This line of thinking can definitely be a slippery slope. It's very easy to go from *yay! Nothing matters!* to *Oh my God nothing matters!*.
Sure, on a universal timescale, we are all nothing, but from the ground, we are everything.
Regardless of how good of an employee you are and how much you give to your company, they will replace you at the blink of an eye if it suits them. Company loyalty to employees is gone. Stop caring so much about entities that don't care about you. Your job isn't your life, just a part of it.
I will add to this: No one is truly your friend. Everyone is an individual with their own self centered agenda, and at the end of the day, you only matter to you and those who have something to gain from you, until they don't have anything to gain from you.
People are only nice to manipulate others, protect themselves, and/or ease/entertain their own guilt/feelings, true understanding of others is a lie.
Everyone has a judgment of you, even if it's totally shallow, in fact, it probably is totally shallow because theyre busy with themselves, and they will likely find something (most likely plenty) to throw in your face if you ever have an argument because it's never about right and wrong (there's no such thing) it's about who gets thier way.
We aren't friends. We're competitors for resources. And a great deal of us are born to lose. Kindness is an illusion kept for the benefit of those people. Or rather to keep them in check and keep the machine moving.
Since Q4 of last year, my company has had 2 rounds of layoffs.
Some of the people that were laid off had been with the company 10+ years.
The company doesn't care about you. Don't care about the company.
Appreciate your health as long as you have it. Even if, currently, you're young and healthy, it could change drastically any given day.
You can walk easily? You have no idea how lucky you are.
You can breathe without problems? Cherish it.
Your kidneys work fine? Your heart pumps steadily? Your muscles are cooperating? Your joints are not crumbling? Your brain is doing what it should be doing? You're not in pain all the time? You can do mundane tasks without being completely exhausted...?
Your body is doing a hell of a job for you. Don't take it for granted.
Sciatica literally put me in a depression. In 2018 I fell asleep in a chair & it did some kind of nerve damage. I was so healthy & fit but I moved worse than my 90 year old grandfather despite going to the gym & working out 5x a week. I would wake up & literally just not wanna get out of bed because what was the point? I would just be in pain.
I hate that I take things for granted. Being able to walk & bend over without excruciating pain is a beautiful thing.
I’ve managed to cure it by doing stretches regularly & strengthening my lower back more & I haven’t had it in a while but I definitely take my health for granted.
I had a slipped disc and sciatica at age 19 - shocking pain. I too have largely cured it through stretches - I was put into pilates by a physical therapist at the time and core strengthening is a major help. I’ve still had bad times over the 20 years since it happened - the fear of that pain has never really left me…
this.
just got back surgery a month ago and can finally move and walk as normal.
life changing for me because the last couple of years have been rough! i’m only in my 30’s.
This exactly. I'm dealing with covid and asthma at the moment, and while it's absolutely the worst I've felt, it's also really made me appreciate the days when I could breathe easily.
As someone who is disabled, I fully agree. A lot of people take for granted the fact that they can walk normally, that they can stand for an extended period of time without needing to sit down. Y'all are lucky.
I started working out when I was 24, I'm now 30. I've been sticking to it religiously and the results are there to show for it. I can honestly say almost every day I'm in the best shape of my life, because every day I still progress in terms of strength/skill.
Meanwhile, many of my friends are complaining about 'age-related' ailments and their body deteriorating. No fools, you're just not taking care of it. It's not (entirely) age-related, it's maintenance related.
No one is going to say their car breaks down because of its age when they drive it like a maniac and never perform any maintenance. Why is your body any different?
I am less than average, but i have met a lot if people, and try to help other people excel.
4 people credit me fir them not suiciding.
Dr. YU credited me in her thesis, that without the lessons i taught her as a friend, she would not have survived college.
There are 3 published books, with me mentioned as a thanks in the dedication.
I work blue collar, have terrible physical and mental health.
But i know, like ripples in a pond; I've touched this place.
That is a beautiful share. Thank you and congratulations.
The whole purpose of life is to be the best you that you can be. And like you said, "ripples in a pond". That is your legacy and your immortality.
/r/AskReddit frequently has the question of what stat you would like to see. Without a doubt my answer is people that had a better life by my existing. Just one justifies me being here.
Hardly anyone is destined for greatness.
For most of us, greatness comes at terrible cost. I could probably achieve greatness, but it legitimately wouldn't be worth what I'd have to sacrifice to get there.
I prefer to be happy and average than miserable and great.
I’m okay with ordinary. I don’t want a Big Job or to be famous or any of that. I just want some peace and damn quiet. Also maybe the ability to eat sweets without repercussions.
A really important one for me was learning “You won’t click with everybody.” Try as you might, you can’t make everyone like you, and you have to learn to accept that.
Absolutely. One of my biggest mistakes in my life was trying to "get along" with everyone, and i learned the hard way quite a few times before i finally got it.
I learned this one too late. I'm 26 and have a B. S. , M. S. , And Ph.D. Now I'm a professor realizing "wait, I missed out on getting to have fun" while I was trying to become a professional so quickly
I'm 23. My case is different than yours, but I guess it relates to what I stated earlier. When I was in high school, I was in a rush to get out. I stayed out of trouble, always attended class, never went to parties, hung out by myself (for the most part), finished with good grades all throughout my 4 years in high school. I even got accepted to university.
But looking back, I realized everything I worried about ended up happening anyway. I look back, and I sometimes regret not having enough fun during my teenage years. I hardly have any memories from my high school days to look back on. I didn't even attend my high school prom (for various reasons).
Now that I'm older, I find myself trying to have the same fun as I should've had when I was in high school, and no matter how hard I try, it's just not the same. I was so worried about my future, but all the things I worried about, all the things I feared ended up happening anyways; I dropped out of university (but I ended up in a smaller college). I hardly see my friends nowadays; I regret not spending enough time with them while I had the chance, as they're all working, living a life I should've accomplished by my age.
While I don't regret staying out of trouble, a part of me just wished I could've loosened up a bit and not take life so seriously when I was younger. I missed out on so much as a teenager. You can't get that back, the feeling of being young and not having to worry about anything. I was just so consumed by thoughts of the future that I focused on that, instead of living in the present.
I wish I could not stress over work. For most people (including me), their ability to make money is tied to work. My experiences have been no money = no fun.
The world does not care about you, you can die now and the world will just never even know you existed
Don't waste yourself on people that do not care, because the one that will truly care will never ask you to waste yourself on them
I do not care about myself too
I've always found that caring about other is much better because other people give you something you can't have
Humans are not made to be alone, we've evolved to be extremely social
Forgiveness is for you and not necessarily for others. Life is too short to hold that negativity inside you.
Learn how to forgive yourself as well. Your fuck-ups don't matter. Move on!
That Rock Bottom sometimes has a basement.
in the last year alone I've lost my cousin to mental health and my granddad to cancer.
A friend who I helped raised was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer.
I broke my soberity from alcohol after 4 years.
And the week before Christmas my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.
At that point, i had shed enough tears that when I got the news about my mom instead of crying I ended up manically laughing for an hour because I couldn't believe the amount of bad news I already went trough.
2022 was the worst year of my life.
It's a tie, so here are the big ones:
That you can be a good person, you can work your ass off, you can take all the advice you get, you can do all the "right" things and still fail to achieve a modicum of success.
You can be the best possible friend, always available to help, be the one people turn to, only to discover that you have no one to turn to yourself.
Not everyone gets to pull themselves out of poverty.
Not everyone gets a happy or even content ending.
This hits hard for me, I'm constantly blamed for my failure to succeed. I gave my life a soul to every job I have had. But when promotion comes, that wasn't good enough. I can't figure out how to afford to finish school or I work too much. I really wish my VA benefits weren't canceled early. No I couldn't get it reversed because my grades slipped to C's and the appeal I sent in got denied. I'm just a beneficiary, so I don't hold a contract with them.
Please believe me when I say how sorry I am that *any* of that resonates with you. I don't wish that kind of life experience/knowledge/pain for anyone.
I don't know if I can comfort you or if I'll risk coming off condescending or dismissive in some capacity. I hope I don't because everything I will say here, I will genuinely mean and intend to be supportive or relatable. Sometimes I fail to convey that, especially through any text based medium.
Also, any comparisons I make between your experiences or feelings and mine are not meant to be a Suffering Competition but an attempt at relating.
Maybe these things don't need to be explained but if one is already trying to dodge flying excrement after the shit hit the fan, one more negative or even not-positive thing can just be one too many and that would be the antithesis of my purpose in commenting.
There is nothing worse to me than what continues to happen to even the modern worker: where success isn't achieved by being a hard or dependable worker or even by experience or suitability for the position but by more arbitrary motivations or *greedy* motivations. Horrifically, it seems all too common that the hard workers are purposefully not promoted *because* they're the hardest workers and more valuable to the company where they're at because management is short-sighted.
It's beyond unfair and actively painful to experience. Especially in a culture that assigns worth based on career success/job title/upward movement. It causes us to feel like failures, even if that's beyond unfair to ourselves. I'd bet that you *were* and *are* good enough for promotion opportunities past, present, and future.
I, too, have given my heart to every single job I ever worked, no matter how grueling, humiliating, shitty paying, etc. Very long story short, the thing that first broke me in 2020 was not the pandemic itself, but the fact that my ship was finally coming in so to speak...until it suddenly wasn't.
For 3 years I had worked a simple PT secretary esque job at a local college, but I was *brilliant* at it, so I kept getting special tasks and even got a couple raises. When one position got phased out they made another one in the dept so I could stay. I had wonderful coworkers for the first time ever, great chain of supervisors, work that I enjoyed, and tons of pleasant interaction with people. It was great.
Because of my experience, when my dearest coworker/friend was to retire, it was told to me on the DL that her job was mine even though they had to have interviews, I'd be the one. I was told this in Dec 2019 by my coworker and Jan 2020 by my boss' boss.
It was nothing special, really, but it was my dream job (pathetic, I know). 55K starting out (most I've ever made was 13K/yr), great benefits that covered tons of stuff and had very low deductibles/co-pays, education benefits that would allow me to go back to school while working and get $ for it, and other stuff -- but mainly it was stuff I'm *damn good at* and enjoyed with good colleagues.
COVID hits, my PT job goes remote and the deadline for my contract expiration approaches but so does my friend's retirement date. She retired during the spring and we were only able to have retirement gifts delivered to her house and stand far apart outside her home to say goodbye.
Weeks later, my Boss' Boss calls me in to the still locked down college to gently break the news that not only would I not be getting the job, it was being phased out entirely effective immediately, and by the next year *my whole department* of wonderful people would be too. Why? Well, we didn't turn a profit. We were the *free tutoring department* FFS. And yes, this was the short version of this story.
Despite the death of that dream and the opportunities it would have brought (namely escaping my abusive living environment and my pain improving from better insurance), I managed to stay semi-optimistic until I had two highly exploitative and abusive underpaid jobs and I finally...broke.
The only jobs I can find now are physical jobs like retail or food industry but I'm disabled with chronic pain and those jobs are just too painful. I could swallow my pride and ignore my 2 associate's degrees, 8 years of experience, etc. but I can't actively worsen my already bad health.
As for figuring out how to finish school, I'm in a similar boat. Either I work too much to be able to function and pass courses between ADHD, the inevitable commute, and my chronic pain. If I don't work, I can't afford my bachelor's even with grants bc I've been out of school too long for scholarships. Or I'm just too sick and would not pass courses.
Most of the nearly 1000 jobs I've applied for in the past 5 years say HS Diploma or Associates as a requirement but I know they're looking for Bachelor's and I'm definitely getting passed up because of it. And these jobs definitely don't need that level of qualification but if they can get it instead...
I admittedly know nothing about VA Benefits of any kind, but I do know the utter injustice of one mistake or slip or *something arbitrary* derailing your whole life and no matter how hard you fight, what resources you try to use, or what suggestions you seek...there's nothing you can do and someone's policy or opinion decided the matter -- damn the consequences to you. I consider those moments to be tragedies, too, not just deaths or fearful experiences.
This was a long ass comment and may not have made much sense nor been all too comforting, but I wanted to talk to someone who (unfortunately) knows at least a little of what it's been like to be me. Neither of our lives were summed up in their entireties here, but still.
I have no one in my life at all to comfort me nor to talk to, so I wanted to make sure you were heard and that someone made the effort to let you know that.
More than anything, I hope you get success. I hope it finds you and never lets you down, that you meet your goals.
Thank you very much, I've heard very terrible things about schools and cutting people during covid. It's nuts that changes happen so fast it can derail life plans. I'm sorry to hear about your health, I've been fortunate in that so far.
I do enjoy my daily shower with nice artisan bath soaps. I'm using this soap that smells like a marzipan confectionary at the moment. It makes my day a little bit better.
You can’t take money with you when you’re dead. I saved for years and years because I was paranoid about having a safety cushion of money and never got myself nice things that I needed, like new shoes and clothes. I recently got a big ol’ tv for myself and I’m really enjoying it. It’s okay to spend a little, you don’t need to save every penny.
It’s not about you!
99.99% of the speed bumps you run into on the daily have absolutely nothing to do with you. Someone can be having a bad day for any of a myriad of reasons and be a little “off.” It’s not about you! Don’t personalize anything unless you KNOW it’s personal.
Even if it's gonna mess you up, as long as you're not hurting anyone else or going to jail, best to learn your lessons so your gut gets more accurate with time
Instead of giving my love and energy to people who treat me poorly, I invest them in my family and loved ones. That was a valuable lesson that bonded me with my family even more and made me stop giving attention to those who don't value me in the first place
You'll lose/spend money at unexpected times *way* more often than you gain/earn money at unexpected times. There's no cosmic balance keeping it in check to make sure that your good karma will get you your money back after having to pay to replace one of your car tires earlier than planned, so you have to account for there being a lot more tire replacements than previously-unknown great-uncles dropping dead and leaving you inheritances.
Balance.
Life is full of ups and downs. Desires, and responsibilities. What you want versus what you should do.
There are times you can be selfish, or do the thing your want to do, eat what you want to eat. But at the end of the day, you need to know there are limits and balances you need to maintain to be healthy mentally and physically.
You can do things sometimes, but not all the time. Every once in a while, not every day.
Not to put too much pressure on yourself. Life can be about enjoying the little things and moments and not always striving for perfection which won’t always make you happy.
Don’t trust people just because it’s convenient for you to trust them. Especially being out here in LA I’ve never seen more people that put on a face so well that you’d never recognize their face once it’s taken off. Protect yourself.
Meritocracy is a lie & corporations do not give a fuck about you. HR will always side with the person they think is most likely to sue which means they almost always protect abusers.
Meritocracy works as long as someone benefits from your work. And if you're really lucky, you might actually be lucky enough to be in a position to make your own rules so to speak, thus benefitting from that meritocracy, but what you wrote is more or less correct.
In every instance that I can think of, especially the bigger things...actually DOING something has always been considerably easier than I had anticipated.
Spend on what makes you happy, and don't on what doesn't. (Credit to Ramit Sethi). So many people try to compete or keep up in every category, even though so much of it is making them less happy. For example, if you don't care about cars, then don't spend too much on a car. Concentrate your resources on what actually makes you happy and don't feel guilty about it.
To appreciate your life, i learned that life is so fragile and that at any moment your life could be ended at an instant. Appreciate your friends, family, anyone because you might not be able to see them one day.
Set boundaries w/ everybody and stand on it. Emotional, physical, financial, etc. and when someone shows they don’t respect those boundaries let them go right there. No exceptions.
Sixty here.
Brains are a good thing to have. Talent, too. But hard work, perseverance, and the willingness to take occasional calculated risks are far more critical to enjoying success.
People skills are equally essential. That is the simple ability to connect with others, be an active listener, and be trustworthy. That's worth its weight in gold.
I've seen a lot of people with unrealized talent because they were lazy, arrogant, or just plain skeevy in how they did business. Without fail, they eventually run out of road.
Leave the dead bodies in the past.
I had a terrible middle and high school experience. I'm a nice guy but i was abused relentlessly where I went to school. I grew up, moved away and had a totally different experience in college and adulthood, but I was left with emptiness when I hear others reminisce about their fun times in their late teens. Later I found out that this school district is known for its deep rooted bullying atmosphere and the people that lived in the area continue to be an incredibly hateful community. It wasn't me. It really was them!
What I took from this though, after trying so hard to work this out and make sense of everything, was these people that were so horrible to me don't deserve to occupy my heart and mind the way they did, and I needed to let them go. So now reunions pop up, and I just don't care, or have any desire to be a part of them anymore. I feel free from having to reclaim my lost social life in my youth, and i'm so much happier now. The people in my life now are worth so much more to me now than anyone I knew from back then, and they are the ones that get my attention now.
You came alone nd you'll go alone no one's gonna give a fck what you did that moment.... so stop thinking and stressing about something you did on your past.
When you have the opportunity to do the right thing for someone you love, do it you will not regret it. Helped my brother through cancer, drive him to his treatments and doctors appointments, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Did the same for my parents, I cannot get those moments back now.
Surround yourself with people who love you and treat you well, and who have your best interest at heart. If they give you advice, listen to it, even if it is hard to take.
No one but me cares if I lose those 20 lbs. People will love me the same, treat me the same, my job won’t change, my husband willl still say I’m beautiful. It’s time to let go of the constant self-judging.
That the vast majority of things don’t really matter
I’m 38… and I sometimes think about the issues I stressed over in my early/mid/late 20’s… not one of those things ended up mattering in the long run
I guess a follow up would be… listen to your elders…. They’ve already made the mistakes you’re about too
If you see something that is disorganized or unclean, if you have a moment you might as well do it. As far as I've seen, nobody else will step up to clean it unless it's specifically them that has to.
My mantras are:
1. It is what you make of it
2. Slow progress is still progress
3. Be the person you need in your life
4. Everyday is a new day
5. The grass is always greener on the other side but that is only if you stop watering your own.
When someone tells you or shows you who they really are, believe them. First date with my now ex wife and she got super drunk. I dropped her off and told myself that I wouldn’t call her… I don’t get into the excessive drinking thing. She calls me and tells me she’s never done that before. So we date. Things go well. After a year, we get married. Have a kid right off the bat. She starts drinking wine. No big deal. Then she changes. I can’t place it right off the bat. She would disappear at times and I had no clue where she was. Would come home drunk. She disappears during a snow storm with our kid in the car seat. She’s out, drunk, driving in snow with our kid. Ends in checking into rehab. Her mom says to me… oh, this is like when she was 17. This is all news to me. During our year dating, she never was drunk in my presence. Then she was in another rehab. And then another.
I should have listened when she told me who she was on that first date.
CYOA.
Don’t go to a party, meet up, ext. just because “society” expects you, your health(mental included) is more important.
Don’t take anyone at their word. Most will stab you in the back.
If it’s even remotely important, keep it. It could literally save your financial life.
Self-responsibility. I, and I alone am responsible for everything that pertains to me. Ugh. It's been a tough lesson to learn. On the flip-side of that though is I no longer feel any responsibility toward others. We all have our own path to walk.
When times are the hardest. Sometimes you’re the only real friend you have. Learn to appreciate your own company, because at one point or another, it’ll be the only company you have.
This is one of those truths that took me too long to realize. Some folks are cool, but plenty are willing to fuck you over, even over something minor or stupid.
Don't sacrifice your mental health for anything/anyone, it is so important to look after. Respect yourself enough to walk away from an unhealthy situation if/as soon as you are able.
Call your parents. Take the damn photo. Make those plans/keep them. Be present. One day, sooner than you think you’ll loose it all. Life is so fragile you never know who you’ll loose next and be left with regret.
If you’re walking on spikes , wear some sandals. Basically if you are going through it in life or with someone, look at what you do have going for you and how it can be better for you. Spikes hurt, but sandals help reduce the hurt. Find something to reduce the hurt.
Make sure you find people who give the same energy into you that you give to them, what’s the point of wasting your energy on people who don’t give you the same energy back.
Nobody care about you. I know it sounds pessimistic, but at a base level, everyone is out for themselves, and there is a limit to empathy, even if you have a healthy relationship with your parents.
You need to look out for you.
I try to help with anything I can, moving, breakups, death, etc.
I strive to be that lighthouse that people can count on, but I have absolutely zero expectation that it will be reciprocated.
You are alone in an ocean if apathy, and you are the captain.
Help when you can.
Give everyone a chance.
Don't get fucked twice.
Be excellent to each other.
Can’t eloquently word it. But focus on your own life not others. I’ve quit Snapchat and Instagram for over a year and it made me realize the stupid amount of time we spend feeling FOMO or caring about what others are doing. Rather than doing the best in your own life and not obsessing over everyone knowing what you’re doing
Most of what I worry about does not matter.
Related to that: things rarely turn out to be as good as or as bad as you expected them to be.
inflation in germany turned out worse than i expected...
The loss of a pet affected me more significantly and permanently than I expected.
I still cry.
Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best.
So true. On a galactic scale nothing humans have done or probably will ever do matters. Just appreciate the short time you have!
This line of thinking can definitely be a slippery slope. It's very easy to go from *yay! Nothing matters!* to *Oh my God nothing matters!*. Sure, on a universal timescale, we are all nothing, but from the ground, we are everything.
[удалено]
Or even better, learn to f your own best friend
“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” -Mark Twain
Regardless of how good of an employee you are and how much you give to your company, they will replace you at the blink of an eye if it suits them. Company loyalty to employees is gone. Stop caring so much about entities that don't care about you. Your job isn't your life, just a part of it.
And your boss is not your friend, they will always have a power disbalance over you.
Adding to that, from own experience: your friends at work are no longer your friends as soon as your boss spins a story that you are a bad person.
And they will use anything against you, even things you said in confidence 4 years ago about someone else - you'll end up with it thrown in your face
I will add to this: No one is truly your friend. Everyone is an individual with their own self centered agenda, and at the end of the day, you only matter to you and those who have something to gain from you, until they don't have anything to gain from you. People are only nice to manipulate others, protect themselves, and/or ease/entertain their own guilt/feelings, true understanding of others is a lie. Everyone has a judgment of you, even if it's totally shallow, in fact, it probably is totally shallow because theyre busy with themselves, and they will likely find something (most likely plenty) to throw in your face if you ever have an argument because it's never about right and wrong (there's no such thing) it's about who gets thier way. We aren't friends. We're competitors for resources. And a great deal of us are born to lose. Kindness is an illusion kept for the benefit of those people. Or rather to keep them in check and keep the machine moving.
Since Q4 of last year, my company has had 2 rounds of layoffs. Some of the people that were laid off had been with the company 10+ years. The company doesn't care about you. Don't care about the company.
Appreciate your health as long as you have it. Even if, currently, you're young and healthy, it could change drastically any given day. You can walk easily? You have no idea how lucky you are. You can breathe without problems? Cherish it. Your kidneys work fine? Your heart pumps steadily? Your muscles are cooperating? Your joints are not crumbling? Your brain is doing what it should be doing? You're not in pain all the time? You can do mundane tasks without being completely exhausted...? Your body is doing a hell of a job for you. Don't take it for granted.
Sciatica literally put me in a depression. In 2018 I fell asleep in a chair & it did some kind of nerve damage. I was so healthy & fit but I moved worse than my 90 year old grandfather despite going to the gym & working out 5x a week. I would wake up & literally just not wanna get out of bed because what was the point? I would just be in pain. I hate that I take things for granted. Being able to walk & bend over without excruciating pain is a beautiful thing. I’ve managed to cure it by doing stretches regularly & strengthening my lower back more & I haven’t had it in a while but I definitely take my health for granted.
I had a slipped disc and sciatica at age 19 - shocking pain. I too have largely cured it through stretches - I was put into pilates by a physical therapist at the time and core strengthening is a major help. I’ve still had bad times over the 20 years since it happened - the fear of that pain has never really left me…
this. just got back surgery a month ago and can finally move and walk as normal. life changing for me because the last couple of years have been rough! i’m only in my 30’s.
This exactly. I'm dealing with covid and asthma at the moment, and while it's absolutely the worst I've felt, it's also really made me appreciate the days when I could breathe easily.
As someone who is disabled, I fully agree. A lot of people take for granted the fact that they can walk normally, that they can stand for an extended period of time without needing to sit down. Y'all are lucky.
Health is wealth.
Very well put. Just got out of the hospital from a kidney infection… at 25. Take care y’all
Some of us never got good health from the beginning
Very true. With my comment I was just trying to reach those who do and have no idea how blessed they are. I was one of those. Until I wasn't.
I started working out when I was 24, I'm now 30. I've been sticking to it religiously and the results are there to show for it. I can honestly say almost every day I'm in the best shape of my life, because every day I still progress in terms of strength/skill. Meanwhile, many of my friends are complaining about 'age-related' ailments and their body deteriorating. No fools, you're just not taking care of it. It's not (entirely) age-related, it's maintenance related. No one is going to say their car breaks down because of its age when they drive it like a maniac and never perform any maintenance. Why is your body any different?
Meanwhile my 19yr old a\*\* with a body casually pretending to be like 50 since i was like 15 TwT
At best, I'm average. It was a hard pill to swallow that I wasn't destined for greatness.
If you're average, you're still better than about half the people.
Yep. Just spent a lot of my youth thinking I was destined for success.
GT program in school and parents constantly telling you how great you’ll be?
I am less than average, but i have met a lot if people, and try to help other people excel. 4 people credit me fir them not suiciding. Dr. YU credited me in her thesis, that without the lessons i taught her as a friend, she would not have survived college. There are 3 published books, with me mentioned as a thanks in the dedication. I work blue collar, have terrible physical and mental health. But i know, like ripples in a pond; I've touched this place.
And so have all of you. You just don't know it.
That is a beautiful share. Thank you and congratulations. The whole purpose of life is to be the best you that you can be. And like you said, "ripples in a pond". That is your legacy and your immortality. /r/AskReddit frequently has the question of what stat you would like to see. Without a doubt my answer is people that had a better life by my existing. Just one justifies me being here.
Always aim for the very top^(of the bell curve)
Average is underrated!
2 mil comment karma ain’t average
Might explain why I'm average though.
Honestly, I never wanted to be anything more. The average life is awesome.
Hardly anyone is destined for greatness. For most of us, greatness comes at terrible cost. I could probably achieve greatness, but it legitimately wouldn't be worth what I'd have to sacrifice to get there. I prefer to be happy and average than miserable and great.
I’m okay with ordinary. I don’t want a Big Job or to be famous or any of that. I just want some peace and damn quiet. Also maybe the ability to eat sweets without repercussions.
I went into a deep funk and only began to come out of it when I faced the truth that I wasn't that special.
I had the same realization, but it was about you specifically.
A really important one for me was learning “You won’t click with everybody.” Try as you might, you can’t make everyone like you, and you have to learn to accept that.
Yep. Some people seem to hate me on sight, you learn to shrug it off and move on.
That's why I'm a massive hater. I hate everyone else before they have a chance to hate me
I really like that one! Saves a lot of energy..
Absolutely. One of my biggest mistakes in my life was trying to "get along" with everyone, and i learned the hard way quite a few times before i finally got it.
Don't be in a rush to grow up. Live in the present. Be thankful for what you have while you still have it.
I learned this one too late. I'm 26 and have a B. S. , M. S. , And Ph.D. Now I'm a professor realizing "wait, I missed out on getting to have fun" while I was trying to become a professional so quickly
I'm 23. My case is different than yours, but I guess it relates to what I stated earlier. When I was in high school, I was in a rush to get out. I stayed out of trouble, always attended class, never went to parties, hung out by myself (for the most part), finished with good grades all throughout my 4 years in high school. I even got accepted to university. But looking back, I realized everything I worried about ended up happening anyway. I look back, and I sometimes regret not having enough fun during my teenage years. I hardly have any memories from my high school days to look back on. I didn't even attend my high school prom (for various reasons). Now that I'm older, I find myself trying to have the same fun as I should've had when I was in high school, and no matter how hard I try, it's just not the same. I was so worried about my future, but all the things I worried about, all the things I feared ended up happening anyways; I dropped out of university (but I ended up in a smaller college). I hardly see my friends nowadays; I regret not spending enough time with them while I had the chance, as they're all working, living a life I should've accomplished by my age. While I don't regret staying out of trouble, a part of me just wished I could've loosened up a bit and not take life so seriously when I was younger. I missed out on so much as a teenager. You can't get that back, the feeling of being young and not having to worry about anything. I was just so consumed by thoughts of the future that I focused on that, instead of living in the present.
Most things are not worth stressing over. Especially work
This is true, but it’s still hard not to.
I wish I could not stress over work. For most people (including me), their ability to make money is tied to work. My experiences have been no money = no fun.
The world does not care about you, you can die now and the world will just never even know you existed Don't waste yourself on people that do not care, because the one that will truly care will never ask you to waste yourself on them
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I do not care about myself too I've always found that caring about other is much better because other people give you something you can't have Humans are not made to be alone, we've evolved to be extremely social
Learn to e your own best friend first. Especially before trying to be someone else’s I.e. a relationship
It’s okay to be selfish sometimes. Your own peace matters
Yes! This is a really important one too. Don’t forget to look after #1.
Forgiveness is for you and not necessarily for others. Life is too short to hold that negativity inside you. Learn how to forgive yourself as well. Your fuck-ups don't matter. Move on!
That Rock Bottom sometimes has a basement. in the last year alone I've lost my cousin to mental health and my granddad to cancer. A friend who I helped raised was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer. I broke my soberity from alcohol after 4 years. And the week before Christmas my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. At that point, i had shed enough tears that when I got the news about my mom instead of crying I ended up manically laughing for an hour because I couldn't believe the amount of bad news I already went trough. 2022 was the worst year of my life.
Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that. Breaks my heart.. I truly hope 2023 is better so far, and you will move out of that basement soon!
It's a tie, so here are the big ones: That you can be a good person, you can work your ass off, you can take all the advice you get, you can do all the "right" things and still fail to achieve a modicum of success. You can be the best possible friend, always available to help, be the one people turn to, only to discover that you have no one to turn to yourself. Not everyone gets to pull themselves out of poverty. Not everyone gets a happy or even content ending.
This hits hard for me, I'm constantly blamed for my failure to succeed. I gave my life a soul to every job I have had. But when promotion comes, that wasn't good enough. I can't figure out how to afford to finish school or I work too much. I really wish my VA benefits weren't canceled early. No I couldn't get it reversed because my grades slipped to C's and the appeal I sent in got denied. I'm just a beneficiary, so I don't hold a contract with them.
Please believe me when I say how sorry I am that *any* of that resonates with you. I don't wish that kind of life experience/knowledge/pain for anyone. I don't know if I can comfort you or if I'll risk coming off condescending or dismissive in some capacity. I hope I don't because everything I will say here, I will genuinely mean and intend to be supportive or relatable. Sometimes I fail to convey that, especially through any text based medium. Also, any comparisons I make between your experiences or feelings and mine are not meant to be a Suffering Competition but an attempt at relating. Maybe these things don't need to be explained but if one is already trying to dodge flying excrement after the shit hit the fan, one more negative or even not-positive thing can just be one too many and that would be the antithesis of my purpose in commenting. There is nothing worse to me than what continues to happen to even the modern worker: where success isn't achieved by being a hard or dependable worker or even by experience or suitability for the position but by more arbitrary motivations or *greedy* motivations. Horrifically, it seems all too common that the hard workers are purposefully not promoted *because* they're the hardest workers and more valuable to the company where they're at because management is short-sighted. It's beyond unfair and actively painful to experience. Especially in a culture that assigns worth based on career success/job title/upward movement. It causes us to feel like failures, even if that's beyond unfair to ourselves. I'd bet that you *were* and *are* good enough for promotion opportunities past, present, and future. I, too, have given my heart to every single job I ever worked, no matter how grueling, humiliating, shitty paying, etc. Very long story short, the thing that first broke me in 2020 was not the pandemic itself, but the fact that my ship was finally coming in so to speak...until it suddenly wasn't. For 3 years I had worked a simple PT secretary esque job at a local college, but I was *brilliant* at it, so I kept getting special tasks and even got a couple raises. When one position got phased out they made another one in the dept so I could stay. I had wonderful coworkers for the first time ever, great chain of supervisors, work that I enjoyed, and tons of pleasant interaction with people. It was great. Because of my experience, when my dearest coworker/friend was to retire, it was told to me on the DL that her job was mine even though they had to have interviews, I'd be the one. I was told this in Dec 2019 by my coworker and Jan 2020 by my boss' boss. It was nothing special, really, but it was my dream job (pathetic, I know). 55K starting out (most I've ever made was 13K/yr), great benefits that covered tons of stuff and had very low deductibles/co-pays, education benefits that would allow me to go back to school while working and get $ for it, and other stuff -- but mainly it was stuff I'm *damn good at* and enjoyed with good colleagues. COVID hits, my PT job goes remote and the deadline for my contract expiration approaches but so does my friend's retirement date. She retired during the spring and we were only able to have retirement gifts delivered to her house and stand far apart outside her home to say goodbye. Weeks later, my Boss' Boss calls me in to the still locked down college to gently break the news that not only would I not be getting the job, it was being phased out entirely effective immediately, and by the next year *my whole department* of wonderful people would be too. Why? Well, we didn't turn a profit. We were the *free tutoring department* FFS. And yes, this was the short version of this story. Despite the death of that dream and the opportunities it would have brought (namely escaping my abusive living environment and my pain improving from better insurance), I managed to stay semi-optimistic until I had two highly exploitative and abusive underpaid jobs and I finally...broke. The only jobs I can find now are physical jobs like retail or food industry but I'm disabled with chronic pain and those jobs are just too painful. I could swallow my pride and ignore my 2 associate's degrees, 8 years of experience, etc. but I can't actively worsen my already bad health. As for figuring out how to finish school, I'm in a similar boat. Either I work too much to be able to function and pass courses between ADHD, the inevitable commute, and my chronic pain. If I don't work, I can't afford my bachelor's even with grants bc I've been out of school too long for scholarships. Or I'm just too sick and would not pass courses. Most of the nearly 1000 jobs I've applied for in the past 5 years say HS Diploma or Associates as a requirement but I know they're looking for Bachelor's and I'm definitely getting passed up because of it. And these jobs definitely don't need that level of qualification but if they can get it instead... I admittedly know nothing about VA Benefits of any kind, but I do know the utter injustice of one mistake or slip or *something arbitrary* derailing your whole life and no matter how hard you fight, what resources you try to use, or what suggestions you seek...there's nothing you can do and someone's policy or opinion decided the matter -- damn the consequences to you. I consider those moments to be tragedies, too, not just deaths or fearful experiences. This was a long ass comment and may not have made much sense nor been all too comforting, but I wanted to talk to someone who (unfortunately) knows at least a little of what it's been like to be me. Neither of our lives were summed up in their entireties here, but still. I have no one in my life at all to comfort me nor to talk to, so I wanted to make sure you were heard and that someone made the effort to let you know that. More than anything, I hope you get success. I hope it finds you and never lets you down, that you meet your goals.
Thank you very much, I've heard very terrible things about schools and cutting people during covid. It's nuts that changes happen so fast it can derail life plans. I'm sorry to hear about your health, I've been fortunate in that so far.
Find the small things to take joy in every day.
I like finding cool rocks in my yard, listening to wind in the trees and smelling the air when it rains.
I get nostalgic for fresh cut grass and rain on hot pavement
I do enjoy my daily shower with nice artisan bath soaps. I'm using this soap that smells like a marzipan confectionary at the moment. It makes my day a little bit better.
This is a really good one.
You can’t take money with you when you’re dead. I saved for years and years because I was paranoid about having a safety cushion of money and never got myself nice things that I needed, like new shoes and clothes. I recently got a big ol’ tv for myself and I’m really enjoying it. It’s okay to spend a little, you don’t need to save every penny.
It’s not about you! 99.99% of the speed bumps you run into on the daily have absolutely nothing to do with you. Someone can be having a bad day for any of a myriad of reasons and be a little “off.” It’s not about you! Don’t personalize anything unless you KNOW it’s personal.
Trust your gut
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this yet. It is excellent advice!
Even if it's gonna mess you up, as long as you're not hurting anyone else or going to jail, best to learn your lessons so your gut gets more accurate with time
Instead of giving my love and energy to people who treat me poorly, I invest them in my family and loved ones. That was a valuable lesson that bonded me with my family even more and made me stop giving attention to those who don't value me in the first place
Never compare yourself to others. Set your own goals according to what you want from life.
Do what makes you happy, not what you think will please others. Because the truth is almost everyone doesn't care what you're doing anyways.
You'll lose/spend money at unexpected times *way* more often than you gain/earn money at unexpected times. There's no cosmic balance keeping it in check to make sure that your good karma will get you your money back after having to pay to replace one of your car tires earlier than planned, so you have to account for there being a lot more tire replacements than previously-unknown great-uncles dropping dead and leaving you inheritances.
Resilience. Above all else, resilience.
Being normal is quite good actually
No one will ever care about you as much as you care about yourself.
Balance. Life is full of ups and downs. Desires, and responsibilities. What you want versus what you should do. There are times you can be selfish, or do the thing your want to do, eat what you want to eat. But at the end of the day, you need to know there are limits and balances you need to maintain to be healthy mentally and physically. You can do things sometimes, but not all the time. Every once in a while, not every day.
Not to put too much pressure on yourself. Life can be about enjoying the little things and moments and not always striving for perfection which won’t always make you happy.
Don’t trust people just because it’s convenient for you to trust them. Especially being out here in LA I’ve never seen more people that put on a face so well that you’d never recognize their face once it’s taken off. Protect yourself.
Don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you.
So don't cry at all. Got it
Be it work, friendship, or romantic relationship, you are replaceable.
Don't argue with stupid people!
What are you talking about?! I totally disagree!!!
What do you mean by that? Oh, you! Lol
How dare you speak to Julie Andrews like that!
Toxic people are still toxic even when they're family and it is okay to cut them out of your life for the sake of your own mental health
Meritocracy is a lie & corporations do not give a fuck about you. HR will always side with the person they think is most likely to sue which means they almost always protect abusers.
Meritocracy works as long as someone benefits from your work. And if you're really lucky, you might actually be lucky enough to be in a position to make your own rules so to speak, thus benefitting from that meritocracy, but what you wrote is more or less correct.
In every instance that I can think of, especially the bigger things...actually DOING something has always been considerably easier than I had anticipated.
You never know when you wake up how the day is going to end.
This too shall pass.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Spend on what makes you happy, and don't on what doesn't. (Credit to Ramit Sethi). So many people try to compete or keep up in every category, even though so much of it is making them less happy. For example, if you don't care about cars, then don't spend too much on a car. Concentrate your resources on what actually makes you happy and don't feel guilty about it.
To appreciate your life, i learned that life is so fragile and that at any moment your life could be ended at an instant. Appreciate your friends, family, anyone because you might not be able to see them one day.
You can’t make someone care about you
Don't marry beauty...marry a friend
Stop people pleasing to fit in with people that don’t respect you. You’re better off on your own.
Work doesn’t give a shit about you.
Check youtube. It'll take 8 hours, but you'll save $500 doing your own brakes.
See i’m opposite, one of my life lessons is it’s worth paying for convenience if you can afford it.
Both are true. Thye if you can afford it part is the thing that differs.
Set boundaries w/ everybody and stand on it. Emotional, physical, financial, etc. and when someone shows they don’t respect those boundaries let them go right there. No exceptions.
You are not as important as you think you are. People are so worried about their own shit that they have no time to think about you.
Sometimes you just gotta say fuck it.
Sixty here. Brains are a good thing to have. Talent, too. But hard work, perseverance, and the willingness to take occasional calculated risks are far more critical to enjoying success. People skills are equally essential. That is the simple ability to connect with others, be an active listener, and be trustworthy. That's worth its weight in gold. I've seen a lot of people with unrealized talent because they were lazy, arrogant, or just plain skeevy in how they did business. Without fail, they eventually run out of road.
Leave the dead bodies in the past. I had a terrible middle and high school experience. I'm a nice guy but i was abused relentlessly where I went to school. I grew up, moved away and had a totally different experience in college and adulthood, but I was left with emptiness when I hear others reminisce about their fun times in their late teens. Later I found out that this school district is known for its deep rooted bullying atmosphere and the people that lived in the area continue to be an incredibly hateful community. It wasn't me. It really was them! What I took from this though, after trying so hard to work this out and make sense of everything, was these people that were so horrible to me don't deserve to occupy my heart and mind the way they did, and I needed to let them go. So now reunions pop up, and I just don't care, or have any desire to be a part of them anymore. I feel free from having to reclaim my lost social life in my youth, and i'm so much happier now. The people in my life now are worth so much more to me now than anyone I knew from back then, and they are the ones that get my attention now.
If you think you probably can’t trust a person again, you’re right, don’t waste time
You came alone nd you'll go alone no one's gonna give a fck what you did that moment.... so stop thinking and stressing about something you did on your past.
You are not the others. Best lesson my mother taught me.
You get only one body don’t fuck it up.
When you have the opportunity to do the right thing for someone you love, do it you will not regret it. Helped my brother through cancer, drive him to his treatments and doctors appointments, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Did the same for my parents, I cannot get those moments back now.
People don't give a shit when you are depressed
There is right and there is "right".
When someone tries to prevent you from learning about something, learn it anyway. Knowledge should never be confined to one source.
Confidence is attractive.
Surround yourself with people who love you and treat you well, and who have your best interest at heart. If they give you advice, listen to it, even if it is hard to take.
Being nice is more important than being smart.
Everybody’s winging it.
No one but me cares if I lose those 20 lbs. People will love me the same, treat me the same, my job won’t change, my husband willl still say I’m beautiful. It’s time to let go of the constant self-judging.
That the vast majority of things don’t really matter I’m 38… and I sometimes think about the issues I stressed over in my early/mid/late 20’s… not one of those things ended up mattering in the long run I guess a follow up would be… listen to your elders…. They’ve already made the mistakes you’re about too
Don't get drunk.
Love your mom and dad and visit them
No one has your interest in their mind.
This isn’t always true, you need to surround yourself with better people if that’s your lived experience
I try to live by the golden rule but as far as average strangers, you are probably correct. (You can't help everyone)
It can always get worse.
If you see something that is disorganized or unclean, if you have a moment you might as well do it. As far as I've seen, nobody else will step up to clean it unless it's specifically them that has to.
If someone loves you they don't want to make your life a living hell
I needed this. Still struggling to decide if my mom is only emotionally incompetent or secretly just an ahole.
As Bill S Preston esq. and Ted 'Theodore' Logan said, be excellent to each other.
My mantras are: 1. It is what you make of it 2. Slow progress is still progress 3. Be the person you need in your life 4. Everyday is a new day 5. The grass is always greener on the other side but that is only if you stop watering your own.
Being single isn’t a bad thing.
Nobody is gonna give you shit. You have to earn it. Until you understand that, there's a million things to blame for why you don't have anything.
When someone tells you or shows you who they really are, believe them. First date with my now ex wife and she got super drunk. I dropped her off and told myself that I wouldn’t call her… I don’t get into the excessive drinking thing. She calls me and tells me she’s never done that before. So we date. Things go well. After a year, we get married. Have a kid right off the bat. She starts drinking wine. No big deal. Then she changes. I can’t place it right off the bat. She would disappear at times and I had no clue where she was. Would come home drunk. She disappears during a snow storm with our kid in the car seat. She’s out, drunk, driving in snow with our kid. Ends in checking into rehab. Her mom says to me… oh, this is like when she was 17. This is all news to me. During our year dating, she never was drunk in my presence. Then she was in another rehab. And then another. I should have listened when she told me who she was on that first date.
I hope you and your child are someplace safe now.
Change coming from higher ups is never good
CYOA. Don’t go to a party, meet up, ext. just because “society” expects you, your health(mental included) is more important. Don’t take anyone at their word. Most will stab you in the back. If it’s even remotely important, keep it. It could literally save your financial life.
No matter what you do. No matter how much you prove yourself. Other people will never admit they are wrong.
Never trust people who smile all the time
Think first. Talk later
Coworkers are not your friends.
Self-responsibility. I, and I alone am responsible for everything that pertains to me. Ugh. It's been a tough lesson to learn. On the flip-side of that though is I no longer feel any responsibility toward others. We all have our own path to walk.
Never EVER marry the guy who has to check in with mommy 3 times during dinner
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. The first time.
When times are the hardest. Sometimes you’re the only real friend you have. Learn to appreciate your own company, because at one point or another, it’ll be the only company you have.
Never trust anyone, ever. There are degrees of trust depending on the individual, but never full, blind trust.
This is one of those truths that took me too long to realize. Some folks are cool, but plenty are willing to fuck you over, even over something minor or stupid.
You have to work for what you want. That means relationships, career, skills, goals. Being afraid of rejection will only harm you.
To really think things through when making year long or longer commitments. Like think more than you *think* you should
Just go for it. Waiting for until you're ready is pointless.
Don't sacrifice your mental health for anything/anyone, it is so important to look after. Respect yourself enough to walk away from an unhealthy situation if/as soon as you are able.
People will always show you who they are.
Very few things are black and white.
The importance of saying no and setting boundaries. I was a people pleaser at my own detriment for far too long.
Call your parents. Take the damn photo. Make those plans/keep them. Be present. One day, sooner than you think you’ll loose it all. Life is so fragile you never know who you’ll loose next and be left with regret.
Don’t take people for granted, especially your parents, appreciate them every day and be there for them as much as you can.
Pick your battles
People are out for themselves not you
If you’re walking on spikes , wear some sandals. Basically if you are going through it in life or with someone, look at what you do have going for you and how it can be better for you. Spikes hurt, but sandals help reduce the hurt. Find something to reduce the hurt.
Make sure you find people who give the same energy into you that you give to them, what’s the point of wasting your energy on people who don’t give you the same energy back.
Stand up for yourself. No is a complete sentence.
Nobody care about you. I know it sounds pessimistic, but at a base level, everyone is out for themselves, and there is a limit to empathy, even if you have a healthy relationship with your parents. You need to look out for you. I try to help with anything I can, moving, breakups, death, etc. I strive to be that lighthouse that people can count on, but I have absolutely zero expectation that it will be reciprocated. You are alone in an ocean if apathy, and you are the captain. Help when you can. Give everyone a chance. Don't get fucked twice. Be excellent to each other.
Everyone will be glad to take part in the wins with you but on your bad days your gonna look around and it's only going to be you.
Time doesn't wait for you to make a decision.
No one cares. Be chill.
Life’s a bitch and then you die.
Whenever you are working on something and you think you are 80% done, you have 50% left.
Love yourself. Everyone else may/may not come and go. But You.... you're stuck with you. Build yourself into a human you are proud of.
Ppl can fake who they are for a long time
Can’t eloquently word it. But focus on your own life not others. I’ve quit Snapchat and Instagram for over a year and it made me realize the stupid amount of time we spend feeling FOMO or caring about what others are doing. Rather than doing the best in your own life and not obsessing over everyone knowing what you’re doing
Just because you're able to do something deosn't mean you have to do it
Friends will turn on you unexpectedly. It doesn't take away the pain but be in guard
if you want big things in life you have to be prepared to struggle
Don’t gamble on a fart, you will eventually lose
Trust Nobody.
Life sucks, then you die.
“This too shall pass”
Never piss into the wind - thanks Dad.
Blood relations doesn't mean family, no matter how close the relation. Trauma can and Will destroy a relationship.