General Life

What sucks about being your age?

March 31, 202110 Mins read

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In this article I have compiled responses (from quora) to the question: what sucks about being your age? If you want to contribute to the conversation please leave a comment below.

I am 23.

I should have a Masters degree, established career, have 2 children, a Doctor/Engineer/Accountant CPA Qualified for a husband, investment properties, hundreds of thousands in savings and a 6 bedroom house by the shorelines of a major Australian capital city.

… according to my parents.

I grew up in a particularly different household in comparison to my peers.

No parties, no sleepovers, no drinking, drugs, smoking, home by 6pm, having a boyfriend – it will ruin your life, no sex ESPECIALLY before marriage – how shameful, just books, study, study, study, Bachelors, Masters, PhD – oh all before 30. You might even do your Medicine Degree whilst you’re at it. Wait… why DIDN’T you do Medicine?? Isn’t this why we sent you to a private school??? Renewable Energy….umm okay…. what is that?? Sounds like a hobby!! A- minimum, B+ ??? What have we DONE to deserve this??? Failure is NOT an option. The world is F**KED. How will you survive without us here to guide you EVERY step of the way???? Travelling??? What about buy a house first and then travel or maybe do both??? Your younger siblings??? More like your pseudo children. Cook, clean everyday and drop off the kids. Go to church more, who knows, you will find the one for you. If you don’t buy that house now, you will probably not be able to pay off the mortgage EVER.“Look, [insert name] has 1000 houses, a husband, $500K saved up and she is younger. Why can’t you do the same?”

I love my parents. I respect what they have had to endure, their journey and ultimately how they overcame many adversities to provide for me and my siblings. I know they love me too but they are bonafide tigers.

At 23, I struggle to live up to their expectations.

People always say to me “wow you’re doing so well for your age” or “you seem to have it all figured out.” I can truthfully say I feel like my time is running out. At the back of my mind I constantly feel this massive clock ticking away.

Don’t get me wrong, of course I want the best for me. I’ve been living on my own for almost 2 years now with little help from my family so I can thrive and challenge myself to be the best I can be. I want my career to keep flourishing, finish my studies, have my own family later on etc.

And in all honesty, looking back to how some of my high school friends turned out… I am somewhat glad my parents sheltered me for as long as they could.

But I have NOT lived. Not yet. I want to live life to its fullest but “What about the house?”

There is a MASSIVE clash between what I want to achieve personally (travel is a big one for me) and what I want to achieve for my parents. My individualistic tendencies are seen as unconventional and my entrepreneurial nature clashes a lot with my parent’s conservatism and Eastern culture collectivism and mentality.

I have a HUGE fear of failure and have a perfectionism complex.

Im 24.

Some people say I’m an old man in a young blokes body. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot that sucks about being this age although I do live a very privileged and blessed life where I work extremely hard. But trust me I have plenty of immature moments haha.

I went and lived abroad in Italy and Switzerland for 2 years from age 19 doing missionary work full time, particularly among refugees from the Middle East and Africa that were flooding in.

Upon returning home recommenced my studies in cosmetics and got married at 22 years young, paying my own way through life since a young age and studying is hard work but it doesn’t necessarily suck, I see these things as life lessons which only make me more prepared for life’s hardships. I welcome these lessons because it’s all part of growing up and integrating in the “adult world”

I live in Australia where life for a 24 year old is awesome if you have chosen that desired path but even then. I think in some ways I’m ahead of my years but I think life as a 24 year old is great and I will miss and be grateful for these days of my prime as time goes on.

If you’re reading this, be great, inspire others to be great, work hard and be a blessing to those around you at whatever age you find yourself right now, teach them what you know and how to overcome it.

Me and my gorgeous wife!

Married 21/12/2017 in Perth Western Australia.

I’m 24 years old female.

I come from a lower middle class family. I have done my graduation in Physics, and currently I’m doing my master’s in oceanography.

Here are some of the things that suck being at my age(in my experience):

First problem is family (like every other indian ). Parents(in my case my father alone)do not want to understand what I want or I can capable of doing. As I used to be that unbearable nerd/bright student in my school days, my father developed a huge ass expectation from me. From high school he wanted me to go forward to clear UPSC and become an IAS or IPS officer(just like that, the way they portray in the films; like the person is trying hard to concentrate on study, flipped few pages of the book and then walla few seconds later you got it ). Then after taking science after the 10th, he somehow manipulated me to crack PMTs(like every typical indian parents: ohh gosh I feel you all guys who have gone through the same or still going through it). I even dropped a year for that but couldn’t crack the exam. Now fast forward few years back after my 12th, I studied(tried) to crack PMT but didn’t happen anything. So, I would like to take it as my failure. After that failure my father completely lost hope in me😂. I always wanted to continue my study in physics. So, I took physics honours and later I took oceanography as my Master’s course ( don’t ask me why, mostly I don’t even know).
Another family problem I am facing right now is that currently I am in my 3rd sem of Master’s course and my father is pressurizing me to get a govt. job in any field ASAP. I just can’t make them understand it’s not their decade where getting a job was much easier. And till now you get the idea that I don’t really share a very good father-daughter relation with my father as we are always in some sort of cold war; also he falls under one of those angry men and I completely can’t tolerate some of his behaviour.
Although at this age, few of my school friends are getting married. One of my cousin got married last year during the pandemic. It just feels weird being there seeing them getting married where I can’t even see myself getting married even in my far future. Well, in that case my family believes in the concept of getting married after being stable and independent. Also Idk why I am writing about marriage and stuffs cause it was never in discussion in my family; probably seeing friends getting married and few random guys from social media saying ”then? what after M.Sc

? Marriage?” every now and then – made me write about marriage.
Few of my friends got placed(some with a pretty handsome salary) after their engineering- B.tech / M.tech. One of my best friends(female) is going for P.hd in U.S. And here I am still in dilemma- what to do next, what I really wanna do, what I enjoy doing; I don’t know. Weirdly I am extremely happy for them.

So, about my career:

The pandemic messed up with my Master’s. Online classes r going on but most of our work is field based and we got to do nothing, learnt nothing. Overall I have no idea what is going on in our course, feels like a waste of time.
Also I am not very hopeful about doing a p.hd (which I primarily thought I am gonna do), mostly because I don’t think I gonna survive 5 years (huge respect to those scholars) and also this COVID fucked up the M.sc( Okay, I am not complaining, I can’t complain every time -”be a lil more mature P – a lot more”. I fucked up this time ).
And I am truly scared of thinking about other career options left for me-SSC, Banks etc. NECK TO NECK COMPETITION.

so, In my career I m still trading water or in more civilized way I am still figuring out things to be an independent woman.

Coming to my dating/love life, I still haven’t developed any intense emotional connection with anyone or should I say I couldn’t? I can’t open up easily. I have dated few guys since my college days. I think the initial times I dated 2–3 guys casually, but later when I tried to date seriously, I realized I suck at it big time as I truly am an introvert from within. I used to think i was cool, kinda badass but i am not, I am extremely sensitive and emotional. I have said things, done things which you shouldn’t have done on your first date. I wish I could act lil more normal. It just didn’t fall under the place whereas two of my female bffs are in committed relationships happily. I am not comparing, just saying. Also the obvious pandemic messed up my dating life too. The last guy I dated(pre covid) was kinda weird too, we used to talk – everything was good..bt then we didn’t talked for a while. Then after 1 or 2 months I asked him the reason , he said “the last message was mine”, like wtf ( although I kinda liked that guy). And now I don’t feel like dating anyone until I get stable, I get a job.
Also one more thing worth mentioning, with the starting of this year(2021) I sort of had a break up with my friend(male best friend). I don’t know this thing is underrated or what, but It truly caused so much pain that I can’t describe. Things between us got lil intense/toxic at the last, also I was getting very negative vive from him like as a pessimist person. I guess sometimes when we grow, we grow apart- say it’s in friendship, in relationship, with siblings, with cousins etc. yeah, It does hurt and I miss him sometimes.
I can’t focus on things right now as I overthink, also I am very distracted. Ya, being at this age is that you overthink a lot and do very little.

So, these are some of the things that suck being at my age. Hope some of you can relate.

I am 24 years

and yes, I am old but a kid at heart lol. My apologies. xD

Not sure why but I have a habit of speaking German with a Swiss German accent with some French words as a habit from time to time as I learned it at a youthful age as my first foreign language that I self-taught since I always wanted to travel when I age. German is my favorite language to speak so don’t mind me lol. xD

Honestly, I feel more anxious, isolated, and rushed more than I ever compared to when I was 20 and it sorta is a surprise yet not since I am going to turn a quarter century old by December 10. O.o If you can see one of my favorite SpongeBob GIF’s below, this is how it actually feels when I laugh about it just by looking back on this episode on how much I’ve aged from being in Elementary to being almost a full-grown adult.

Being 24 years old does have its perks of still having plenty of energy just like a 6th. grader being full of sugar after snacking a box of Zebra Cakes but there are so many expectations that many on here mentioned. Funny how there are so many answers on here that are around my age which is quite a shock since I expect many Quoran Users to be older in general.

PEER PRESSURE: “You got to try drinking alcohol.” You’ll be missing out on not partying and getting hammered to the point you will have a kidney failure. Not only people assume something is wrong with me for not being into the bar scene but also not wanting to socialize in certain public settings as though I have to dress up for an interview at a Chase Bank and acting mature but in a serious way.
LONELINESS: This is a HUGE one as many people would misunderstood that in your mid-20’s, most of your loved-ones or strangers you will meet will either be married, have children that are toddlers / babies, and already having their own group of friends. I currently don’t have any friends myself which I’m quite surprised I’m still alive today based off my suicidal thoughts and bipolar depression and keeping my brain occupied without losing my joy by seeing people hanging out and going to places together.
EXPECT TO BE TREATED LIKE A SERIOUS ADULT: I can’t stress this enough! For me personally, I can get away with in a way to be treated like a preteen since I’m quite short and young in size by my appearance but also receiving some tough love. What I mean by being treated like an adult is that people don’t act as friendly towards you compared to kids, expecting to do everything yourself, and being told to man-up which is my most irritated catchphrase of society in men that cheeses me off if I am struggling in life or needing help in a tragic event.
YOU’RE SEEN AS A DADDY FETISH IF YOU’RE A GAY GUY: Now, this is going to be based off a Gay Topic I need to share as I’m Gay myself even though I’m Asexual but this happens to me way too often. Guys that are 1 year younger than me call me “Daddy” which is a Gay term that guys see as maturity, dominance, and bigger in size of a guy when it comes to height and penis size but also by seeing you as a sexual object or a guy that has a wealth. I’m none of those things and even get pressured to expose my body just for guys to talk to me or they will ghost or block me for rejecting them politely as I’m not the sexual type.