One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns he must die and accepts his sentence undismayed.
Sometimes the joys of our youth do not translate to joys in adulthood and it’s hard to release them.
When I was in college, I remember fearing that the dreary grind of adulthood would feature infinitely more existential dread than frat parties had, but the opposite has been true for me. I'm much less likely to feel that gnawing fear of aimlessness and nihilism than I used to be and that's partly because education gave me job opportunities, but it's mostly because education gave me perspective and context.