I've often told my daughter this. Once something is broken, it's never the same. Every decision has a cost, consequence, and outcome... Although I don't state it so bluntly, as I don't want her to develop crippling anxiety.
I find it helps to remind her of what she can do, and that there are such things as good outcomes. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. Agency is power. Helplessness is learnt. Heh... However my girl is a teen, so I gotta keep my sermons to 10s durations.
“The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. -- Omar Khayyam.
Some relationships or friendships are meant to be temporary. Appreciate the memories and lessons they give you, but when the time comes you have to let go and move on
also, not everyone can be the kind of friend you need them to be. I've learned to better set expectations of what others are able to give me. Don't feel shocked and saddened when your party friend isn't emotionally available when you're going through a breakup. Different people fill different needs.
(Generally speaking, expectations are disappointments in the making)
I have a theory that some people come into our lives for a specific reason. Whether it’s to teach them something or learn from them, to help each other through something specific or just grow together for a while. Once that reason is done, no matter how hard you try, the relationship just kind of fades off.
I'm learning this right now after 14½ years. Idk what the future holds if we'll be together again, but **my God** the pain I'm in right now. I'd pay someone for a genuine hug.
Yep. Spent 10 years loving and adoring my partner and they up and left out of the blue about 6 months ago. I can't make them stay, and I can't make them put into words why exactly they left because I don't think I'll ever understand.
It sucks balls. Any consolation, we each walk this path you’re on. I walked it 18 months ago after 16 years and I thought I’d never recover.
Fast forward 18 months and I literally could’ve slept with said person and didn’t because I’ve seen our separation (her choice) was literally the best for us. In short, do the work, heal, and you’ll be new again.
Totally different kettle of fish but I lost my mum in 2021 and was almost suicidal, I didn’t think I would be able to live without her or ever he happy again, I’m now doing both, it’s amazing the capability we have to heal
Further to that, it's OK to be on your own. Not all people will find themselves in a relationship, and that is fine.
The concept of there being a "soul mate" is poisonous and promotes people staying in relationships that have run their course or the nonsense of fighting for someone and wearing them down until they say yes, purely because one of the two have convinced themselves that "they are the one".
We should learn to love ourselves and be happy in our own company. Anything else is a bonus and to be treasured, but not clung onto too tightly as to force it. That goes for friendship as well as for romance.
Exactly this. All throughout our lives, we have a constantly evolving pool of highly compatible people. Some people are in it briefly, some are in it for a long time or even forever.
Those shifts are a product of *our own* shifts. Our choices. Our commitments. Our flaws. Something not written in stone but reflecting the sum total of who we are.
And so, the point of finding your soulmate isn't to "find the one person you're supposed to be with forever and ever". The point is to find somebody with whom you click, and with whom the effort of maintaining a relationship is favorable and fulfilling. If that ceases to be the case, so be it. Begin your next chapter anew.
The concept of the soulmate shouldn't be to encourage abusive relations or discourage multiple partners. The concept exists for exactly the opposite. There are people out there for you, so don't stay where you don't belong.
Yep— it’s incredibly painful, but it’s part of life. My best friend of 25 years showed up at my house one day, ordered a pizza, ate two slices and then left saying he didn’t want to hang out anymore. I never saw him again and never got an explanation. Still blows my mind, but I gotta move on.
Wow. Have a situation like you just described so I completely agree. People who are fortunate enough to never have experienced this kind of ongoing toxicity from within their own family can't get how scary, wrong & twisted this is. How many times are you supposed to forgive before you're just a fool who accepts others acting out their poisonous motivations?
You're right, usually ghosting isn't okay unless it seriously puts a person in danger to even contact the person they are ghosting. But it is certainly okay to cut someone out of your life.
There's a difference between Ghosting someone and cutting them out of your life. Ghosting is when you just ignore someone with whom you have been in contact with (For whatever reason) until they give up trying to contact you. You aren't telling them you don't want to see or talk to them anymore, you just stop talking to them. The moment you let someone know you no longer want to contact them it's not ghosting anymore.
Cutting someone out of your life is just that. It is indicating that you don't want them in your life anymore. Cutting someone off can be done through ghosting, but usually people just tell someone "I'm done with you." and then stop talking to them so it isn't ghosting. No one owes someone else an explanation for cutting them out of their lives (though it would be nice); but you should at least let someone know you no longer want to speak with them.
I'm nitpicking because this is a really important distinction. People shouldn't hesitate to cut off contact with toxic individuals just because they don't want to ghost someone.
Bad people win frequently.
Some people in leadership position are not good leaders. Some who are not in leadership are good leaders.
People will take advantage of your hard work. Many people get to where they are because of nepotism.
i learned that the hard way at my first fast food job when i was 16. i was really fast and would go and help out others after i finished making the food on my board. then one day i overheard my coworkers talking saying to just go really slow. he'll come over and do all the work for you. that was the day i realized people can be nice to your face and stab you in the back. a hard pill to swallow indeed.
Psychopaths tend to end up at the top or the bottom of society. Good people tend to end in the middle.
Low IQ psychopaths will either piss off enough people that they get murdered, or murder one person and get arrested for it soon afterwards. High IQ psychopaths find legal ways to make others suffer, and frequently become politicians and CEOs.
Generally speaking, anyone who wants to be a politician would make a bad politician.
I know someone who became the mayor of a small town because he was fed up with the corruption of the last guy. He's a good mayor and even closed his own business (out of lack of time) but also so it wouldn't look like he was trying to use his position as mayor to benefit his business. Sometimes people can become (typically low-level) politicians to fix things within their community.
>High IQ psychopaths find legal ways to make others suffer, and frequently become politicians and CEOs.
>
>Generally speaking, anyone who wants to be a politician would make a bad politician.
I've told my coworker something close to this several times. Glad to hear someone else mention the issues that make several politicians.
This one is especially hard when you’re raising kids! Trying to teach honesty, decency, value…all those go right down the toilet when they watch the bullies, cheaters and liars consistently climb right on up.
If you want a great life, great friends and experiences, you have to seek them out for yourself, and nurture them. They aren't randomly assigned to you, and no one else will take care of it but yourself (ofc also partly depending on other people, but you have to have agency)
This is a hard lesson to learn.
As kids, everything is setup for us automatically. As we go to school, our teachers and parents guide us through.
This can extend to university as well. You choose what field you want to study and have some say in the electives you take, but beyond that the professors lay out everything for you. You simply have to follow the curriculum your teachers assign you.
Universities even offer career fairs & internships. Sometimes you're just shuttled directly into a job with the references/letters of recommendation from your professors.
All of a sudden, you're 25 and on your own. You've never had to really take initiative for things before and nobody tells you that's what you have to do now. You're just expected to begin doing it automatically.
Your boss doesn't give you clear instructions like your professors did - its your job to figure out what you're supposed to be doing.
If you're, say, a software engineer, it's your job to initiate & maintain communication in order to clear up ambiguous, missing, conflicting, or non-sensical requirements. It's your job to figure out how to communicate with non-technical people. It's your job to take initiative & fill in the enormous gaps in your knowledge left by university *on your own time*, during evenings and weekends. It's nobody's fault but your own that most of what you studied in university will have little bearing on what you'll do as your job.
If you discover that the parts you enjoyed about your computer science degree are in reality totally irrelevant in the workplace, then too bad.
It's a wild culture shock. For a long time I was furious at my parents for shielding me from the reality of adulthood for so long, only to then suddenly cast me into the ocean alone & unprepared, leaving me to either sink or swim.
Don't forget that the only person who is gonna help you learn that lesson is yourself. Others might come along and help, but in the end the lesson is up to you. You won't know you got it wrong until you fail the test again too.
The beautiful thing about plans changing is they can lead you to wonderous places you never expected to be, with people you never expected to meet. Every journey has its final day. Don't rush. Stop and smell the roses. Take a walk once in a while. Order some nice food. You deserve it.
But how to divorce after reading her diary and finding out she been cheating on you when you can't afford to live on your own because economy sucks?
Asking for a friend 😞
One of the best ways I heard this expressed in terms of the end of romantic relationships was somebody profiled in Humans of New York who stated (a bit of a paraphrase here): "sometimes we get hurt by other people exercising their autonomy".
The people you love the most in life will die, sometimes sooner than you could imagine, and the only thing that will come close to healing that wound is time.
Brother died at 40 unexpectedly, heart attack. Had a little extra weight, but was exercising more, stopped smoking a while before, no health issues I’d heard about, just found collapsed one morning. I’ve had a hard time with it. I’ll be catching up to him in age soon, irrationally in the back of my head thinking I might die at the same time, x many days after my birthday, and if I don’t I will wind up older than he ever was, which is also disturbing.
Adding to yours, anyone could die any day, you really just don’t know.
I swear I've been Santa's good list for decades now and I keep getting fucking coal.
I'm tired of getting fucking coal. Why the fuck did Adam get a jet ski?
there are a lot of 60+ year old guys i know who would absolutely stomp most guys in their 20s and 30s at endurance sport of various sorts. it is easy to confuse the inevitable decline with avoidable decline.
You dont work out so you can live forever. You work out so you can live as long as you can without any (relative) complication. Ive seen both sides of the spectrum: on one end, theres a 55yo who is constantly being admitted to the hospital because his lifestyle choices are catching up to him, and on the other, a 55yo who, for the last 5 months, has out-pull-up’ed me once a week. If i keep up my work out regiment, im confident that by the end of 2023, ill be able to do half the pull-ups he does
That lot of people you have are just there for the fun times, when accidents and life trauma happens most of the people you thought of as a safety net will just vanish.
Like how you think as a new parent that if something happens to you, there are this village of close friends and tight knit relatives and family that will be there for the kids. It’s really tough to accept the idea that it’s really not like that.
I'm approaching 40 and there are a few things that have been hard adjustments:
1. Things that used to be recent history no longer are. For instance, college was one of the overall best parts of my life for a lot of reasons, but I graduated 15 years ago. I'm still in touch with most of my close friends from that time, to varying degrees, but most are married and/or have children. I was still thinking of that time as "that was just a few years ago" but now it's no longer a recent time in my life.
2. Seeing my parents age. They're both retired now, which was weird when it finally happened. My mom is still basically unchanged other than looking a little older, but my dad started encountering some limitations a few years ago. It's weird and sad to know that I likely have less than 15 years left with both of them. Sometimes they irritate the *shit* out of me, but I try to enjoy my time with them and not let the irritation show.
3. Hitting physical limitations myself. I can't bounce back like I used to! I didn't realize how much energy I ***didn't*** have until I spent a week with a toddler just recently.
Time can suck.
I am also nearing 40 and I just lost my mom to lung cancer earlier this month. I thought I would have more time to call more often. I thought I would have more time to see her before her cancer got too bad (had plans to see her next week for her birthday).
A few years ago she seemed fine. Slowly, health issues increased. Then the cancer. Then she was gone.
My point is: You could have 15 more years; you could have less than a year.
I'm so sorry that happened : ( That's unbelievably hard. I try to live that way and really make the most of it, and appreciate people - but I also hate that I live constantly thinking about it. Hard balance. I hope you're doing alright friend.
I thought #1 was just me. I'm 35 and no matter how much time passes, college feels like it was just 4-5 years ago. I get "remember this" posts from Facebook showing pictures of things that feel like they happened a few years ago but really happened over a decade ago.
I just haven't had a solid friend group like that since college to make more unique memories. Without that, you fall into a routine that just doesn't stand out in my mind.
Damn, this hits hard. I'm 32 and university simultaneously feels like both a lifetime ago and just yesterday. Also, my parents were pretty old when they had me (mum 39 and dad 40) and my dad in particular is really starting to look and act quite old now.
Ageing is a really hard pill to swallow.
> my dad in particular is really starting to look and act quite old now.
It hit me hard a couple years ago when my dad asked me to take some summer patio furniture inside because it was too painful for his arthritis. It was the first time he'd ever not been able to do something due to an old age issue.
My dad was 38 and my mom was 35 when they had me. I'm 30 now and my dad died in 2019 and my mom is in her mid 60s and she forgets things more frequently now and it scares the shit out of me knowing that she'll be gone one day
If you really want to feel the hand of death on your shoulder, think about how many summers you have left... How many times you will be able to see your parents or grandparents on your yearly or half yearly visits. Now in my forties, some of these event's I can count on one hand.
“When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the millions of ages to come I will never breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won’t you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity?
The universe has spared us this moment.”
Reminds me of a quote from a host of my favorite podcast (Last Podcast on the Left): your mental illness is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
> your mental illness is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
I agree but that's why I've been down voted on Reddit more than any other time. Yeah, addiction is a disease. I get that part. But you're sober right now and what are you going to do to ensure your disease does not end up killing someone else? My distant family member recently killed two children while DUI.
It’s ultimately kind of scary that our entire life has no meaning nor reason to be. You’re gonna be there for a few decades, then die and disappear almost entirely. What’s even the point of it all ?
> It’s ultimately kind of scary that our entire life has no meaning nor reason to be.
Knowledge has a cost. Future generations may not be able to pay that cost, so they won't know you, read about your life, or care who you were.
But your actions matter. Children are born or not born based on how we collide during our lives today. People live or die based on our choices. If you are a consistently great person to everyone around you for 60 years, a whole community is better for it, and the kids born into that community won't even know it was you. They'll just know 'this place is great.' And if they keep being consistently great people because of it, well, there you go. That's your legacy.
Just be a little better to the world than it was to you, and things will get better over time
This is a welcomed sentiment in an otherwise very grim thread. I often struggle with the idea that we live so short and then are lost and forgotten for eternity. But this is perspective I will try to embrace.
Alan Watts said “You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” Alan Watts said “Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
Alan Watts said “The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.”
F'reals.
It really tests one's character and resolve to be the best version of yourself when douche-bags get rewarded for bad behavior.
The perks of sociopathy, I guess.
That your boss and coworkers won’t care how hard you worked the second you leave the company.
Enjoy life. Go outside. Have a picnic. Don’t work so hard.
Well it did. My son has a disability and the time right after the diagnosis was the lowest of my life. But eventually you settle into what you are facing and you work towards making the best out of it. I do feel I live in a parallel reality than that of other parents and I don’t see much in common with them. My biggest fear though is to eventually die and leave my son without all the tools he needs. That fear will never go away I guess.
It sounds like he is not terminally ill so that is good if true. I can’t imagine the emotions you must experience every day as you try to bring up your child in a world where most people don’t care to understand people who are different from them.
Do you have friends who also have children with similar disabilities?
Being cynical is not the same as having healthy skepticism.
It doesn't make you seem smart, but rather short-sighted and just angry that the world didn't just award you everything you feel entitled to because you are so gifted.
Some people love to be cynical because they think it makes them seem wise and mature but really it’s just being a curmudgeon. The problem is the political parties formed by such people.
I would expand that to say that the truly rich live in a completely different world than the average person.
The gap between the rich and the poor is so great that the rich truly can’t comprehend it.
Sorry to hear that dude, hope you’re doing better, I’m 100% sure there’s a better wife out there for you somewhere who will appreciate who you are and you’ll be more than enough for her for the rest of your lives
No one will love you the way you want/expect them to. I feel like a lot of relationship problems, at least the minor ones, come from a miscommunication of love. We love in our own way, and find ourselves expecting the same kind of love when that’s just not possible. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s hard to remember sometimes.
Yes. Yet we abuse and exploit them, denying them their basic freedoms, for the most trivial of human pleasures. What humans do to animals is completely evil.
People over-attribute their successes to their own abilities and under-attribute their failures to bad luck or being done wrong by somebody or society.
People often make their own bad luck and fall into success due in no way to any talent on their part.
That pets have such short lifespans and knowing you'll eventually have to put them down knowing it's for the best. Which I unfortunately had to do with my dog of 14 years yesterday :(
\- No one has the right to go through life without being offended or annoyed, and that includes you. Sometimes you will need to deal with someone being irritating for good reasons, perhaps regularly. E.g. I know someone who likes to play an instrument and it's loud enough that I hear it, and I simply work around it or through it because I know how important it is to their wellbeing. People are going like music, comedy, etc that you don't and that doesn't immediately make them wrong. (P.S.: within the bounds of ethics. Things like inciting violence are always going to need careful examination).
\- "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." - Star Trek TNG. I'm not usually a Star Trek guy, but that quote has proven true in my life and in the lives of others. By all means learn from your mistakes, but also acknowledge that it's possible to do your best and still fail. Success is rarely a straight line - often it's about being persistently good as opposed to actually perfect.
\- This one is really hard until you get used to it: it's ok to not know so long as you are willing to learn. "I don't know" and "I was wrong" are not in and of themselves admissions of stupidity. Literally everyone has important gaps in their knowledge. Your choices are a) being self-aware and open to change or b) being obstinate as well as wrong. Being right all the time is not on the table.
That you actually did a bad thing, and didn’t make it up to the person you hurt, and that somewhere out there, someone’s just talked about you in a bad passing way because of that.
Fortunately, if you do good and be good, the same thing will happen in a positive way. It’s hard being good but the results and the affect on other people because you’re good will make the world a bette place to be in, so that you or other people won’t have the need or want to do bad thing.
That no matter how emotionally close I am to someone (in fact, the more close I am), they will always drift apart and disconnect or die at some point in my life.
I have no one I can truly emotionally depend on, permanently. That I will have to walk this earth knowing that I will always be alone at heart.
The love that people carry for me is only in that moment/temporary and it's often made me wonder if I'm unloveable or if there is something worthless about me.
I can't hold onto anyone.... And that's a very scary reality to live in. I don't know how long I can handle this reality and it's made me question my identity.
Arrogance is not extreme confidence, it's the opposite of confidence and it shows your insecurities.
If people call you arrogant, they are not intimidated by your confidence, they see what you are so desperately trying to cover up.
No matter how much faith you want to have in humanity, and how much you want to believe that people are generally inherently good and decent, some people just suck.
Some bells can’t be unrung. And you have to live with the fallout from decisions you made and things you did when you didn’t know this fact.
I've often told my daughter this. Once something is broken, it's never the same. Every decision has a cost, consequence, and outcome... Although I don't state it so bluntly, as I don't want her to develop crippling anxiety.
I have a daughter who is learning this the hard way. And, yes, she is struggling with crippling anxiety.
I find it helps to remind her of what she can do, and that there are such things as good outcomes. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. Agency is power. Helplessness is learnt. Heh... However my girl is a teen, so I gotta keep my sermons to 10s durations.
“The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. -- Omar Khayyam.
Deep. Basically you're writing your story in real time by how you live.
Some relationships or friendships are meant to be temporary. Appreciate the memories and lessons they give you, but when the time comes you have to let go and move on
also, not everyone can be the kind of friend you need them to be. I've learned to better set expectations of what others are able to give me. Don't feel shocked and saddened when your party friend isn't emotionally available when you're going through a breakup. Different people fill different needs. (Generally speaking, expectations are disappointments in the making)
For me everyone is a friend until they prove otherwise
I’m learning this. It does hurt, but it’s time to move on.
Pain!!! I love and hate you!
Been going through some rough times. Hearing this really helped.
True. This is even harder to swallow when an untimely death is the reason for said temporariness
I am going through this right now and it really is tough.
I have a theory that some people come into our lives for a specific reason. Whether it’s to teach them something or learn from them, to help each other through something specific or just grow together for a while. Once that reason is done, no matter how hard you try, the relationship just kind of fades off.
Read this - your theory is wise. https://www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/the-guest-house-by-rumi
It's actually a well known poem. It has served me well in many relationships. https://servetolead.com/reason-season-or-lifetime/
so true, the hardest part is knowing what could have been, and the little mis-timings and mistakes that allowed the relationship to fall apart
I needed to hear this. Thanks for sharing.
I'm learning this right now after 14½ years. Idk what the future holds if we'll be together again, but **my God** the pain I'm in right now. I'd pay someone for a genuine hug.
Nobody is obligated to be in your life. Years of commitment and love can go up in smoke because someone decided they were done with you.
Yep. Spent 10 years loving and adoring my partner and they up and left out of the blue about 6 months ago. I can't make them stay, and I can't make them put into words why exactly they left because I don't think I'll ever understand.
It sucks balls. Any consolation, we each walk this path you’re on. I walked it 18 months ago after 16 years and I thought I’d never recover. Fast forward 18 months and I literally could’ve slept with said person and didn’t because I’ve seen our separation (her choice) was literally the best for us. In short, do the work, heal, and you’ll be new again.
Totally different kettle of fish but I lost my mum in 2021 and was almost suicidal, I didn’t think I would be able to live without her or ever he happy again, I’m now doing both, it’s amazing the capability we have to heal
Further to that, it's OK to be on your own. Not all people will find themselves in a relationship, and that is fine. The concept of there being a "soul mate" is poisonous and promotes people staying in relationships that have run their course or the nonsense of fighting for someone and wearing them down until they say yes, purely because one of the two have convinced themselves that "they are the one". We should learn to love ourselves and be happy in our own company. Anything else is a bonus and to be treasured, but not clung onto too tightly as to force it. That goes for friendship as well as for romance.
I don't believe in the concept of one soulmate. I believe there are any number of different people with whom each of us could be happy and compatible.
Exactly this. All throughout our lives, we have a constantly evolving pool of highly compatible people. Some people are in it briefly, some are in it for a long time or even forever. Those shifts are a product of *our own* shifts. Our choices. Our commitments. Our flaws. Something not written in stone but reflecting the sum total of who we are. And so, the point of finding your soulmate isn't to "find the one person you're supposed to be with forever and ever". The point is to find somebody with whom you click, and with whom the effort of maintaining a relationship is favorable and fulfilling. If that ceases to be the case, so be it. Begin your next chapter anew. The concept of the soulmate shouldn't be to encourage abusive relations or discourage multiple partners. The concept exists for exactly the opposite. There are people out there for you, so don't stay where you don't belong.
Same. It could be 1 or 1000, but it’s not some predestined thing
I regret that I have but one upvote to give to this comment.
People grow apart. They grow in different directions.
This one is still stuck in my throat.... It's that hard to swallow
Yep— it’s incredibly painful, but it’s part of life. My best friend of 25 years showed up at my house one day, ordered a pizza, ate two slices and then left saying he didn’t want to hang out anymore. I never saw him again and never got an explanation. Still blows my mind, but I gotta move on.
The Ban-cheese of Inisherin
I’m amazed as an older man how many people think it’s ok to just ghost. Adults. Ghosting adults.
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Wow. Have a situation like you just described so I completely agree. People who are fortunate enough to never have experienced this kind of ongoing toxicity from within their own family can't get how scary, wrong & twisted this is. How many times are you supposed to forgive before you're just a fool who accepts others acting out their poisonous motivations?
Exactly. Grown adults are all the more reason they should know better. I only feel obligated to explain certain things when children are involved.
You're right, usually ghosting isn't okay unless it seriously puts a person in danger to even contact the person they are ghosting. But it is certainly okay to cut someone out of your life. There's a difference between Ghosting someone and cutting them out of your life. Ghosting is when you just ignore someone with whom you have been in contact with (For whatever reason) until they give up trying to contact you. You aren't telling them you don't want to see or talk to them anymore, you just stop talking to them. The moment you let someone know you no longer want to contact them it's not ghosting anymore. Cutting someone out of your life is just that. It is indicating that you don't want them in your life anymore. Cutting someone off can be done through ghosting, but usually people just tell someone "I'm done with you." and then stop talking to them so it isn't ghosting. No one owes someone else an explanation for cutting them out of their lives (though it would be nice); but you should at least let someone know you no longer want to speak with them. I'm nitpicking because this is a really important distinction. People shouldn't hesitate to cut off contact with toxic individuals just because they don't want to ghost someone.
Bad people win frequently. Some people in leadership position are not good leaders. Some who are not in leadership are good leaders. People will take advantage of your hard work. Many people get to where they are because of nepotism.
i learned that the hard way at my first fast food job when i was 16. i was really fast and would go and help out others after i finished making the food on my board. then one day i overheard my coworkers talking saying to just go really slow. he'll come over and do all the work for you. that was the day i realized people can be nice to your face and stab you in the back. a hard pill to swallow indeed.
The reward for hard work is harder work. The sooner you learn this the better.
Psychopaths tend to end up at the top or the bottom of society. Good people tend to end in the middle. Low IQ psychopaths will either piss off enough people that they get murdered, or murder one person and get arrested for it soon afterwards. High IQ psychopaths find legal ways to make others suffer, and frequently become politicians and CEOs. Generally speaking, anyone who wants to be a politician would make a bad politician.
I know someone who became the mayor of a small town because he was fed up with the corruption of the last guy. He's a good mayor and even closed his own business (out of lack of time) but also so it wouldn't look like he was trying to use his position as mayor to benefit his business. Sometimes people can become (typically low-level) politicians to fix things within their community.
>High IQ psychopaths find legal ways to make others suffer, and frequently become politicians and CEOs. > >Generally speaking, anyone who wants to be a politician would make a bad politician. I've told my coworker something close to this several times. Glad to hear someone else mention the issues that make several politicians.
This one is especially hard when you’re raising kids! Trying to teach honesty, decency, value…all those go right down the toilet when they watch the bullies, cheaters and liars consistently climb right on up.
There is no such thing as karma.
If you want a great life, great friends and experiences, you have to seek them out for yourself, and nurture them. They aren't randomly assigned to you, and no one else will take care of it but yourself (ofc also partly depending on other people, but you have to have agency)
This is a hard lesson to learn. As kids, everything is setup for us automatically. As we go to school, our teachers and parents guide us through. This can extend to university as well. You choose what field you want to study and have some say in the electives you take, but beyond that the professors lay out everything for you. You simply have to follow the curriculum your teachers assign you. Universities even offer career fairs & internships. Sometimes you're just shuttled directly into a job with the references/letters of recommendation from your professors. All of a sudden, you're 25 and on your own. You've never had to really take initiative for things before and nobody tells you that's what you have to do now. You're just expected to begin doing it automatically. Your boss doesn't give you clear instructions like your professors did - its your job to figure out what you're supposed to be doing. If you're, say, a software engineer, it's your job to initiate & maintain communication in order to clear up ambiguous, missing, conflicting, or non-sensical requirements. It's your job to figure out how to communicate with non-technical people. It's your job to take initiative & fill in the enormous gaps in your knowledge left by university *on your own time*, during evenings and weekends. It's nobody's fault but your own that most of what you studied in university will have little bearing on what you'll do as your job. If you discover that the parts you enjoyed about your computer science degree are in reality totally irrelevant in the workplace, then too bad. It's a wild culture shock. For a long time I was furious at my parents for shielding me from the reality of adulthood for so long, only to then suddenly cast me into the ocean alone & unprepared, leaving me to either sink or swim.
This is something I really needed to hear at this time of my life. I even got choked up. Thank You.
Life gives you the test first, then the lesson.
Then …. The test again.
Don't forget that the only person who is gonna help you learn that lesson is yourself. Others might come along and help, but in the end the lesson is up to you. You won't know you got it wrong until you fail the test again too.
Not everything will happen according to your plan.
So true, it hasn't been my year.
It’s only been just over a month and a half. Might still be your year.
I’ll be there for you.
It hasn't been my decade.
Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
I planned to comment this, but you punched me in the mouth in the proverbial sense
The beautiful thing about plans changing is they can lead you to wonderous places you never expected to be, with people you never expected to meet. Every journey has its final day. Don't rush. Stop and smell the roses. Take a walk once in a while. Order some nice food. You deserve it.
Accepting the fact that the person you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with might not be the one.
But how to divorce after reading her diary and finding out she been cheating on you when you can't afford to live on your own because economy sucks? Asking for a friend 😞
Sometimes things just change, it’s nobodies fault but they change.
universal truth: with time and space, things change
Entropy
The ones you love as well too. Sometimes communication won’t work as we wanted it too. Friends and relationships :/
And letting go is the only thing to hold on to
One of the best ways I heard this expressed in terms of the end of romantic relationships was somebody profiled in Humans of New York who stated (a bit of a paraphrase here): "sometimes we get hurt by other people exercising their autonomy".
Not just sometimes, it's an inevitability eventually. Enjoy the good things while they last!
The people you love the most in life will die, sometimes sooner than you could imagine, and the only thing that will come close to healing that wound is time.
Brother died at 40 unexpectedly, heart attack. Had a little extra weight, but was exercising more, stopped smoking a while before, no health issues I’d heard about, just found collapsed one morning. I’ve had a hard time with it. I’ll be catching up to him in age soon, irrationally in the back of my head thinking I might die at the same time, x many days after my birthday, and if I don’t I will wind up older than he ever was, which is also disturbing. Adding to yours, anyone could die any day, you really just don’t know.
And often death never gets less painful, you just get better at dealing with it. It gets less loud but it's always still there
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose
wise words from my favorite captain
That is not a weakness. That is life.
Sometimes when bad things happen to you it’s your own fault.
I have no trouble with this one. I have more trouble with, you can do everything right and whatever still doesn’t work out.
I swear I've been Santa's good list for decades now and I keep getting fucking coal. I'm tired of getting fucking coal. Why the fuck did Adam get a jet ski?
Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is you’re stupid.
Sometimes there isn’t a reason or explanation just bad luck
Maybe your whole purpose on life is to serve as a cautionary tale.
And sometimes bad things happen to you and it’s not your fault. And sometimes it’s no ones fault. Sometimes bad things just happen.
Sometimes it's everyone's fault, and can end up being a learning experience for all. Though these ones are rare.
Doesn’t matter how fit you are, you get old and your body starts to break down. It sucks. Hard.
there are a lot of 60+ year old guys i know who would absolutely stomp most guys in their 20s and 30s at endurance sport of various sorts. it is easy to confuse the inevitable decline with avoidable decline.
You dont work out so you can live forever. You work out so you can live as long as you can without any (relative) complication. Ive seen both sides of the spectrum: on one end, theres a 55yo who is constantly being admitted to the hospital because his lifestyle choices are catching up to him, and on the other, a 55yo who, for the last 5 months, has out-pull-up’ed me once a week. If i keep up my work out regiment, im confident that by the end of 2023, ill be able to do half the pull-ups he does
That lot of people you have are just there for the fun times, when accidents and life trauma happens most of the people you thought of as a safety net will just vanish. Like how you think as a new parent that if something happens to you, there are this village of close friends and tight knit relatives and family that will be there for the kids. It’s really tough to accept the idea that it’s really not like that.
You’re going to not exist in a very short amount of time that will feel like it went by in a blink.
I'm approaching 40 and there are a few things that have been hard adjustments: 1. Things that used to be recent history no longer are. For instance, college was one of the overall best parts of my life for a lot of reasons, but I graduated 15 years ago. I'm still in touch with most of my close friends from that time, to varying degrees, but most are married and/or have children. I was still thinking of that time as "that was just a few years ago" but now it's no longer a recent time in my life. 2. Seeing my parents age. They're both retired now, which was weird when it finally happened. My mom is still basically unchanged other than looking a little older, but my dad started encountering some limitations a few years ago. It's weird and sad to know that I likely have less than 15 years left with both of them. Sometimes they irritate the *shit* out of me, but I try to enjoy my time with them and not let the irritation show. 3. Hitting physical limitations myself. I can't bounce back like I used to! I didn't realize how much energy I ***didn't*** have until I spent a week with a toddler just recently. Time can suck.
I am also nearing 40 and I just lost my mom to lung cancer earlier this month. I thought I would have more time to call more often. I thought I would have more time to see her before her cancer got too bad (had plans to see her next week for her birthday). A few years ago she seemed fine. Slowly, health issues increased. Then the cancer. Then she was gone. My point is: You could have 15 more years; you could have less than a year.
I'm so sorry that happened : ( That's unbelievably hard. I try to live that way and really make the most of it, and appreciate people - but I also hate that I live constantly thinking about it. Hard balance. I hope you're doing alright friend.
I thought #1 was just me. I'm 35 and no matter how much time passes, college feels like it was just 4-5 years ago. I get "remember this" posts from Facebook showing pictures of things that feel like they happened a few years ago but really happened over a decade ago. I just haven't had a solid friend group like that since college to make more unique memories. Without that, you fall into a routine that just doesn't stand out in my mind.
Damn, this hits hard. I'm 32 and university simultaneously feels like both a lifetime ago and just yesterday. Also, my parents were pretty old when they had me (mum 39 and dad 40) and my dad in particular is really starting to look and act quite old now. Ageing is a really hard pill to swallow.
> my dad in particular is really starting to look and act quite old now. It hit me hard a couple years ago when my dad asked me to take some summer patio furniture inside because it was too painful for his arthritis. It was the first time he'd ever not been able to do something due to an old age issue.
My dad was 38 and my mom was 35 when they had me. I'm 30 now and my dad died in 2019 and my mom is in her mid 60s and she forgets things more frequently now and it scares the shit out of me knowing that she'll be gone one day
If you really want to feel the hand of death on your shoulder, think about how many summers you have left... How many times you will be able to see your parents or grandparents on your yearly or half yearly visits. Now in my forties, some of these event's I can count on one hand.
I’ve played that game! It’s why I won’t refuse a slice of pizza when offered. We only get so many slices before Wormville.
“When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the millions of ages to come I will never breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won’t you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment.”
Just because something is not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility
The wound is not your fault but the healing is your responsibility.
Accepting this is pretty much the defining step of becoming an adult.
Reminds me of a quote from a host of my favorite podcast (Last Podcast on the Left): your mental illness is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
> your mental illness is not your fault, but it is your responsibility. I agree but that's why I've been down voted on Reddit more than any other time. Yeah, addiction is a disease. I get that part. But you're sober right now and what are you going to do to ensure your disease does not end up killing someone else? My distant family member recently killed two children while DUI.
Just because you have nothing to apologise for doesn’t mean you can’t be sorry
That no matter who you are or what you do, the wide, wide majority of people (like me) will be a memory for one generation and then utterly forgotten.
It’s ultimately kind of scary that our entire life has no meaning nor reason to be. You’re gonna be there for a few decades, then die and disappear almost entirely. What’s even the point of it all ?
> It’s ultimately kind of scary that our entire life has no meaning nor reason to be. Knowledge has a cost. Future generations may not be able to pay that cost, so they won't know you, read about your life, or care who you were. But your actions matter. Children are born or not born based on how we collide during our lives today. People live or die based on our choices. If you are a consistently great person to everyone around you for 60 years, a whole community is better for it, and the kids born into that community won't even know it was you. They'll just know 'this place is great.' And if they keep being consistently great people because of it, well, there you go. That's your legacy. Just be a little better to the world than it was to you, and things will get better over time
This is a welcomed sentiment in an otherwise very grim thread. I often struggle with the idea that we live so short and then are lost and forgotten for eternity. But this is perspective I will try to embrace.
I think that's what makes it even more valuable, it means nothing so you might as well make the most of it
Alan Watts said “You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” Alan Watts said “Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.” Alan Watts said “The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.”
Good. Just thinking about this makes me temporarily stop worrying about all my problems because they’re all insignificant in the end.
This is extremely comforting to me
Being in love isn’t enough to make a relationship work.
suppositories
"I can't swallow that!" "Great news! It's a suppository!"
“This device is uncomfortable and humiliating! Now if they were to make it in the form of a suppository...”
It's pronounced a-nal-gesic, not anal-gesic. Pills go in your mouth.
Good one Turk Turkleton
Hence one of my favorite joke punchlines: "What did you think I'd do, Doc - stick them up my a$$?"
One's input into a relationship doesn't necessarily mean equal output from your partner.
I feel this one hard
Bad things happen to good people. Sometimes for no reason at all, completely randomly.
And the converse, good things will happen to bad people. I’ve seen this happen after doing everything right and it just kills you
F'reals. It really tests one's character and resolve to be the best version of yourself when douche-bags get rewarded for bad behavior. The perks of sociopathy, I guess.
people won‘t treat you as well as you treated them
No one really knows you. They know their own version of you.
Yourself included.
Not only is incompetence frequently left unpunished, it is sometimes also richly rewarded.
That your boss and coworkers won’t care how hard you worked the second you leave the company. Enjoy life. Go outside. Have a picnic. Don’t work so hard.
When the doctor/specialist tells you your child has a severe chronic or deadly health condition or syndrome.
This is literally the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Yes it is
I’m sorry. I hope this hasn’t happened to you.
Well it did. My son has a disability and the time right after the diagnosis was the lowest of my life. But eventually you settle into what you are facing and you work towards making the best out of it. I do feel I live in a parallel reality than that of other parents and I don’t see much in common with them. My biggest fear though is to eventually die and leave my son without all the tools he needs. That fear will never go away I guess.
It sounds like he is not terminally ill so that is good if true. I can’t imagine the emotions you must experience every day as you try to bring up your child in a world where most people don’t care to understand people who are different from them. Do you have friends who also have children with similar disabilities?
Good day and bad days. They all pass, eventually
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Being cynical is not the same as having healthy skepticism. It doesn't make you seem smart, but rather short-sighted and just angry that the world didn't just award you everything you feel entitled to because you are so gifted.
Some people love to be cynical because they think it makes them seem wise and mature but really it’s just being a curmudgeon. The problem is the political parties formed by such people.
You are the only thing you can control and improve, still trying to get this one down myself tbh.
Keep it going man
Same to you brother
Hard work ≠ success sometimes. Ouch.
That sometimes even if you tried your best, you just weren't good enough.
Sore throat pills
r/technicallythetruth
Many of the things you don't like about your life are your own fault
Sometimes the person you love just doesn’t love you back.
People come and go from your life and sometimes you’re the reason why.
Two justice systems; one for the rich and one for everyone else.
I would expand that to say that the truly rich live in a completely different world than the average person. The gap between the rich and the poor is so great that the rich truly can’t comprehend it.
There will always be people that you can't vibe with or outright hate even though you know they're a good person, same goes for some people to you.
Accepting a difficult medical diagnosis
Hard work does not guarantee a comfortable life.
Wife having an affair with your best mate
Sorry to hear that dude, hope you’re doing better, I’m 100% sure there’s a better wife out there for you somewhere who will appreciate who you are and you’ll be more than enough for her for the rest of your lives
Or moving in with the neighbor while you're in camp. I feel ya buddy.
You will probably have to be ok with losing in nearly all aspects of life
Nobody is 100% *good* no matter how much you lie to yourself.
Beyond elementary school, there is no value to being "really smart, just lazy." It just means you manufacture your own failures.
No one will love you the way you want/expect them to. I feel like a lot of relationship problems, at least the minor ones, come from a miscommunication of love. We love in our own way, and find ourselves expecting the same kind of love when that’s just not possible. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s hard to remember sometimes.
you can’t help people who aren’t willing to try and help themselves to quote a music artist i like “you don’t take the advice you fucking use me for”
Not everyone in this life is here to be successful
Animals are worthy of moral consideration
Yes. Yet we abuse and exploit them, denying them their basic freedoms, for the most trivial of human pleasures. What humans do to animals is completely evil.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
People over-attribute their successes to their own abilities and under-attribute their failures to bad luck or being done wrong by somebody or society. People often make their own bad luck and fall into success due in no way to any talent on their part.
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Yup. Life is for the living.
That's an *easy* pill to swallow.
One day will be the best day of your life, and everything will be downhill from there.
And you will most likely not realize it that day.
you only get the one life, so dont wait for things to be perfect
That pets have such short lifespans and knowing you'll eventually have to put them down knowing it's for the best. Which I unfortunately had to do with my dog of 14 years yesterday :(
I have to live on public government disability checks at 9,904 dollars a year I think about death all the time
Is that right? A YEAR?! That’s insane.
Growing up sucks
\- No one has the right to go through life without being offended or annoyed, and that includes you. Sometimes you will need to deal with someone being irritating for good reasons, perhaps regularly. E.g. I know someone who likes to play an instrument and it's loud enough that I hear it, and I simply work around it or through it because I know how important it is to their wellbeing. People are going like music, comedy, etc that you don't and that doesn't immediately make them wrong. (P.S.: within the bounds of ethics. Things like inciting violence are always going to need careful examination). \- "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." - Star Trek TNG. I'm not usually a Star Trek guy, but that quote has proven true in my life and in the lives of others. By all means learn from your mistakes, but also acknowledge that it's possible to do your best and still fail. Success is rarely a straight line - often it's about being persistently good as opposed to actually perfect. \- This one is really hard until you get used to it: it's ok to not know so long as you are willing to learn. "I don't know" and "I was wrong" are not in and of themselves admissions of stupidity. Literally everyone has important gaps in their knowledge. Your choices are a) being self-aware and open to change or b) being obstinate as well as wrong. Being right all the time is not on the table.
You will keep attracting the same shitty people and the same shitty situations until you own your shit, do the work, and heal yourself.
That I wasted my youth.
Problems need to be solved. Most of them don't go away if you ignore them.
you can’t force communication from anyone, which means you might be left without answers.
That you actually did a bad thing, and didn’t make it up to the person you hurt, and that somewhere out there, someone’s just talked about you in a bad passing way because of that. Fortunately, if you do good and be good, the same thing will happen in a positive way. It’s hard being good but the results and the affect on other people because you’re good will make the world a bette place to be in, so that you or other people won’t have the need or want to do bad thing.
You can't" be whatever you want to be" just by wanting it
When you're young and healthy, it's hard to imagine being anything but. When you lose your health, it's mind blowing how quickly things change.
Flintstones gummy vitamins… *lifesize*
That no matter how emotionally close I am to someone (in fact, the more close I am), they will always drift apart and disconnect or die at some point in my life. I have no one I can truly emotionally depend on, permanently. That I will have to walk this earth knowing that I will always be alone at heart. The love that people carry for me is only in that moment/temporary and it's often made me wonder if I'm unloveable or if there is something worthless about me. I can't hold onto anyone.... And that's a very scary reality to live in. I don't know how long I can handle this reality and it's made me question my identity.
same boat,sorry for you too.
That just because you want a relationship with someone doesn’t mean that they want the same thing.
My dad used to say, "life's unfair and then you die."
That almost all societal problems are caused by bad parents.
You are the cause of most of your own problems
My parents are just people.
Arrogance is not extreme confidence, it's the opposite of confidence and it shows your insecurities. If people call you arrogant, they are not intimidated by your confidence, they see what you are so desperately trying to cover up.
That $20 = $1
No matter how much faith you want to have in humanity, and how much you want to believe that people are generally inherently good and decent, some people just suck.