All That Glitters Isn’t Gold
Remember daydreaming about being an adult when you were a kid? We bet your dreams were full of fast cars, staying up all night to watch TV, and eating dessert before dinner. This high-octane lifestyle may seem fun for a few precious years of youth, but it tends to get old faster than you do.
1. Bingewatching TV
Between streaming services, primetime TV, and throwback series, there’s more TV than any one person could ever hope to finish. There is a certain rush to marathoning a beloved show in a single, breathless binge, don’t get us wrong. However, the cultural obligation to watch every TV show the second it comes out makes a source of entertainment feel more like a job.
2. Ice Cream For Dinner
Sometimes you have one of those days where your dinner plans go down the drain and you just have to curl up with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. We all have those days. Eating a pint of creamy goodness for dinner may temporarily fill a hole in your stomach, but eventually, your body will start to cry out for leafy greens.
3. Fashion Trends
This could be a placeholder for trends in general, but fashion trends are particularly egregious. Especially with the micro-trend cycle perpetuated by social media and fast fashion, clothes are in and out of style before you have time to wear them. You’ll be much happier if you stick to what’s comfortable rather than what’s in style.
4. Loud Concerts
Seeing your favorite artist perform live is a truly unmatched experience that we hope everyone gets to experience at least once in their lifetime. However, studies have shown that sound affects people differently at different stages of their lives, with loud noises being much more painful on older ears. When you factor in ticket and transportation prices, the unbearable crowd crush, and the overpriced merch, you have an experience that begins to lose its shine after about 30.
5. Theme Parks
Theme parks are great when you’re a kid because you basically get to be in charge for the day. As an adult—even one with kids—you can see them for what they really are: loud, cramped gatherings of some of the most annoying people on earth, waiting in lines for rides that last barely a minute. At least state fairs have things to see and eat that will be worth your time.
6. Fad Diets
To put it simply: you were not put on this earth to diet. Whether it’s your co-worker talking about how keto totally changed their life or well-meaning loved ones commenting on your body, it seems like everyone wants to dictate how you take care of your body. If you believe that a healthy, physician-approved diet will help you find peace with your body, then by all means, go for it, but you shouldn’t hop on the latest crash-diet bandwagon.
7. All-Nighters
Staying up until sunrise seems romantic, regardless of context, but will leave your body catching up on sleep for several days in return. We understand late-night cram sessions can be an occasional necessity in college, and an all-out rager once in a while can give you an adrenaline boost. However, staying up late all the time will lead to a serious crash.
8. Celebrity Gossip
At a certain point, most celebrity gossip headlines start to read like gibberish. In the same vein as keeping up with TV shows, it gets exhausting trying to memorize complicated charts of which celebrities have dated and which ones hate each other. We’ll leave the celeb worship to tweens and teens.
9. Excess Drinking
Excess drinking is, unfortunately, an adolescent rite of passage. Everyone, it seems, has one alcohol or particular brand that they vow never to touch again after blacking out, which we think is a pity. If you’re just drinking to get drunk, are you really enjoying yourself?
10. Bars That Don’t Sell Food
If you’re going out with friends, the bar should at least provide you with something to sop up all that excess alcohol. Frankly, it seems baffling that there are bars that don’t provide even nibblies for patrons. It seems like they’re losing money by making guests go to a second location for their midnight cravings.
11. Waiting In Lines
Time is a valuable thing, and waiting in line is perhaps the activity most designed to waste it. Unless you’re in line for something important like government paperwork or the doctor, you should probably skip the line. Whatever buzzy restaurant or brand-new product people are lining up for will probably be old news within a month.
12. Expensive Cars
Every car has to be the best of the best: the most gadgets built into the dashboard, the best fuel consumption, the top legal speed, etc., etc. We have to ask: what happened to cars that were safe and driveable? Sure, that Lambo may be the envy of your neighborhood, but it won’t protect you any better in a crash.
Sam Pearce-Warrilow on Unsplash
13. Hustle Culture
This may be controversial…but maybe the grindset mindset does more harm than good. Hustling may win bragging points, and workplaces, unfortunately, encourage this sort of competition, but it just runs you down. At the end of the day, we weren’t put on this earth to work. Find a job that you enjoy and make enough money to live off of.
14. Sitting/Sleeping On The Floor
Eventually, your spine will reach the point of no return, when even sitting on the floor for a few minutes leaves you aching for days after. Save the grief (and your creaky knees) by putting a cushion down if you’re cramped for space.
15. Overscheduling
We all have that one friend who, in addition to their 9-5 job, also has a 5-9 AM morning routine and a 5-9 PM evening routine. This adds up to one jam-packed schedule that may look cool on Instagram grids but will make you more likely to burn out. Save your schedule for what truly deserves your time.
16. Constant Hookups
Maybe this is sentimental, but at a certain point, going home with strangers starts to get old. Nobody’s denying the fun, but eventually you start to grow numb. What happened to settling down?
17. Junk Food
Nothing hits quite like a greasy fast-food hamburger. However, like ice cream for dinner, junk food and fast food start to make you feel bad inside the older you get. This is especially true when the price goes up but the quality goes down.
18. Shopping Sprees
Having disposable income for the first time is a big deal, and most people spend that first paycheck on a bunch of useless junk that they won’t look at in a few months. Retail therapy provides a much-needed dopamine hit on occasion, but there are more fiscally responsible ways for you to get those endorphins.
Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels
19. Large Friend Groups
When catching up with friends starts to feel like scanning the gossip rags at the checkout line, there’s a chance your friend group has spiraled out of control. Having a ton of friends may make you feel like the life of the party, but it makes hangouts near impossible to schedule. Give us a few true-blue friends, and we’ll be happy.
Considerate Agency on Unsplash
20. House Parties
Combining binge drinking, loud music, crowds, and the pressure to hook up, house parties make for a perfect storm of a bad time. House parties may be fun in college, but they almost get embarrassing after a while. You’re an adult with a mortgage, and you’re still throwing the same rager you threw at 21? Really?
