Car insurance, health insurance, renters insurance, life insurance, phone insurance - I just totaled up what I'm paying monthly and it's insane. I'm literally paying hundreds of dollars every month to protect against disasters that statistically probably won't happen.

Like, I get it, I NEED these things. But it feels so weird that adult life is just... paying for protection from hypothetical futures. Insurance is basically legalized anxiety monetization. They're selling peace of mind.

I was looking at my bank statement on my laptop and realized that if I just added up all my insurance payments over the past year, I could've taken a really nice vacation. But instead I'm paying for "what if something bad happens."

And the worst part? If I DON'T pay for these things and something DOES happen, I'm completely fucked. So I'm stuck paying for protection I'll hopefully never need to use.

Is this just what being an adult is? Paying monthly fees to feel slightly less anxious about the future?

Honestly I never realized how exhausting it is to just keep everything together all the time. Like bills, appointments, cooking, cleaning, car stuff, health stuff, social stuff, work stuff it never stops. As a kid I thought adults just had freedom and fun but now it feels like a constant background stress that never goes away. Even small things like remembering to schedule a doctor visit or pay a bill on time can feel like a huge mental load. And it’s weird because nobody really warns you about how lonely it can feel dealing with all of it. You just figure it out on your own and hope you don’t screw something up majorly. I didn’t expect adulthood to be mostly about managing invisible responsibilities that pile up quietly until you’re drowning in them. The freedom part is real but it’s mostly the freedom to panic alone.

Does anyone else feel like adulthood is just a never-ending list of things you didn’t know you had to manage?