Adults: Do you enjoy your life now as an adult and working for yourself and family, better than when you were in school and carefree?

I do prefer my life now. I liked my life when I was in my 30s, and I startede loving it when I was in my 40 and since.

That is because I was a confised young person. I did a lot of work on myself to get to that point of peace.

No.

That’s probably due to me not having a family to care for, though.

In retrospect, nevermind. I like my life and my accomplishments. I like my life now.

I can buy beer now without asking homeless people to do it for me. I don’t have kids or a wife. I would say I enjoy now more.

Yes, I am happier with myself and my life now – at 58 – than at any other time in my life. My sons are grown and give me a great deal of pleasure and I’ve got a terrific work situation. And, like Marina, I have done a lot of work on myself to get me to this place.

My adult years have been my reward for my childhood and teen years. Not to say I was miserable but I surely wasn’t carefree or left to whimsy and innocence.

I like my life more now that before, being more (not completely, I’m a work in progress) mature, reflected and positive.

But I was wondering: What adult longs to be 15 again? All the pain and uncertanty and rules and bullying and getting homeless people to buy your alcohol?

Honestly, I enjoy becoming an adult more than being a kid even though I had a wonderful childhood growing up. My family has always been good to me, I had great friends, I played every day, my father bought me all the latest toys and games…. and im happy for all that.. but im willing to just let it all become a wonderufl memory while I shape my life for myself now. I want so much to find my dream career, to learn about everything I love and become skilled in all of them. I want to find my own home, take care of it, clean it and all the while living with the one I love <3

Haha! Isnt that what everyone wants?! To live simply with their family? Sadly, the reason so many adults these days crave the blissful ignorance of their childhood is because it was just that, blissfully ignorant. No bills to pay, no job to wake to every morning, not having to worry about whether youll lose your home, or how what will happen when you get sick…..

Oh well, we keep living ):

I miss the amazing resources of college. But that is about it.

I wish I could relive my younger years with my older brain.

I would have lasted sooo much longer those first few hundred times with @jonsblond.

@Blondesjon

This.

Being an adult sucks. But it’s not as if I all was carefree when I was younger. I wish I didn’t have to work. :(

Life is so much better now. I spent most of my youth chasing after “peak experiences”, bored silly by my quotidian life, thinking that fulfillment lay ever elsewhere, trying to make life look like the fantasies in my head. I suppose that’s not atypical.

By now I’ve learned that fulfillment is only to be found right where I’m standing, and that the ordinary matter of everyday life is the very treasure I kept trampling as I chased my youthful dreams.

I don’t think “enjoy is exactly the word I would use. I was bullied and teased through my entire school days. My happy family life was the only thing that kept me going. We were not exactly “carefree” as my parents expected us to do our share of the chores around the house, and allowed/expected us to participate in the decisions that come up in the home.

As an adult, I have lost two husbands, and been very happily married to the third for nearly 35 years. I have learned to accept that life isn’t always what we expect, and to make the best of it.

Long ago, I made a pledge to myself to be happy every single day for the rest of my life, and that works for me.

Someone once wrote (and I may be paraphrasing a bit), “The trouble with youth is that it’s wasted on the young.” The statement is kind of a double-edged sword when you contemplate it.

I loved both. I have been blessed in that I was mature enough to appreciate all the great things about every age I’ve been through at the time when they were happening. I loved being a teenager, and being allowed to do more and more things as I grew older, while at the same time being young, healthy and free, with lots of spare time (teenagers now don’t have as much time as we did then). I loved learning new things and discovering the world. I even liked school, because I realised that it was a good excuse to meet all my friends and that we’d all drift away once we hit 18 (which is more or less what happened).

Then I was 17 and moved away, started a new life in the big city and enjoyed that too. Even the hardships, financial difficulties and loneliness. But I was free, and still young, and most of the time had a sexy girlfriend by my side (I was good-looking back then). And university was great because I got to study interesting stuff, including a new language.

And then I was in my mid-twenties, and felt really old and tired. And spent quite some time lonely, and was forced to join the Army (which I hated) and didn’t get to travel as much. But I eventually broke free from that too, and had a great career doing the thing I love most, and made loads and loads of money and had a cute girlfriend with a big heart and even bigger tits. And I got to learn even more about the world, and about life, and even how to speak yet another language.

And then I got married, and alas divorced, and was blessed with the cutest little angel in the world, who, despite all she’s been through, has been extremely brave and stubborn, and adores me even more than I adore her. And it’s an uphill struggle to try and do what’s best for her, but after 8 albums (yeah made a new one last month) and 700 songs, 30 countries and 7 languages, 20 girlfriends and a broken marriage, thousands of euros in dozens of different currencies having passed through my fingers, and millions of miles travelled upon this Earth, being a father is the greatest adventure of all. And it seems certain people are determined to make it even more interesting for me.

So yeah, there’s always something great about any age you’re at. Always a new challenge to look forward to :)

I think I’ll enjoy my adult life when I’m out of school and own my own home (or at least move out of my parents’ house. Until then, the shit sucks.

I don’t think life was ever carefree, for me
I like it now because I have more depth, more intelligence, true love
I like life now because of my children

I enjoy my life now, as difficult as it can be at times, but enjoyment was naively easier when I was younger.
My regrets are that if I only knew what I know now when I was younger. It does gnaw at me at times; knowing so much more now than I knew then, and how different things could have been. Wisdom has its dividends though, but they are not as easy to capitalize on when you are older.

as a child, i grew up in a great, affluent town. i did not know it was affluent, it was just a nice village to grow up in and i was very happy.

as a teen, i had no money most of the time. i had fun, but was always broke. i was a pretty good kid – didn’t drink too much, didn’t do drugs, but hung out with a rough crowd.

as an adult, i have more money than ever before. however, i feel like i am working all the time and i’m a single mother of a toddler, so it’s a grind. i make good money, have a good job but i am always on the run. i would just love a day off, without the baby, and with nothing to do, like old times. if i could have the carefree lifestyle of my teens with some money, it would be perfect.

Definitely enjoyed my carefree childhood more. Probably because I’m still just a big kid and its frowned upon when I play in the jungle gym at chucky cheese.

Apologies to all for my very poor typing on my response above.

@Marina YOU ARE NOT FORGIVEN

@Marina I didn’t even notice.

Being an adult is better. In retrospect youth seems carefree, but when you are living it life seems to be controlled by other people (your parents, school, social pressures). As an adult, especially as you get older, you begin to understand more what you want and who you are, and that is very freeing.

I don’t think of my school years as carefree by any means. I was always stressed and worried and broke. I did love being a student, and most of my student years occurred when I was young, but I have continued to be a learner all my life. I also enjoy being independent, which I was not as a student, and I love doing the work I’m best at, which means a profession and not a career of writing term papers. So I guess at every stage there have been things that were great and things that didn’t compare so well with other stages.

Now I’m on the verge of another transition that will take me out of a full-time working life and into a time when I can have the best of all the above, lacking only the better health and stamina of youth. I’m not sure the endless romantic madness was ever worth it.

All right, it was, but I don’t wish I had to do it again.

@JLeslie—HaHa, yes, the proverbial ‘good old days’.

i don’t have an answer, as i’m not an adult yet, but just sayin’, this thread made me a lot less scared to become ‘a responsible adult’. i’ve been thinking a lot lately about how i feel like i’ve screwed up the ‘young’ part of my life by not being as carefree and whatnot as i could have/should have been, but i’m glad to see that the majority of folks here are even happier post-‘youth’. (:

Life is better now, because I have an adult perspective on what matters in life, like my kids, wife, schooling, writing. Granted, I feel like I wasted those years right after high school, but if it werent for going thru them, I wouldnt appreciate things as much now.

@tiffyandthewall I feel much more carefree as an adult. I never drank or partied like my friends, and that made me feel like I did not “enjoy” myself as much as my friends, but the truth is I didn’t enjoy getting trashed or going to parties. Not sure what you meant by not being carefree. Health problems have sometimes dappened my feeling of “freedom” as an adult, so I try to take my grandmothers advice and do what I want to do while I can do it. Lastly, people will probably argue with me on this, but money counts. Save. Build a nest egg so once you get through the hard years of starting a career, and finally get to a point where you have acquired lots of vacation or just have more personal time, ou will have the money to do what you want, quit if you hate your boss, start a business if you have a great idea. A lot of my freedom and spontaneity came a little later in life (I’m 41) from the fact that I have money to take a long weekend whenever I want, can survive for a while if we lose our jobs, and have more of a curiosity about new things and places compared to when I was very young.

I enjoy my life much more now as an adult in my twenties, because
1) money is what I can make, there is no parent telling me that I cannot get ice cream etc.
2) freedom to make friends and grow at my own pace, I hate being forced to take classes I don’t really care about
in the end it’s about freedom and knowing that life is about learning and growth. I know I am working harder now than when I was a carefree child, but to me it’s totally worth it.