Reddit Users Share Life Lessons You Only Understand When You Get Older

Understanding why your parents wanted you to go play with the awkward kid, or why they were so keen to help you make friends.

It's beyond annoying as a kid when your parents try to guide who make friends with, but most parents instinctively know that bad social habits start early, are hard to break, and can be a real burden when you are older.

I remember my dad telling me all kinds of cool stories about things him and his friends did in the past. I even asked him "why aren't you still friends with these people?" He really did basically say "it's complicated, you'll understand when you're older." Even back then I remember thinking "that's crazy, me and my friends will always be friends."

Sitting here now in my early 30's and it really hits home.

My mom never liked my friend group and it really annoyed me. Looking back half of them were jerks anyway and the other half were already doing things that led them into a life of drug addiction after high school. I never got into drinking and drugs like that but everyone around me was doing it and I had every opportunity to. Looking back she was just looking out for me and even though she didn’t have proof of what we we’re doing she was just an adult who had lived and could tell it wasn’t a good group if friends.

It is possible to do everything right and still fail. Don’t let it consume you. Pick up the pieces and move on.

I had to learn this after a project that I was on for 3 years was sabotaged and canned. I did some amazing work, and poured my life into that project... in the end I had nothing to show for it. It put me in a real slump for a few years. I’m still trying to pull myself out of it without becoming a cynical and jaded jerk.

Time...wasting time, and how time flies. It’s mid December & I’m saying to myself ‘what the heck-it’s been 9 months of Covid & I can’t believe this year is almost over’! As you age it seems to go faster & faster. When I was younger I felt like time just dragged on some days.

I lost my Mom August 2020. I can sincerely say that I feel like I’ve “learned” more in the last 3months than I have in my entire life. I’ve gone from someone who thought being right and doing the right thing was the most important thing to understanding that being kind, loving, compassionate & empathetic is so much more important. Always choose love. You will never regret it. Ever.

Hand me downs. I absolutely hated them, even though my grandma was a genius with them. Dyeing, artistic patches, new buttons... They just didn't last compared to the new clothes my older sister had. Then I had 3 boys in 6 years... I'm seriously grateful that my grandma tried so hard to make my hand me downs look good. I get it now.

Literally getting older. Never thought much about when adults would say “You’re still young, just enjoy it”. I always wanted to be older because I was tired of HS, wanted to be out of college, etc. Now I want aging to slow down a bit.

What parents sacrifice just so you can do something fun.

Last night my husband and I sat in a line of cars for an hour and a half so our kids could see this cheesy drive thru light display in my town with Santa and other characters. 0/10 not worth it for us but the kids loved it and it was worth it to see them be able to do a fun Christmas activity during a pandemic.

It made me think of how much my parents had to endure taking my brother and I to theme parks and stuff as a kid just to see us happy. I appreciate it infinitely more now.

In my teens and 20's, I just couldn't understand how my parents were so oblivious to celebrities. They were all over TV, their names and faces blasted on everything, it seemed everybody had some strong emotionally charged opinion about every major actor, musician, director, or tabloid magnet. What are they, living under a rock?

Didn't take long to find out why. Growing up, I didn't have a pre-existing list of "these are famous people," I learned them as they came onto the scene. Eventually, though, they all dropped off the list one by one. The list kept updating. It's a lot harder knowing who is a household name when you also have to know who is last week's news.

I was only 30 when I realized...I have no idea who famous people are anymore. I just couldn't keep up at all. I've become like my parents. Don't know. And honestly, don't care. Celebrity worship, even as cursory as simply knowing their names, is a vapid, fruitless endeavor. Today's idols are tomorrow's trash.

Love.

I thought I loved my wife when I was 20. Now I am 50 and we have been together over 30 years. I realize now that when I was 20 I didn't understand what love was. I hope 70 year-old me looks back on 50 year-old me and says the same thing.

The thing that is the worst about getting older is seeing your parents and other loved ones age and eventually pass away. When you're a kid (even a high school age kid) you assume these people will just be around forever and things will always stay the same as they were. It makes it easier to be disrespectful and generally take them for granted. I'm now 35, and this year was the first where I started noticing physical limitations with my dad especially and that was hard. They're minor for now, but it's only going to get worse.

The biggest blow to me is realizing I likely have less than 20 years left with my parents. Losing that constant source of love and support will be hard to take. They've been a rock my entire life.

I can remember when I was school age, the year seemed to drag on forever, then when it did end we had the six weeks holidays. Six whole weeks! With hour upon hour of sunshine, towards the end of it, school was but a distant memory. It felt like it would never end. Of course, it always did when September finally arrived.

Now I work at a school and it's terrifying how quickly we blaze through each term, those same holidays are over in a flash. I think it's because now I'm older I'm consciously worried about making the most of the time off, not wasting it. When I was young the biggest worry was whether my friends and I would play in the woods or on the fell that day. Time wasn't a worry, we thought we had all the time in the world!

Not all people have your best interests at heart. People will take advantage of your kindness and compassion. And finally, that everyone's else's problems are not your own. You can try to help people but they have to want to help themselves.

On a positive note, there is a freedom to being a grown-up that I didn't grasp as a kid. Just last week, a 4th grader posited the question, "What's it like to be grown-up?"

My co-teacher and I started to laugh and I said, "Well...it's got its up and downs."

Kid asked, "Is it boring to pay bills?"

I replied, "Well, that's definitely a 'down' and it's not really boring...." I searched in my head for something positive and came up with, "But you know what? I can go to Arby's pretty much any time I want, so there's that."

And thus erupted a Zoom screen full of kids in wonder that yes, as a grown-up, you may be able to get Arby's pretty much whenever you want. I even said something like, "You'll understand when you're a grown-up and have a car but it's pretty cool."

And you know what? It IS pretty cool!

A parent's love for their child.

A year after my granddaughter was born my daughter was telling me how wonderful her toddler is, how smart she is, and just all-around lovable she is. She then said, "I don't think I could ever love anyone as much as I love my daughter!"

Then she paused for a moment as realization washed over her face.

"Dad, is this how much you love me?"

"Bingo, kiddo. Now you know."

I read something once that really stuck with me: people with loving parents realize how much their parents loved them once they have their own children; people with abusive parents realize just how cruel and messed up their own childhood was and struggle with the realization that their parents could be that cruel to a child once they have their own kids. You rationalize the abuse away for years, then you catch a glimpse of how truly vulnerable and innocent you were as a child and it’s a whole new perspective on your experience.

If you’re one of those kids with abusive parents, becoming a parent yourself can really set you back, even if you feel like you’ve dealt with your demons.

When I was a kid I watched my mom and dad refuse to let my grandparents pay for something or pay them back for something.

I thought that was silly as a kid and said I wouldn't do that. But as an adult, I find myself always doing this same thing I said I never would.

The power of your peers.

One of the gifts of middle age is you finally stop caring so much about what everyone else thinks of what you're doing - largely because you realize other people no longer care if they ever did in the first place.

Once that veil lifts, everything feels different, but until then you really have no idea how much what you decide or want has had to do with pleasing the people around you, trying to fit in with them, or at least avoiding their ire.

How stupid you are right now. People tend to think they're pretty knowledgeable and wise at any given moment in their life, but then you age a decade and look back and think "wow, I was SUCH an idiot. How did I not realize how much of a douche bag I was being?" and other such things. Then you'll think "I'm glad I'm better now, now I'm pretty knowledgeable and wise."

Then another decade passes…

When I was a kid my dad and I had a tradition every week of going to the video store and renting a movie or two to watch together. It was one of my favorite things to do, but I remember I used to get really upset at him because every single time we'd actually start to watch the movie he would fall asleep.

It wasn't until I was older that I realized that the reason he would fall asleep was because he was exhausted from working two very physically demanding jobs to try and give me the best life he possibly could. On top of that, even though he was tired he still made an effort to try and start a little tradition with me and spend time with me. Those memories of me having to nudge my dad awake are so great in my eyes because they made me realize what a caring and hard-working man he was and still is.

I remember my dad would grumble when I would ask “what’s for dinner?” the moment he walked in the door after work. I always thought I was sitting there for hours getting hungry and when he got home dinner would be started.

Years later I told a girlfriend I would swing by her place after work. I wound up working an 11 hour shift so I was exhausted when I arrived and the first thing she asked was “what’s for dinner?”

That was probably the last thing I wanted to hear but I clicked in that she had been waiting for hours for me so I took her to her favourite local joint to grab take out then took a few bites and took a nap while she told me about her day. That’s when I was like “now I get it. Even if you’re physically and emotionally exhausted you still make sure everyone is fed before you pass out”

The value of discipline. You might have all the brains or potential in the world, but without discipline, everything you hold dear to you, all the 'smarts' that you used to validate yourself as an excuse, is snatched away within the blink of an eye. It might have been cool to embody the character of that stereotypical lazy whiz kid, who gets things done when needed when you were younger, perhaps as an adolescent, as you'd have liked to think that you'd pull it off the same.

Years pass by, the laziness, the lack of effective principles starts to take a toll unless reversed, incompetency sets in, lethargy is a hobby, time management is a joke, priorities are misplaced, personal relationships are ruined, and perhaps your lack of discipline might also spiral you into substance abuse('abuse' not drugs in general) or other addictions, kickstarting a vicious cycle of pain and suffering.

"The way you do something is the way you do everything". Try to understand what this means. If this doesn't scare you, I don't know what else will.

"Phases."

There is nothing more patronizing or even insulting than someone older say what you think or are doing is some sort of "phase" you are going through, that you'll change your mind later, etc. No one should ever do that.

However, when you approach middle age, you realize just how many times in your life you thought you had it all figured out (even if it meant you had decided nothing makes sense and you have no idea who you really are) and then totally changed your mind, or at least amended your philosophies.

That adults hitting kids isn't normal. I grew up in an extremely abusive home and was actively taught it was everyone treated their kids like this. I believed it and never told anyone about what happened at home until I was 19.

When I had kids of my own, I thought I would have to fight myself to not hurt them (because I didn't want to be like my parents)... But I didn't. I could never say or do the things to my kids that my parents did to me. I will never.

My parents are no longer a part of my life. And will never be a part of my children's lives again. My children will never see abuse as normal.

Enjoy the time you have, like seriously enjoy it. Take pictures when you’re in Middle school and Highschool. I maybe have a total of 15 pictures with friends from HS. Why? Because I felt like it was going to last forever. Did it? Nope. Thankfully because of social media and younger people having phones they’re able to stay in contact. But when I was younger and playing Xbox 360 I had a lot of online friends who said “I’ll be on tomorrow” and were never on. I miss them.

Just really enjoy your joy. Take pictures. Because time will fly.

Honestly, The Little Mermaid is a great example of what's wrong with parent-child interactions, because when we were kids, we did agree with Ariel. We were persuaded by her emotions and saw her desires as our own.

As adults, we have a fully developed brain (hopefully) and more life experience, and therefore we aren't convinced by the ephemeral, but intense emotions, that kids/teenagers have. But rather than validating Ariel's feelings, interests, and desires, Triton's basically like "You're wrong for feeling that way, and also I'm going to destroy your room." Which actually happens. Parents actually do that and are then surprised when the kid turns to the only validating adult in the room, who just might be a soul-stealing witch.

I really like revisiting media as an adult, not only to see how my sympathies have changed but also to make sure that I'm not the adult who is perpetuating the conflict by not listening. Because as an adult, I expect better from myself.

Life is fair, but not in the way you think. The laws of nature are fair in that they don't care about your intentions or morals or anything like that; they do what they do despite what you think it should do.

The example I like to use is "If you fall off a 200-storey building, it doesn't matter if you slipped or if you jumped or if you were pushed; you're still going to die."

The importance of equal maturity in a relationship. So many relationships fail after so long, many after marriage because one person is much less mature than the other. But until you've experienced it or seen it enough times, it seems like an obstacle you can overcome in time. The fact is, there are many immature adults who will never grow up, but this is hard to see when you're young and believe all adults are grown-ups.

I never understood why people with kids would stay together if they weren't totally in love. As an adult, I understand that splitting households is extremely expensive and in a lot of cases would reduce everyone's standard of living. I can understand now why if a couple is OK together that they might postpone splitting until the kids leave the nest.