Growing up is a tricky and life-long process that can be tough to navigate especially without any guidance or good role models in your life. You will make mistakes, you will get hurt or fall ill, and you will be betrayed by relationships, friends, and sometimes even family, and it's just part of life.
Recently someone posed a question in an AskReddit Thread asking the adults of Reddit to share some things that teenagers and young adults should know about life in the real world.
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$1000 is a lot to owe but not a lot to have… -more-coffeee
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Friendships take maintenance. -DesignedtoFail
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Life never “settles down”. If something is important to you then you should get to it ASAP. -ThunderClap_Fween
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Your body is a pathetic soft fleshy blob of helplessness especially when you’re driving 80 mph in a glass and steel death trap buffered by protective paint on the road. You can die. Painfully. Many have found this out the hard way. Don’t text, or drink and drive. It only takes a second of stupidity to end it all. -crunchydragon
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For better or for worse, confidence opens as many doors as competence. -EulersStolenIdentity
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PEOPLE LIE. Just because they're an adult doesn't mean they always tell the truth. -Tr33Mari3
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Everything is expensive when you move out. -azmetrex
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During high-school learning how to learn is more important than anything you're actually learning. -BittersweetHumanity
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It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life. iroh-42
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Nobody really knows what they’re doing. -RealZeusWolfe
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Society owes you nothing, and the universe is indifferent. -Reedbalzac
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You know how sometimes you think to yourself "when I'm an adult and have my own place I'll be able to do whatever I want"? Make sure whatever you want includes doing the dishes. -GlassPeepo
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If you dont plan your own b-day parties you wont have b-day parties. Friends planing something for you are super rare. Its not like on tv. You have to make an effort to have a social life.
You ll have to work to have a good life and you ll be tired like you never have been before. It will make having fun and going out harder.
Enjoy being a teenager as long as you can. But dont try to fight becoming an adult, because it will just get harder and harder. -GemuseBeerchen
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The internet is not real life. Seriously. You're better off ditching social media all together or treating it as something akin to a show than thinking it's 'real'. -SnowTwo
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You are the main character in your story but You are not even an afterthought to 7 billion people. -catdaddy-07
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Careful lending money to friends or family. Many stories of people never being paid back and relationships getting ruined. -RexEasy
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Be happy with who you are and what you have. Comparison is the thief of joy. -Roskater
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Your job sees you as replaceable. Look out for yourself and your family. Your job is not everything but it will feel like it is, make sure that if you don't like where you are that you change it. Don't be miserable at a job because it pays well. -Jo1336
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Don’t worry about not having the respect of people you don’t respect, don't take criticism from people you wouldn't ask for advice. -pappermane
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You can work hard and do all the right things and it doesn't guarantee success. You can be the kindest, best person for others, and they can still betray you. But that doesn't mean you should not be kind and work hard. -augustus331
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Get a good mattress, the best for as much as you can afford. Learn to cook. Clean regularly, learn to relax, drink plenty of water. -StaffordMags
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Document everything with your landlord, keep receipts, no verbal agreements, and follow the rules. -MangoBanana2012
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If you F.A. (eff around) you will eventually F.O. (find out) -Giovanny_1998
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If you're passionate about something, drown every distraction out and give your all to your passion/ calling, it's truly a gift to live on your own terms no matter how much inital pain being at the bottom might temporarily bring about. I promise you, the quiet desperation that most people who didn't follow this is more harrowing than any pain you can imagine because it feels eternal. -Viscount_Vagine04
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Punishment wont always come to those that do bad deeds and good things don't always happen to those that do good deeds. -Contadini
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Having wealthy and well-connected parents matter way more than anything else. -Lingering_Dorkness
