Some scenes or stories in movies/tv are particularly hard to figure out. They require a whip-smart visionary team of directors, costume designers, cinematographers, casting directors, producers, actors, and stunt coordinators who have a deep understanding of how to achieve the right feel and look of the piece to make it come alive. Here, we explore the making of eight of the most legendary scenes in film/tv history. Enjoy!
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
In "Death Becomes Her", Meryl Streep's character, Madeline, learns of an immortality treatment, and jumps at the chance to outdo her long-time rival.
In the transformation scene, they wanted to show a sense of youth appearing on Madeline's body. If anyone knows anything about gravity, it is that gravity + time = sagging. So, what better way to show this than to have Madeline's breasts perk up as though she were a 20-something youngin' who needn't even bother with bras.
At first, the props department tried to create an inflatable bra mechanism, but that failed to do the trick. Instead, they came up with this clever idea to pull it off.

Meryl Streep's assistant but his hands into her shirt, which was strategically very flowing, so as to conceal his hands. Then, at the right moment, he pushed them up, so as to create the illusion of perkier breasts.
That there, folks, may be the luckiest assistant in the entire world.
In Mission Impossible III, there is a particular scene around the 1.5 hour mark, in which Bronway (Eddie Marsan), injects a capsule into Ethan (Tom Cruise)'s head.
The scene is extremely aggressive (it is, after all, a torture scene), so Tom Cruise's head is not dealt with in the gentlest of fashions. His head is jerked back by his hair and a gun is shoved into his nostril, ready to inject the capsule.

Only, there was one problem: in order to make it look like a legitimately aggressive torture scene, the gun was pressed into Tom's nose in an aggressive fashion. It hurt. A lot. So much so, that Tom had to talk to the director about it.
So J.J. Abrams came up with an idea.
They would angle the camera so the person holding the gun's arm was out of the shot. Then, he gave the gun to Tom, and used makeup to paint Tom's hand to the skin tone of Eddie Marsan. Then, Tom pressed the gun against his own nose. This way, it was a lot easier to gauge how hard he could push without causing himself pain.
The same goes later when Musgrave puts the phone to Ethan's ear, then Ethan bites Musgrave's hand. The hand that Cruise bit was not Billy Crudup's, but again was his own hand.
What's that? You want another fun hand fact? How about this...
At around twenty-seven minutes) The doctor's hands extracting the capsule from Agent Farris' head at the IMF headquarters belong to J.J. Abrams.
In the episode titled "Lesbian Request Denied", in Orange is the New Black, we learn a little of the backstory of one of the most loved characters on the show Sophia Burset.
In this episode, we learn about what Sophia's life was like before, during, and after her transition from male to female. The actor who plays Sophia, Laverne Cox, is also a transwoman. In the episode, we see Sophia before her surgery, when she was New York City fireman Marcus Burset.
The casting director and series creator were tasked with finding an actor to portray "Marcus", which is difficult, considering how much he would have to look like Sophia, as a man.

Jenji Kohan, series creator, approached Laverne to tell her that they were looking to hire someone. In an interview, Laverne said that Jenji said to her, "I don't want to traumatize you, by having you play a man again." You know, because I tried to play one for many years in my real life, and unsuccessfully.
But, I'm an actor. I can play this … I got this. I can do it.
"So … we talked about it, we did a hair and makeup test to get Sophia's looks throughout her transition together. One of those looks was her as [Marcus], as the firefighter, but Jodie didn't think I looked masculine enough to play [him]," Cox continued. "And so it was decided that someone would be hired. I did my best to butch it up, and it wasn't butch enough, apparently."
Despite Laverne's stellar acting skills, it wasn't working.
That's when the casting director discovered a fact that changed everything:
Laverne has a twin brother. M.Lamar auditioned, and despite not being an actor, was an obvious choice for the role. He did a great job, and looked the part, perfectly.
Steven Spielberg's Jaws contains one of the most unforgettable opening scenes in the history of film. The scene, Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) leaves a beach party to take a quick dip in the water. Treading through the water alone, she feels a tug. Then another. Then, audiences watch in horror as Chrissie is violently dragged through the water before disappearing under the surface forever.

In this scene, audiences don't see the shark a choice Spielberg explained in Making Of Jaws:
I thought that what could really be scary was not seeing the shark and just seeing the water; because we all are familiar with the water---very few of us have been in the water with a shark, but weve all gone swimming. And the idea of this girl going swimming and the audience going swimming with her wouldve been too extraordinary if, like a leviathan, the shark had come out of the water with its jaws agape and had come down on her…it wouldve been a spectacular opening for the film. But there wouldve been nothing primal about it—it would just have been a monster moment that weve all seen.
There needed to be a way that audiences would clue into the fact that Chrissie was being attacked by a vicious monster that was lurking under the surface of the water. At the point when Jaws was being developed, CGI was very new. Spielberg didn't want to use it, because he thought it would ruin the movie (the technology didn't have the capabilities to make things look realistic).
So, the crew was posed with an interesting dilemma how do we get it to realistically look like Chrissie Watkins is being attacked from below by a shark?
To achieve this, they attached a harness to Backlinie. For the initial tug under water, they attached a cable to her that dropped down from the stomach-area of her harness, and fed that cable down to an anchor that was laying at the bottom of the ocean, and back up to where Spielberg was sitting.

According to Backlinie, "The first jerk-down Steven [Spielberg] did.... he just sat and when he wanted that pulled he just would pull."
For the side-to-side thrashing from the shark, more cables were attached to Backlinie's harness, then threaded through two pilings on either side of her, and stretched out to the beach. There, a group of men on each line would pull the two ends of the cable and run back and forth along the sand, to pull her to and fro.

To ensure Backlinies safety, she was outfitted with a special string that she could pull to release herself from the cables if it got too intense.
It was very cold," Backlinie said, of the experience. "I was in for two to three hours at a time."
Another interesting detail of this scene is how they created the gurgling, drowning sounds that you hear during Chrissie's attack. For that, they asked Backlinie to stand in front of a microphone, turn her head up, and they poured water down her throat.
Her dedication to that one scene is astounding. After Jaws, Susan Backlinie quit acting and went into accounting are you surprised?
The shower scene in Psycho is perhaps one of the most famous scenes in all of film history certainly the most famous shower scene. Though it is less than 3 minutes, the scene was so precisely measured that it took over 7 days to film and includes 70 different camera setups.
Psycho was released in June, 1960, and shocked audiences for its incredibly disturbing murder scene of a woman in the shower.
However, the film's creator, Alfred Hitchcock, was faced with a huge dilemma whilst creating the moment movies had very high censorship at that time the scene could not contain a shot of any genitalia or breasts, and couldn't actually show the stabbing or any knife wounds.
Hitchcock and his team of wizards used considerable artistry to accomplish the murder scene within these confines...
1. Hitchcock decided to use a 50mm lens, which gave the scene a slightly less glossy feel Hitchcock wanted audiences to feel like they were seeing the events firsthand.
2. Because of this, Hitchcock decided that the shower scene would be too disturbing in full color, so opted for black and white film. Also, black and white film is far less expensive, so that could have been a factor, though it's not confirmed.
3. In order to create the illusion that audiences were witnessing a far more graphic scene than was actually shown, he took an impressionist approach. Several small cuts were strung together in quick succession. These rapid cuts created a fast paced tone that paralleled the adrenaline rush and confusion that the protagonist was experiencing at the time of her murder. It also capitalized on a natural human tendency to "fill in the gaps" with our own imaginations. If you show us a knife, a woman screaming, and some blood in the bath water, we will naturally fill in the gaps.
4. Another major hurdle in creating this scene was properly lighting the shower water, so that it felt very visceral, and protecting the camera from the water. The props department created a special shower head that, when the camera was tilted at a specific angle, the camera could look straight up at the shower and not get wet.
5. To show audiences that the woman was being stabbed without actually showing the stabbing, the camera focused on the blood that was trickling through the bathtub and down the drain. Though matching color wasn't important, (because it was in black and white), Hitchcock was very concerned that the blood be the right viscosity. After testing movie blood and ketchup, he settled on chocolate syrup.
6. To create a realistic stabbing sound, the special effects crew stabbed watermelons with large knives.
In Saving Private Ryan, the "storming of Omaha beach scene" has been hailed by historians, and by the men who survived the event, as the most accurate depiction of war in film.
The actual event, known as D-Day, went like this:
On June 6, 1944, 156,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers landed on the a 50 mile stretch of France's Normandy 50 coast, which was fortified by German soldiers.
It was among the largest military assault in world war history. This event was the beginning of the end of WWII.
Spielberg didn't want to rely on massive special effects to create the grandeur of war, which would ultimately make it look glossy and fantastical. Instead, he wanted to create a portrayal that was visceral and real, so viewers could have a real sense of what the horrors of war were like. It was a massive undertaking.
So... how did they do it?
Trying to find a location that could accurately pass as Omaha Beach was difficult. The actual Normandy Coast is protected as a historical landmark, so filming there was out of the question. Yet, they wanted a place that was an exact replica of the location, including sand and a bluff similar to the one where German forces were stationed. Production designer, Tom Sanders, found Ballinesker Beach, Curracloe Strand in Wexford, Ireland. Perfect.

Whilst in Ireland, they hired 1500 actual Irish Army Reservists to portray the role of soldiers in the film. These men all had the look and experience to fit the part.
Next came the costumes. Designer Joanna Johnston started the project under the impression that she would be able to find a bunch of old WWII uniforms and alter them to fit the actors. Wrong! It turns out that barely any of these uniforms have survived past their time, so that was a near-impossible feat.
But, they wanted authenticity. So, Johnston and her team recreated 3000 authentic uniforms. She then found the company who made the original troops' boots, and ordered 2000 pairs. That's a whole lot of war-wear!
To bring a sense of authenticity to the organizational and military tactics of the crew, they hired former U.S. Marine Core Captain, Dale Dye, to direct the thousands of extras on set.
In pre-production, they put the core actors through a miserable bootcamp that bonded them as a unit, in the same way that soldiers under extreme duress would be bonded. It also prepared them for the very realistically harsh conditions on set.
Spielberg through away his standard method of creating a storyboard for the film a visual aid that would guide the look of each shot. Instead, he wanted to create the camera crew to have spontaneous reactions to the scene as it unfolded. It allowed for viewers to feel the chaotic and unpredictable energy of war in a realistic way.
Spielberg wanted the look of the film to be desaturated and low-tech (again, no glamour).
To achieve this, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski actually removed the protective coating from his camera lens to give the picture a softer, diffused look, and put the negative through an additional process to extract more of the color. He also shot in such a way that all movement blur was removed from the shot adding an extremely crisp, jarring look to the explosions. It feels a lot realer when you can see individual drops of water and bits of dirt.

Now this is where it really gets into Spielberg's near-obsessive attention to detail...
Spielberg's special effects team created a technology that would allow actors to die from gun wound with perfect timing. They put a sensor on the squib packs (packs of blood that explode) of every actor being shot, that would detect when another actor was firing their gun, take distance and speed of bullet into account, and explode at precisely the correct time.
A major choice that set this scene apart from other wartime scenes in movies is the sound. While most movies that feature a battle scene have a sweeping, epic score underneath, Spielberg decided to use nothing. There wasn't music playing during the real WWII, so it wasn't going to play here either. At certain moments during the battle, the sound of bullets whizzing and bodies falling cuts out altogether, to mimic the shellshocked state of Tom Hanks' character, Captain Miller. The sounds are replaced by a slow, haunting sound, like the sound of pressing your ear to a seashell. To simulate this, sound designer Gary Rydstrom recorded the sounds of the beach, played them over a speaker, and recorded them through in a microphone through a long tube. When asked about the sound, Rydstrom said, "It's like a psychological tea whistle."
In order to create the horrors of actual war, the casting department hired dozens of real-life amputees that would more convincingly portray the injuries acquired throughout the battle. The props department made 1000 meticulously detailed dummies that littered the beach illustrating the massive amounts of bodies along the shore in the real battle. They washed these bodies in hundreds of gallons of fake blood.

Saving Private Ryan won 5 Oscars that year, including best director for Steven Spielberg.
Most people remember the dragon attack in Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 4. When Daenerys finally unleashed Drogon on Westoros against the Lannister forces, they swung low and blasted a breath of fire onto unlucky soldiers below resulting a whole lot of crispy bodies. If you were impressed by the scene itself, just wait until you read what went into making it.
In a behind-the-scenes feature from HBO, the shows creators and crew discussed the extreme dedication it took to make this scene a reality. There were hundreds of soldiers and 27 wagons bathed in fire, a process that required fancy camerawork from numerous cameras, including a camera with the ability to fly through the air at 70 miles per hour, another attached to a drone, and one on an off-road pickup truck.

But the really wild thing, was how they executed the fire blast on the actors. Twenty stuntmen were hired to run away from the approaching dragon. As they did, they ran over explosive charges, which set off the fiery explosions, made to look like they were from the dragon's mouth. The stuntmen were ACTUALLY set on fire, (wearing fire protective gear underneath their costumes), and writhed around on the ground for twelve seconds before someone put them out with a fire extinguisher.

This episode set a world record for the most stuntmen simultaneously set on fire.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there is a scene in which the protagonists are inside an old memory of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Joel is the size of a child. This wasn't done using CGI.

Instead, the set department and camera crew worked together to make it look that way with real-life illusions.
The set department built a room, called an Ames Room. The room looked like it had a straight back wall, but in reality, the wall was on an angle.
Rooms like these are the reason that these two friends look disproportionate to one another.

This is how it works:

Voila! There you have it.
Thank you for reading!
When in the beginning stages of dating, it's important to know as much as humanly possible.
The element of surprise is no longer a fun aspect of romance.
Ask the small questions. Ask the hard questions.
Interrogate. Grill. Investigate.
Of course, you should do it with a subtle hand instead of an interrogation lamp.
The truth is all we have.
Ask everything.
Redditor RedditPenguin02 wanted to make a list of the best inquiries to make when starting a relationship, so they asked:
"What is a good question to ask before you start dating someone?"
From what I've learned in my past, always ask... "Are you into Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The TV show."
If it's a no, then it's a dealbreaker.
I Do
"Are you married?"
wrenchmonkey135
"I would ask that. If they said no, the next question was 'Would your wife agree?'"
"If they laughed, they were telling the truth. If they got indignant and pissed off that I thought they were lying…they were married."
"Worked every time."
Squibit314
We Lived!
"Do you clap when the plane lands?"
dont_u_know
"I swear people used to do this all the time when I was a kid (early 2000’s), and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do it in 5+ years. I guess 9/11 really made people afraid of flying for about 10 years and then most folks decided they didn’t need to applaud when the plane landed safely?"
jmims98
Family Planning
"Do you want kids in the future? If one person wants kids and the other wants to stay child-free, then they are not compatible. And it is better to try dating someone else."
GoodAlicia
"It confuses me whenever some couples who disagree on this end up in a conundrum because one expected the other to change their mind. This is something I bring up early cause I see no future with someone who wants kids when I do not."
GoodAlicia
"You should always put childfree on your dating profile. It's not a small thing. Either you agree on it or not. If I had to date, I would put childfree on my profile too."
GoodAlicia
Carb it on...
"Do you like bread? That is the extent of my flirting skills."
HumpieDouglas
"Being German, bread is like a frickin' cultural phenomenon here, we have around 300 kinds of bread, there's a bread museum, every time I go on vacation I'm like yeah it's nice here but the bread ain't it yall, never as good as home lol. So yeah, valid question and the only answer to this is an enthusiastic yes."
Nayeliq1
Room Temperature
"What temperature do you set the thermostat to throughout the year?"
OneFingerIn
"Haha this one always gets me as someone who needs low temps - you can always put on more clothes, I can't peel my skin off to get cooler."
djdante
The thermostat is a dealbreaker for me.
It's gonna be 60. Love it or move on.
Discovery
"When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
"Opens a window to how they think."
youcantkillanidea
"If that was really early on in the dating I’d think it was a bit of a head-f**k question. I’d probably find that question a red flag, tone dependent, although I agree with the sentiment."
LivestockMarc
Personal Time
"Aside from major differences about finances, kids, politics, or religion, a big one is; What are your hobbies? If they don’t really have any, you may be the next hobby, which isn’t going to work unless you’ve got that kind of time. If the hobbies are time-consuming ones generally done with a SO."
"But you have no interest in them, that could be an issue as well. If only one of you likes camping, wanted to spend vacation lounging instead of exploring, didn’t like sports, etc either that partner is annoyed or the other feels like they don’t get to enjoy what they love."
Githard
Past Issues
"Ask them about their exes. If they think every single one of them is an a**hole... they are likely the real a**hole."
CantTakeMeSeriously
"I have mixed feelings about that - I've been in three previous relationships and all three were emotionally abusive towards me (one wasn't nearly as bad as the other two, though) in various ways. I know this is a common sentiment and it always makes me afraid that people won't believe me or something.
"I mean, I realize in your comment you said 'likely' and not '100% sure' and there's plenty of room for nuance."
phiore
Values
"I would try to take care of any dealbreakers. If I find out that she has different political values than I do, it's not going to work out in the long run, so I wouldn't bother. Same thing with other factors (religion, financial values, etc.). I would also ask how much cuddling she likes to engage in, as I prefer a lot."
SkullKrusher9000
Essentials
"When I was dating my three essential questions were always kids, sex, and money. If you're not on the same wavelength for any of those three things, just don't even try."
KhaosElement
TRUTH PLEASE!!
"So, how much personal debt do you have?"
"Source: the guy who dated a woman with huge debts and was asked to pay for everything and then some".
"After that, I'd go with, 'Have you ever been diagnosed with borderline, narcissistic, or histrionic personality disorders?"
extracensorypower
The questions are basic.
Just ask for the truth.
Do you have any good Qs to add to the queue? Let us know in the comments below.
As much as we always hop for our dating efforts to be worth it and for every relationship to work out, we all know that some relationships are not destined to work out.
But sometimes relationships end for totally valid reasons, and sometimes the reasons are painful, if not devastating.
Redditor overIorded asked:
"What went wrong with your last partner?"
History Repeating Itself
"He cheated on me. And I was glad because that was finally reason enough to allow myself to leave."
"Now I know somebody who's in the same situation. They're trapped. And she's such a gentle and fun person who's afraid to leave him because 'well, it's always been like this, I'm used to it,' and 'I deserve it.'"
"She wants to leave him, she knows she should leave him, but it's so hard to do it, and I know that feeling."
"I'm thinking I should give her my phone number like when the day comes you've had enough, I'll gladly come to help you move out from that s**thole."
- NmlsFool
Mental Health Struggles
"I'm lost in my own trauma and mental illness and he deserves better than anything I have to offer right now."
- Last-Celery7146
"I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and mildly said, it absolutely ruined me. Her trauma and mental problems were BAD, but I still wanted to be with them. So if you ask me, as long as they can give you the space and support you need, and want to be with you, let them make the decision."
- emilersen
"It's also fair and mature to care very much about someone but realize that you only have the emotional bandwidth to take care of yourself right now."
"I'm sure it was very hard for both of you to come to terms with that decision. I don't think it's that he deserves better, I think it's that your attention needs to be on guiding yourself through this thicket of trauma and mental illness before you can be someone else's partner. You can love each other very much but also acknowledge that you don't have the tools to spare for a relationship right now."
"I'm proud of you for focusing on your own mental health and someday, when you have more emotional stability and energy, I hope you find a wonderful partner."
- SpoonAtKnifeFight
Relationship Styles
"We disagreed on how many women he was allowed to date. I’m very strong on monogamy and have no interest in someone (in a supposedly committed relationship) that isn’t."
- Altrano
At Least There's That
"Her psychotic brother tried to kill me. Thankfully he has a Stormtrooper's aim..."
- Active-Plate7939
"Hate the attempted murder, love the 'Star Wars' reference."
- letmetellyousom
Childfree Living
"He wanted a big family, like, six kids, all-natural. Obviously, he wouldn't be birthing them. This was very important to him while I was pretty ambivalent about kids, and the further into my adulthood I've gotten, the more I've realized I just don't want to be pregnant."
"I broke it off so we could both get the lives we wanted. He was also quite a bit more conservative than me, and at the time closeted pansexual person, and some stuff he believed just didn't line up with what I believed. It hurt, but it was amicable."
"Now he has a wife and kids like he wanted, and I am happily partnered and childfree. It worked out for the best."
- Free-Government5162
Family Ties
"She hated that I had a healthy relationship with my family and was trying to find ways to sabotage it."
- Cobra-Serpentress
"Similar aspect to mine, she hated my sister and mother because she had a bad relationship with her sister and mother. She would get mad at me whenever I brought my family up."
- letmetellyousom
Quality Time
"My last boyfriend dumped me because I got mad that he was coming to Dallas after I hadn't seen him for two months, but didn't want to see me."
"He was going to meet up with some friends of his he hadn't seen in a few months. I told him that was fine with me, but I felt he should make time to see me too since we hadn't seen each other in two months and we were supposed to be a couple."
"He responded to my anger by ghosting me. That was two years ago."
- dallasmysterylover
Distracted with a Punch
"A girl contacted me about him talking to her. I asked him what was going on, and he sucker-punched me in the face."
- Brilliant-Victory128
Projecting Insecurities
"He cheated on me for all six years we were together and then accused me of cheating on him, even though I wasn't allowed to leave the house."
"I'm also pretty sure he slept with my sister-in-law when my brother and I went to pick up dinner."
- Affectionate_Egg1252
Children Come First
"He was and still is no father to his kids, has anger issues, and probably has other mental health issues. I tried for years to help him and help the relationship, but he wasn't having it. After seeing how my oldest suffered under him, I had to leave."
- rintan13
Poor Communication
"I communicated how I felt about many things in the relationship. He never communicated about anything."
- aj_oof0323
"Oh look, it's the last 14 years of my life..."
- empathetic111
"I'm guilty of this, and boy, do I regret not being able to open up about my feelings. It cost me my marriage. But now I'm trying to be more open and share my thoughts and feelings. Just wished I could've done this earlier than later."
Deserving Better
"I started drinking again and became a miserable a**hole due to my own depression and my s**tty job. As such, she didn't get the attention she deserved, and had to put up with my s**tty mood all the time... so she left. I don't blame her."
"So, it was me. I don't know if I trust myself with a relationship again, but aside from the shame of knowing I hurt someone who I loved, and loved me back, but I was too self-absorbed and selfish, I am trying to be a better human to everyone."
"And to my ex: You'll find someone again... someone better."
- cracksintheegg
Big Moves
"He wanted to move to Alaska to be with some girl he was 'friends' with before me."
- dont_be_trash
Alzheimer's Disease
"My ex's early-onset Alzheimers (at the age of 50) and the resulting violence, paranoia, and irrational thinking. I tried to honor my vows, but he was so far out there, I feared for my life."
- No_Transportation258
Different Definitions of Marriage
"She cheated on me after five years total together, the last one of which was while we were engaged. She cheated on me for months, all while I was planning the wedding, working part-time, and going to graduate school so I can support us comfortably in the future."
"I planned on giving her everything I could and sharing the rest of my life with her, and apparently she didn’t care."
- Mountaingoat1001
This conversation just goes to show that relationships can end for all kinds of reasons. Even in relationships where there is still a lot of love and committment, the relationship can still end, just like how the relationship can end suddenly because of a surprising and devastating realization.
We all had our aspirations about becoming a certain type of person or accomplishing different goals when looking towards the future.
But the goals we have for ourselves can drastically change once we're adults, and that's partly due to the influence of different life experiences.
Sometimes, despite our best intentions and respective strategies to achieve something by a certain age, we can never imagine experiencing different outcomes.
Curious to hear from strangers online who never saw themselves in their current positions in life, Redditor graces-taylor12 asked:
"What about becoming an adult caught you completely off guard?"
The following Redditors were not ready to process the inevitable when it came to their parents.
A Role Reversal
"Watching your parents becoming old and frail."
– Mrbusybaconandeggs
"Dealing with this yesterday and it is an eye-opener. Its hard seeing someone you’ve known as a pillar of strength for 30+ years in a position of such weakness, and knowing that he might improve but generally the decline is coming."
– Rook1872
Age-Defying
"I've had a weird atypical experience. My dad was pretty old when I was born and always had a bad knee he could never afford to get fixed. He could barely walk and has never been able to run since I could remember. It got so bad that he couldn't even walk up or down the stairs in our house."
"Well he eventually got a knee replacement and he's now more agile at 73 than he was at 53. It's weird to see."
– Downtown_Skill
Sad Epiphany
"I'll never forget when I first realized how frail they actually were. I went over to their house to help out with some chores, and they couldn't even clean out any of the pens by themselves. They ended up selling most of their animals that year because they couldn't look after them."
– thecanadiancowboy
Life Can Be Cruel
"It’s slowly beginning with my parents, small hints here and there, they’re in their mid 50s.The big freak out for me has been watching my grandparents slowly declining over the last 3ish years. One set of grandparents have been gone since I was a kid, so these two are all I’ve got now. My Pap’s arthritis and sciatica is to the point now where it’s a process for him just to stand up. 2020 I saved him from a fall, if I wasn’t there to catch him, he would’ve easily been in the hospital for quite a while. That was the first 'Oh sh*t, he’s not immortal' moment."
– NoinePiecesOfVinyl
These Redditors discovered older doesn't always mean wiser.
Wake-Up Call
"I can do whatever the f'k I want. But I don't really want to do anything..."
– IcarusWax
"Yup, the idea of doing whatever you want as an adult was the biggest scam cartoons sold us."
"Yeah, you can do anything you want but you're gonna need money. So you get a job, there goes most of your day to your job."
"So now you have money but that'll go to bills first and by the time you can do what you want you don't have the energy or funds. Then the loop continues.."
– JimmyJackJericho
Fake It Til You Make It
"How clueless other adults are. I really thought adults had their sh*t in order while in reality most people are winging it."
–= xepci0
"Maturity is a skill. Some people learn it quickly. Others never do."
"Children are limited by their youth. Their brains aren't fully developed. But adults are not guaranteed to get more mature without working for it."
"Some people never grow up. They just get old."
– snapwillow
Being Independent
"I'm surprised by the amount of people who genuinely couldn't live by themselves if they had to. They somehow never learned basic life skills like simple cooking or cleaning and always had someone else to do it for them."
– CliffExcellent123
People became more aware of time.
Not Enough Me Time
"How little free time you have. You have to work, you have to prepare for work, drive to work, drive home from work. You also have to do household chores. You have to take care of kids if you have some. When do I get to enjoy my hobbies?"
– lllSnowmanlll
Point Of Exhaustion
"Most of the time I'm so tired from the day, I just don't have the mental capacity to do anything but go right to bed and watch tv ;_;"
– WitherWithout
Never Going Back
"Transitioning from college student + part time worker to full time worker I gained a bunch of time back. I was shocked that I could just decide to do laundry tomorrow if I didn't feel like it. Every evening I had this huge chunk of time that was just open."
"But then, moving from an apartment to a house, now there's a bunch more chores to do. Then introducing kids, now there's all that. But still, I wouldn't go back to the hectic college life."
– civilwarcorpses
Marking Time
"How it just goes on endlessly."
"When you're a kid, there's a summer break every year, and a new school to go to in a couple of years. Whatever part of your life you are in is clearly delimited and there is something new to look forward to after it."
"Once you're an adult, it's just 5 days of work and 2 days of weekend over and over and over until you die."
– Suitable_Mistake2208
After having a decent, long run in the entertainment business as a dancer, I've long held the belief I was invincible.
I was physically stronger, more agile, and foolish enough to think I could perpetually live in such a state.
All of a sudden, reality smacked me in the face one morning when I woke up and heard and felt various parts of my body crackle and pop like when milk hits a bowl of Rice Krispies.
My tired body had the audacity to inform me:
"Not today and from this day forward."
We're currently not on speaking terms.
Not much good can come from dwelling on the past.
Even so, no matter how hard we try to avoid doing so, we can't help but look back on things we've done in our lives which we regret.
In some cases, it's nothing which had any sort of lasting effect, like wishing we thought more carefully about where we had a birthday or spending more than we could afford on an outfit that didn't end up paying off.
In sadder cases though, we often wonder what our lives might have been like if he had made a different, and smarter decision.
If we didn't say certain things to certain people, not spoken up when someone needed us to or rushed too hastily into a life we weren't ready for.
"What is one thing you regret doing in life?"
Giving People Attention Who Didn't Deserve It
"Wasting time worrying about people that never spared me a single thought."- Eborys
Getting In With The Wrong Crowd
"I regret making friends with people who I knew were bad for me just because it was easier than becoming friends with good people."
"Now I don't have many solid friends."- misswallflowerr
Staying In, When They Should Have Gotten Out
"Not ending bad/unhealthy/unfulfilling relationships sooner."- Superseriouslyguys
"Hanging on to a relationship for too long."
"I should have up and disappeared the first time he was disrespectful."- Mirrorflute88
Not Taking Enough Risks
"Not putting myself out there enough."
"I probably missed out on a lot of opportunities because I'm so self-conscious."
"Working on this though!"- Fife_Flyer
"Not following my dreams and ended up sitting behind a desk for 30 years."
"Of course, I'm currently on Reddit sitting behind my desk."
"So, there's that."- CatOnTheHill
"Overthinking my way out of potentially rewarding choices."- mmmmike1590
Rushing Into Things
"Going to college before I had the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life."- Mysterious_Shake2894
Taking Things For Granted
"Not spending more time with my mom."
"I visited her 2-3 times a week but still, there were other times she'd call and I'd ignore the call or tell her I didn't have time to talk."
"Would give anything to go back and take every one of those calls."- Fruitjustlistens
Putting Their Health At Risk
"Most of 2019–addiction bottom."
"Sober now for 432 days and counting."- CommunicationTop5231
"Smoking."
"20 years spent on expensive, self-fed poison."
"Biggest regret of my life, by far."- Itsprobablysarcasm
Undervaluing Self-Worth
"Mentally exhausting myself at work for companies that turned out to not give a sh*t about me or value my work."- fpuni107
"Being too nice to tell undeserving people to f*ck off when I should've been putting myself first."
"Lessons learned."- MrsHppy
Not Having Enough Fun
"So, this is gonna sound kinda dumb, but I kinda wish I had acted out a bit more."
"Taken more risks, gotten in trouble more, explored and pushed my boundaries."
"I was pretty sheltered growing up and really wanted to be this good person."
"It created a lot of conflicting feelings for me."
"It also contributed to me avoiding doing some stuff cause I thought it'd be bad for me."
"Now that I'm older and worked through some of those issues, I feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff other people got in their teens and 20s."
"I'm now at a point where I'm exploring that, but most people my age have already gone through it."
"I just feel like I'm trying to 'catch up' with everybody."- animewhitewolf
It's only human to look back on things we regret, or wish we had done differently.
But living in the past will only keep us in the past.
The only way to move forward and make progress is to accept the present for what it is: a present.