To survive as an adult you have to first realize that although (if you are lucky) there are individuals that care about your well being, as a whole the world is rather indifferent and really doesn’t owe you anything other than the opportunity to participate. What this means in practical terms is that often times the responsibilities of life take precedence over the things you would rather be doing. For most adults life is a constant balancing act between responsibility and finding enough “leisure time” to not go totally bonkers.
The ironic thing is that once you reach middle age and look back, if you have done your best to do the right thing at every opportunity along the way, you find that the “sacrifices” weren’t really sacrifices at all, but an integral part in whatever you have created along the way. It’s kind of like planting a garden. While you are working on it you are generally hot, sweaty, and tired, and at first all you see is a bunch of bare dirt. However, providing you tend to the things that need tending to along the way, eventually you look back and see beauty and not only do you forget how hard the toil was, you are kind of proud to be able to say that without your efforts it would just be a patch of weeds.