When I figured out that a lot of people are going to spend their better years, wasting away, working jobs they hate every 40 hours of the week and 8 hours a day or longer. That is unless they either have been born with that silver spoon in their mouth or had at least been born with the tools of ambition to develop careers out of it that isn’t just slaving away, making people who’re not them, richer.
And by the time we’re done, if ever we see retirement, we’re then told to ‘enjoy retirement’. Some at 65, some far older. When we’re too frail to even enjoy anything we once could when we were younger. It’s a very cruel joke of life, if you ask me. Born to play throughout your toddler to kid to teenage days, enslaved to work through your young adolescent and adulthood days, grow old and weak as you’re older until death.
And we’re not even fully enjoying it on our way through this path either because of this design.
If anybody calls you a ‘deadbeat’ for deciding to play games all day or even sitting on your couch binge watching things. You educate them about how “productive” it is working as a wage slave and how deep in the hole it has gotten us in society.
One thing I learned over the years is that toxic people don’t change. The signs are always there from the very beginning, and ignoring them is always a choice.
It took me 3 years of dating a toxic woman to realize this. At the beginning I was so happy at the thought of having a relationship that I intentionally ignored red flags that were always there. I ignored her passive aggressiveness, her emotional unavailability, her manipulative tendencies, her narcissism, all of it. I was miserable, but I tried to naively convince myself that I could try to change her or that she would see things my way eventually, but that’s a stupid mentality to have.
People can only ever change themselves. Change requires dissatisfaction with oneself, and that comes from personal growth. Toxic people like this, they’re always satisfied with themselves, which is why they’re unaware of their toxicity. These people can’t ever change. This is why it is vitally important to not ignore the signs in the beginning, it’s never worth it. You’ll be in a bad relationship from day one, and it’ll only get worse with time. If you’re smelling something sketch about the person you’re dating, then trust your gut and dip. Your hunches will be right more often than not.
Sometimes doing the right thing falls a foul of the law.
This might be the broadest question ever asked.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned who I am, and become comfortable with that. And, I’ve also learned who I’m not. This has reduced stress for me.
The real answer buried in the comments.
You will not be “too frail” to enjoy life at 65, or even older. Don’t let that thought poison your present. I took up a competitive sport in my 60s, as well as beekeeping, and I’m not an outlier.
I read this to mean beekeeping was one of the competitive sports you took up and now I want there to be competitive beekeeping
Oh that made me laugh, because actually beekeepers are a competitive lot. There’s an annual honey show, prizes galore. Not just for the honey, but for wax creations, baking and more. I got a first for photography - a trophy and a book token.
There’s also a more subtle competition over the amount of honey produced, success in splitting colonies, managing to get colonies through winter, fewest stings. It’s great.
On the other hand, I know several people of whom one of their parents died before reading 65, or even 60. So better enjoy your life while you have it. You don’t know how much time you have.
Mate, I know people who died as babies, as teenagers, a friend was murdered in her thirties, life can be over in the snap of the fingers at any age. My own father died in his fifties; that has had a huge effect on how I live my life. I take risks, I stretch myself.
As I’ve grown up, the most depressing realization I had is that adults are a myth. No one knows what the hell they’re doing. People can be good at doing their thing in a specialty but world leaders are mostly putting on a brave face.
There’s no real plan. No one’s on the same page. No one’s steering the ship. It’s just a whole lot of hemming and hawing, and a few idiots doing the bull in a china shop routine.
The walls seperating governments, corporations and organized crime are somewhere between transparently thin to non-existant.
tacking onto that: a lot of the things we grew up to accept as “given truth” are complete lies
We spend our formative years constructing a model of the world that makes sense, and the rest of our lives coming to terms with how wrong we were.
You struggle to make new connections as you get older, and as old connections fall, you become more isolated and realize just how few people give a shit that you exist at all.
While true, you also learn that you’re free not to give a shit about them, too, and “wear purple”.
Everything, even high end shit, is built to be the cheapest possible, generally with no regard to repair.
I’m a happy enough guy, and I’ve been lucky with family in my life, so this comment, while it may sound negative , hopefully won’t bring you down - it’s just a general observation from 48 years on the planet.
Basically, I’ve noticed that most ‘professional’ folk - ie Doctors, lawyers etc these days are surprisingly mediocre people.
I always assumed, as a kid, that these people in lofty positions would be intelligent, eloquent, wise and charismatic. .
Perhaps it’s because I was raised on TV and have unrealistic expectations, but the lawyers and doctors I’ve dealt with myself through work and in my personal are entirely unremarkable. I could forgive that if they were steadfast and competent, but instead I’ve found them to be mostly dull and poor at their jobs.
My superiors at work seems to be barely able to string a sentence together without ChatGPT, and our kids teachers are little better.
Anyway, rant over. Just generally fed up with how many, franky, inept people are in jobs that I once assumed were for exceptional individuals.
I’ve been of the position, although I’ve only worked in a kitchen is that some people just don’t need jobs. We should give them the minimum to enjoy life of course but there’s just too many people who are bored or too stressed out at work and make everyone else’s jobs harder.
You seem overly smug. The typical “everyone else is an idiot but not me!” That’s not new. AI has nothing to do with it.
There are countless genius people out there everywhere doing excellent things with their own skill and knowledge.
Of course there are. I’m far from perfect and fall dramatically short when compared to competent professionals.
However, you’re missing the point. I’m talking about people I actually deal with in my life. People, through virtue of the position they hold, I fully expected to be a cut above the rest of us. These people have jobs that I personally (and I many others) thought would demand a level of expertise and dedication that puts them beyond the reach of most people.
Turns out I was wrong. Jobs are teaming with unremarkable folk who seem to have decided that that’s what they’re going to do and have got there.
Perhaps the real issue is a lack of self-belief on my part, but I don’t think so. I’m aware of my limitations, so therefore I’d never strive to become, say, a doctor.
Having dealt with countless inept professionals I can only conclude that they were not deterredby their own shortcomings the way many of us are.
Having been on one of those positions I can say that I changed careers because of what you describe.
Learning is a lifelong path…
What you were seeking were knowledgeable wise sages. They do exist but are very rare.
I guess you haven’t been around a lot of “professionals.” Doctors are often shockingly inept at computers.
There are countless genius people out there everywhere doing excellent things with their own skill and knowledge.
Nobody denied that. But those are definitely not most people like the post you’re replying to is taking about.
Realized just how badly Christianity dropped the ball in helping people find meaning and connection to “something greater”. Not only did it fail countless believers horribly, it also poisoned the well so that people can’t imagine spirituality in general being anything but grifts, dogma and belief in supernatural beings arbitrarily screwing with people.
Thankfully I had enough open mindedness to actually try to understand what makes people religious, so I read some books on different traditions and Three Pillars of Zen hit on something in me I didn’t know was there. And I got the answer to my question.
Two important lessons are opposite aspects of the same thing:
- You’re not entitled to anyone giving a fuck 😞
- Nobody gives a fuck 😀
In other words: You’re responsible for your own happiness. And whatever makes you happy, most people won’t care, and fewer will think any less of you for it. Enjoy what you like, and don’t worry too much about what others think.
Somewhere in the middle: A dream job doesn’t exist, but a dream life with a job can.
It is what you make of it.
Obviously a dream job is make lots of money but do very little. That’s what makes us hate the rich so much, the core reason.
a dream job is make lots of money but do very little
Nope. It’s “make enough to survive and have a life outside of a job that isn’t terrible to be at”.
And it could be “make lots of indolent money” but that’s either boring or impossible, and studies show the non-sucky rewarding job is better for your well-being if you do have to work.
Face it: you’re gonna have to work. Find a job you don’t hate, that gives you enough to goof off afterward and really enjoy something and still survive. We’re edging out of boomer/x wage-slave era and one thing the millennials have is an eye for a life that isn’t defined by wealth and work, and that has prepared them the most for survival on this planet at each stage of life.
People just don’t really want to be my friend.
They’ll hang out when we’re having a good time or doing things together, but as soon as they no longer being entertained i don’t exist.
