Recently, Reddit user u/lolanojhola asked the people of r/AskReddit, "People who are 25 and above, what's the harshest life lesson you've learnt?". So, we thought we'd share some of the most-upvoted responses:
1. "No one is going to save you. You have to save yourself."
"Yes, this, and no matter how hard your upbringing was, you can’t blame the cards you have been given forever."
2. "You can do everything right and still fail."
3. "Your friends from high school or college will disappear if you don't make the effort to stay in touch."
4. "If your employer is doing something illegal or unethical and you decide to confront them about it, for f*cks sake, do it in a way that all communication will leave a paper trail."
5. "Life can take a loved one at any time so cherish those you love, make time for family and friends, and tell people you love them often."
6. "You can't make someone love you by giving them more of what they already don't appreciate."
"Still chewing on this one."
7. "Do not lie to your significant other."
"Have hard conversations and trust them enough to be able to have them with you. Give them the chance and don’t be afraid/avoid doing it it in fear of rejection or judgement. I learned that one the hard way, unfortunately."
8. "Shit can go south in a literal heartbeat."
9. "You can bend over backwards for everyone, be a doormat, make it your life goal to avoid confrontation, and you're still going to end up being the supervillain in someone's story by the time you hit 30."
"You're writing your own story. Set your boundaries and realise no person, vice, or amount of money is worth compromising them."
10. "Sometimes the problem is you."
11. "Sometimes if you risk it to get the biscuit, you don’t get the biscuit and actually destroy your life."
12. "You have to speak up for yourself. No one else will."
13. "By the time you hit 30 all the small things you've gotten away with that everyone bugged you about start catching up to you."
"Bad posture, welcome back and neck pain. Smoking, welcome a strong cough. Never stretch, welcome muscle tightness. Bad diet, welcome various health issues.
You always feel invincible when you're young. Your 30s is when you realise you were wrong."
14. "It looks like other people are blessed with motivation and self-discipline and make stuff happen. It seems like if you sit and around long enough, the angel of self-discipline will float to you and bless you with the desire to do healthy, productive stuff that will benefit you in the short, mid, and long term."
"False.
You have to get off your couch and do what you don't feel like doing right now. That's the lesson I had to learn."
15. "Take care of your f*cking teeth."
"Nobody told me that fillings eventually have to be replaced and you’ll be paying for that cavity again in 10 years, and then again after another 10 years, and so on.
It's not the harshest life lesson I’ve ever learned, but it is potentially the most expensive."
16. "You can have a loving family, great friends, and financial security but still feel isolated and empty."
17. "Many people in leadership positions are anything but leaders."
18. "Living life costs so much money."
19. "People don't really attract like-minded people."
"But I'll tell you this... there's gonna be someone you consider to be a friend who's going to not only disappoint you, they're going to hurt you, and they're not even going to value your friendship enough that they care to rectify that. Hell, they might even enjoy it."
20. "Do not stay in one job for more than a few years unless you are being promoted appropriately and given raises appropriately."
21. "Life doesn't really start until your 30s. Everything before that a tutorial."
22. "No one thinks about you as much as you think."
23. "If you're unhappy with yourself, trying to date to fix it usually leads to a worse mindset, especially after several failures. And most people will have several failures."
24. "Overthinking is not effective."
25. "If you have feelings for someone, be open about it and don't try to hint at it until they realise you're prefect for each other."
"If the person doesn't reciprocate, move on (to the best of your ability) and don't dwell on it."
26. "Set low expectations so that you always excel."
"Otherwise, when you stop performing at 100% all the time and start to slip or take a break for other priorities, you will be eaten alive. Peak performance is not a matter of stressing out, but rather setting the expectations as low as possible, as early as possible, so that you will automatically have time for other priorities when you need it later on. No, you are not the only special max performance magic eternal flame that can keep it going for 30 years."
27. "Just because they’re your family, doesn’t mean you need to have them in your life if they are narcissistic and toxic."
28. "If you think everyone around you is an asshole, you're probably the asshole."
"Either that or you're hanging around a bunch of assholes. Either way, you have to make some changes."
29. "Real intelligence is not about always being right, it is mostly about knowing when, why, and how wrong you are."
30. "Get a prenup."
"You might think you're in the most stable relationship; you communicate effectively, there is a lot of love and genuine care for one another, you support each other, all that. Then, one day, something unexpected can fuck everything up; in my case, she developed untreated mental health conditions.
I now have to wait a year and a half to see if she takes me to court... So yeah, prenuptial agreements, get them."
31. "Getting married/having a partner is not the end-all, be-all of life."
"Take time to enjoy single life in your 20s."
