first time, like pay bills, make insurance claims, and file taxes.

4. Substances

Many teens and young adults abuse drugs because they feel too much pressure to “have fun” and fit in with their classmates; they have trouble dealing with the stresses of adolescence; and the media is everywhere. Substance abuse is very common among teens and young adults. In 2018, more than a third of adults aged 18–25 said they binge drank, and nearly half of this age group said they used drugs. When teens turn 18, they no longer have to jump through as many hoops to get drugs and have a wider range of ways to do so.

5. Social Media

Young adults already have a lot on their plates, and the fact that 90% of the world’s 18- to 24-year-olds used at least one social networking site last year doesn’t help. In social media, the general trend is to focus on the best parts of a situation and downplay the bad ones. Sad to say, this often makes young adults compare themselves to others in a bad way, which can lead to feelings of not being good enough and depression. Teenagers have a hard time getting jobs, keeping up with schoolwork, making friends, dating, saving money, staying sober, and dealing with drug use.

Conclusion

All of these problems are common for young adults and make it harder for them to find their place in the world. In turn, this can lead to emotional distress, which can make some people turn to unhealthy ways of coping that hurt their growth.

Thank you 😊