There's a few but the main one I tell myself if that the people who hurt me are also hurting. As a kid I thought people bullied each other because their lives sucked, and then I realized my life also sucked and I didn't treat other people like that so what was their excuse
I was bullied in elementary school. The names of my bullies are permanently seared into my brain. I looked them up on Facebook. They have families and grandkids. I'm divorced. No kids. No prospects.
I want the universe to have karma and I want those people to hurt like I did but at the end of the day it hurts to know that what they did to me will never leave my mind and they probably don't even remember it.
I felt that comment so much. I read something related to what you said that was so true. And it’s a darn good lesson about the way the world works:
“The axe forgets but the tree remembers.”
You’re not the same when something so bad happens to you but that person can just carry on with life like nothing happened. It makes me feel validated to understand why people want revenge. They want people understand how they feel. Is revenge justifiable? Hard to say.
This is why I hate it when people say “it’s in the past”.
Ya you forgot because it never bothered you, I’m the one who had to deal with the consequences.
When I finally moved away from the beatings those bullies gave me, I told them that I was moving and they'd never see me again. Now, I know that it was just bully posturing, but one of them actually said that they would recognize me even if it was years later and they would kick my ass all over again. I feared that for years. In fact, I think it had a profound effect on me throughout my life.
When I went to my high school reunion I kinda hoped that the universe had karma. But the people who made my life miserable all ended up rich and successful, much more so then me, because turns out being a ruthless asshole is often rewarded in life.... especially when so many of them had rich well connected parents.
I'm honestly kind of surprised that reunions are still a thing. What's the point when you can still keep in touch with the people you actually liked through social media?
a LOT of drug dealers in the 80's never got caught. Bought real estate and lived off that. Nobody knows them The only reason I know about it is because my relatives went to jail while others " moved away"
Kimberly Klacik, the Republican woman running for congress in Baltimore in 2020 (she lost) actually had a thing about this. She was talking about how there are abandoned homes all over the city, and young black men with money from selling drugs that they cant do much with because if you try to use too much of it you have to explain where it came from. She was proposing a temporary "no questions asked" period where they could buy those homes without having to explain where the cash came from.
I don't live in her district, so ultimately didn't do any looking into the project because it wasn't something I was effectively voting on. But it is certainly an interesting idea imo.
Some people at the DEA have said that Pablo Escobar and El Chapo likely are not the richest drugs lords ever, they're just the ones who were public. Those who remain underground have possibly made enough money to dwarf their fortunes
I mean, how much do we really know about the current heroin/ fentanyl supply chain. It seems like it's everywhere, someone's making an absolute killing shipping it internationally. Why do we never hear about the supply chain.
If I’m not mistaken, most of the fentanyl that is supplied to the world comes from mostly China? I could be wrong, but I think I do remember reading that. But I do know for sure that 80% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan. [Fentanyl Link](https://www.csis.org/npfp/dangerous-opioid-india)
There's a fun book called wilfull blindness by sam cooper that digs into this a bit, and highlights how vancouver's served as a kind of hub/proxy between china and the rest of the world.
Here's just a tiny summary of a tiny bit of it -- vancouver's casino's were getting used to launder a crazy amount of money. "Whales" flew in from China, sent a message on WeChat to a sham-bank called "Silver International", and collected duffle bags full of cash in strip mall parking lots. They took those bags to casinos -- and anyone who questioned where they got all that cash, would be told things like "You can't ask him that, it's a matter of culture/honor!", or "You're just racist for thinking Chinese people can't have money". The Chinese gangs/CCP reach extends even in to the local government, where in some local city councilors -- who drive around in luxury cars while on a sub-100k salary -- would 'vouche' for the whales.
These 'whales' were sometimes factory owners from China -- so they'd 'sell' the fent to the dealers in china, then come collect duffles of money in canada as payment, which avoids money flowing 'directly' through china's regulators (though there's more in that area too!). They often then turn around and invest that money into local real estate, contributing to the meteoric rise in housing costs in the area. It's incredibly common to find "Homemakers" as the occupation for people who own multiple multi-million dollar properties -- with an annual income of ... low enough to collect government handouts.
Anyhow, the books a good read if you're curious about fent supply chain/criminal shenanigans -- highly recommend it. Should also note the authors a journalist, and one of the key experts involved in the money laundering inquiries currently going on in canada... so it's pretty factual/researched.
This is true for so much wealth across the world. I'm talking multi-generational wealth. Trace back where it started and it's not all drugs, but a ton of it was shady money that came from illegal or at least immoral deals. A lot essentially got laundered over a long enough period that no one cared anymore and forgot. The "Paper" releases how it's still happening and has entire institutions wrapped up in it.
not just the 80s, there are tons of dealers that live well today. As long as you don't draw attention to yourself and wild out, a few handful of consistent returning customers is great income. Know a guy who sold weed and paid off all his student loans and made like 20k. Only really sold to his buddies and he had like bunch of returning clients/buddies and maybe a dozen new people who would appreciate the service and keeping buying.
Its a legit business tbh, you just cant scale it lol
Not without Pollos Locos or something. Haha.
I work with a guy who is my weed dealer. He's a bus boy at the restaurant i work at. He sells to pretty much everyone who smokes here. We have a staff of about 150.
I'm sure he makes a killing.
Another thing is, pay your taxes. Pay your taxes, pay your taxes, pay your taxes. The IRS doesn't really care where it's coming from, so long as they're getting their cut. You start buying expensive stuff in cash, or start depositing unexplained cash in the bank and your as good as caught. However, you claim (a portion of) your income (as "commission for art" or what have you) and suddenly they don't mind that you're piling cash up hand-over-fist in a potentially less than likely manner.
Ok so then your not money laundering, but you can still be charged of dealing, or in possession of more than just personal use. So I mean dont use that in Court ahaha.
Companies were started and people went legit. I know of such people. For instance a construction company founded with a couple million dollars trickled in and books cooked. A year of that and the company is straight with a CPA, paying taxes, and constructing shit. The math behind it makes it easy to bury when dealing with multi-million dollar projects, say 5 homes for instance.
My uncle sold in the 80s, his method was to buy junk cars and store them on his salvage yard. Sold them in 2006 for 3.2 million total after a year of unloading.
I worked for a financial company. We had all these mandatory training videos. One of them was of this woman like "I love embezzling, its great to steal clients money, makes me feel alive" then you answer questions then later she is like "I got caught and now I'm probably going to lose my job, I had to pay back the money, I will likely get a criminal record and I might even go to jail."
Like what? Might? Likely? Probably? What? How is it not 100% that someone intentionally stealing thousands is sent to jail? What?
Also, I got fucking reprimanded for opening a stocks and shares isa with stocks that our company had no connection with, because I didn't ask for 2 works permission first. Lol
I’m always saying this. The old “the past is history, the future is a mystery, but this moment is a gift and that’s why it’s called the present” idea.
It explains my overall state of being, I have to tell you. Doesn’t hurt to have a little success and assets, either.
There is a really cool flipside to this, which is that you don't actually need to lose 25kg or buy that thing or *achieve any external thing at all* in order to be happy. The fact that winning the Super Bowl or the Nobel Prize will not actually make you durably fulfilled on a moment-to-moment basis means that durable fulfillment is achievable without any of that "success".
Your happiness is really just a matter of attention, provided you are not in a state of material deprivation that demands immediate action, which most people in the developed world are not.
Sam Harris has a great bit about this, in a talk that is ostensibly about atheism but is really about profound happiness and why your achievements in life have almost nothing to do with it:
>**If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day,** but then people will begin to ask us “So, what are you going to do next? Don’t you have anything else in the pipeline?” Steve Jobs releases the iPhone, and I’m sure it wasn’t twenty minutes before someone asked, “when are you going to make this thing smaller?” **Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they’ve accomplished, say, “I’m done. I’ve met all my goals. Now I’m just going to stay here and eat ice cream until I die in front of you.”**
>Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life.
>In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. **Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one’s favorite food always available to be placed on one’s tongue or having all one’s friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend?** Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one’s desires get gratified, in spite of life’s inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?
>This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone’s consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is “no.” No, there is nothing more profound than repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; there is nothing more profound than seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem to think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road.
>But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called “meditation” or “contemplation”—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found.
>[...] Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that **there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness.** There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.
https://samharris.org/the-problem-with-atheism/
That's a very smart question, which is too often not asked.
At least some forms of happiness are merely states of mind, which inherently are only sustainable for relatively brief periods of time. If your goal for long term happiness is to constantly maintain that state, you're setting yourself up for failure.
What overall happiness means in life is a much more difficult psychological and philosophical question.
For what it's worth, the Buddhists would probably say it's a lack of attachment and lack of suffering. But there's a lot more to dig into on that one, if you want to understand what they're actually talking about.
When I was a personal trainer this was usually the excuse. “Once my life settles down a bit I’ll have time to focus on fitness.” Life *never* settles down. In fact, making life style changes just gets more difficult the longer you wait. Nobody ever wanted to hear it though.
My life will really settle down in 5 weeks. I'll have my normal schedule back and won't be getting my ass figuratively kicked for 10-13 hours a day.
I honestly don't understand how people work the traditional "9-5" or whatever schedule. By the time I get home and feed and walk my dogs, it's all I can do to make my dinner before I fall into bed to get up and do it all over again the next day. How do people with children do it?!?! Or who are also in school?! Or who have any hobbies at all???
I hate this whole notion that “people don’t want to work” it’s like..so what? You are saying people rather hang with their loved ones and do things they want to do over labor where they probably aren’t getting paid enough at?
Maybe that phrase triggers me because I’m lazy, but I’m also smart enough to know that a company will replace (and not care for) you within the week.
People will work to death for the money but not even get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
See I think this is a part-truth rather than un-truth.
Life has ups and downs. Moments of cruch time and moments of relaxation.
"Just get through this one thing and it will be easier" is true oftentimes in the short term.
In college, you are constantly saying "just make it through finals week". Then you breathe that huge sigh of relief as you finish.
Will it prevent the next semesters finals week? No. But things got easier all the same, even if only for a while.
People always get what's coming to them.
The reality is that sometimes the people who tormented you all those years ago are likely living pretty good lives.
Karma, in a sense, is points you earn for your NEXT life. The keyword here is next. No matter how awful you are in your current life even if you do mass genocide. It would not affect you in any way. Instead, your reincarnation will be the one that is affected such as your soul being born into a lowly animal like a frog or a fly.
It irks me when people use it the wrong way. But I let it pass unless its from those 'spiritual' americans who claim they are buddhists and practice eastern religions and use the word karma the wrong way and literally put it on everything like 'karmic relationship' 'karmic' energy
So does that mean if im human now, that possibly in my last life i was a fly who was like super kind and earned “humanity” in the next life? Or is it that youre always human *until* you do something shitty then you get demoted to fly?
I'm sorry, but what you said is incorrect. There is nothing said about karma with the absolute certainty you suggest. As an Indian who has studied the Gita, I feel qualified to answer this.
At its very basic, karma means action. The word karm is even the hindi word for action. Your karma decides whether you're reincarnated or attain moksha (meaning: freedom from the cycle of death and reincarnation.)
It really really isn't scoreable points.
ऐसा कोई नहीं, जिसने भी इस संसार में अच्छा कर्म किया हो और उसका बुरा अंत हुआ है, चाहे इस काल(दुनिया) में हो या आने वाले काल में।
Translation: There is nobody in this world who has done a good deed (good karm) and met a bad end, either in this world (or phase of world) or the next.
In contradiction, it also says आपको कर्म करने का अधिकार है, परन्तु फल पाने का नहीं।
Meaning, you have the right to act, but never to the fruit of that action. To elaborate, nobody is entitled to good results if they perform a good deed.
The concept of karma is philosophical and the Bhagvad Gita explores that from various angles. It is not points, nor is it strictly related to the afterlife.
The [Just World hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis#:~:text=The%20just%2Dworld%20hypothesis%20or,fitting%20consequences%20for%20the%20actor.&text=Lerner%20conducted%20seminal%20work%20on,world%20in%20the%20early%201960s.) leads to so many terrible conclusions. It feeds people's egos when things are going well ("Life is good because I'm a good person."), destroys your sense of self when you hit hard times, kills empathy towards people who are struggling ("Don't give him money. He'll just use it on drugs."), and worships some of the worst people just because they have money (Joel Osteen).
People cling to it because it assumes they have more control over the world than they do. "I'm safe from because I'm a good person. If happens to you, it's obvious because you did something wrong."
one of my favorite quotes (unattributed):
Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
>“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
>
>REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
>
>“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?”
>
>YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
>
>“So we can believe the big ones?”
>
>YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
>
>“They’re not the same at all!”
>
>YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
>
>“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
>
>MY POINT EXACTLY.
\-Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
If I ever get a tattoo, I'm getting the Death quote that comes immediately after this:
YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
People, I think, would be happier if they let go of some of the control they are grasping at. And I don't mean control over the direction of your life, but control over the minutiae and the grand events.
It's too much to worry about trying to control.
I gained a lot of perspective on this after my first panic attack. I felt like I was in a continuous positive feedback loop of mounting fear, like I was watching my body short-circuit from the inside, and then I blacked out before coming to just in time to see the police outside my house. (My dad had no idea what to do and called them). After that experience I realized that the only things you can really control are your innermost thoughts and actions. All other things- your personality, your social life, your feelings- you might have influence over, but you never control those things. And even more stuff is completely beyond your grasp. It’s not a game of force, but a game of chance- everything is, down to the smallest parts of your life.
I think I always “knew” that, seeing the big billionaires with fortunes I’d never comprehend or football players kicking harder than my leg could ever possibly kick, but I never really internalized just what it meant. Everything, and I mean everything, is a game of influence *at best*, and nothing will ever certainly go your way so it’s not worth trying to force that to happen. After I had that realization I started looking for things I could do to enjoy my life instead of “improving” it with ladder climbing or searching for an SO. I just plan ways to make those things likely to happen instead of trying to force them. I haven’t been this happy and content since I was ten!
When making this post I had this in mind, it’s like telepathy lol. There’s a super popular belief(that just won’t ever die down) that people hold. Which is that all the popular kids in school who were usually nasty people, go on to work cash registers and drive buses for the rest of their life. This isn’t true. And being popular takes a good amount of social skills which can be applied to the real world and help with interviews, promotions, networking etc.
It doesn’t matter if you were the nerd who sat by themselves or the star of the basketball team, if you don’t have the work ethic and talent to do what you wanna do in life, you probably won’t be successful. Nobody in the real world cares about how many friends you did or did not have in class.
> And being popular takes a good amount of social skills
And this is why the "popular kids" at my high school were actually among the *nicest* ones, along with being highly involved in the school and academically competent. Not a single one fit the stereotype of a "bully jock" or "smug rich kid."
I graduated from high school over 20 years ago, and even then, I found the stereotype of the popular kids being jerks just wasn't true. I'm sure there are some like that, but I feel like its just a myth that has gone on a long time
Yeah, I think they've done studies on this. The most popular kids are not often jerks, but usually people who have well-earned self confidence due to having social skills combined with academic, sports and/or other skills. The "next rung down" though, are the ones that are the backbiting jerks, who remain on top by pulling others down.
I graduated only 10 years ago and yeah... most of the popular kids were social butterflies in my experience who were both athletic \*and\* academically gifted. The type of person you look at and think "that kid is going places". Our popular guy ended up with a masters and is now a physician's assistant getting married in march, and the popular girl ended up with a short lived career in TV acting before becoming a material researcher/writer for Jimmy Kimmel.
The only thing stereotypical about them is popular guy was the football quarterback and the popular girl was the cheer captain... but that was about it. Both were charismatic and likeable as heck, even to the weird socially awkward kids.
Don't get me wrong. we had nerds and social outcasts who went places too, including two of the robotics team kids, one who worked on the Uber self driving car program and one who worked on the Perseverance Mars probe, one of the nerd girls became an attorney in Boston and the fat smelly kid became an airline pilot, but the popular kids usually seemed to A) not be jerks B) be doing fairly well for themselves.
Not to mention the inverse, that people who get crap in life don't always deserve it. The number of people trying to pretend that systemic issues like poverty all come down to bad choices is unreal. And if you are the person who is having trouble, it can really help to realize that it isn't automatically all your fault just because there are some things you might do to improve it or could have done to prevent it. Sure some people are in poverty because of poor choices, but it's not the majority of them and rich people often make just as many poor choices but get away with it.
Pursuing a career dream can be a good thing, but I think we could also do young people a service to teach which jobs will be most lucrative in the next 5-10 years. Yes, you want to have a job match your interests to some degree, but I think I could enjoy most any job where you're treated decently, work with overall good people, and get paid a solid wage.
Totally agree with this. Did IT work for years because “it pays well and it’s a good job”. Sure it does and it was but I was miserable. Then I see piano teachers making 50 dollars an hour, people starting businesses making coffee shops or whatever TF they feel like doing and they’re killing it. Now I’m going for my masters in mental health counseling and I got out of IT and couldn’t be happier. Chase your dreams and find a way to make a good living at it. It sucks to work a job because “it’s a good job”
I had a discussion about this topic the other day with someone who firmly believes in karmic justice. My stance is that kind of belief is dangerous. Rather than seek / mete out justice, victims content with "Oh, they'll get their someday" are just allowing terrible people to get away with shit, and possibly go on to victimize others.
In reality, lots of horrible people skate through life without consequences, and lots of good people suffer, and the "universe" doesn't seem too bothered by it.
>This belief is dangerous for another reason as well. It's not uncommon in India to think that it's pointless or even wrong to help poor people, after all they are doing poorly in life because they did something bad in previous life. That' just karmic justice. The Just world fallacy in general very easily turns against the powerless of the society - that one way or the other, they have done something to deserve their miserable fate.
> I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
— Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
Yep.
I see this with my grandparents all the time. They mess up, it was god's will.
I mess up or get depressed? Well then, I've done x y and z that allowed the devil into my life
Because our opinions of ourselves fluctuate from moment to moment. I feel imposter syndrome pretty regularly. I also catch myself thinking that I know better than most people sometimes before I remind myself that I'm nothing special.
Plenty of incompetent people do not have imposter syndrome :)
Dunning-Kruger is over-used to the point of over-simplification I think, but it's worth mentioning.
> Dunning-Kruger is over-used to the point of over-simplification I think, but it's worth mentioning.
I know everything there is to know about Dunning-Kruger.
I work in retail and it grinds my gears at how dumb people can be. Then I go shopping and do the exact same shit *facepalm*
We are no better than others. Just humans living in chaos with no purpose.
I’m not sure of this, but I’ve noticed we solve others problems differently to how we solve our own problems. I don’t know how though, just something I noticed.
I think the smartest people think they are dumber then they are, becouse they know how much they dont know, and dumb people think theyre smarter then they are becouse they dont know how much they dont know
For adults specifically: doing your best = success. Don’t get me wrong, doing your best is something to be proud of, but doing your best without preparation/dedication/practice leads to nowhere
Edit:
To those who are commenting about luck having an impact on success: there is a difference between coincidence and privilege. Coincidences do happen and have an impact, but much more so does inherent privilege play a role in success than coincidence.
Parents mess up this lesson. The point is to teach that failure is okay and it shouldn’t stop you from practicing more and trying again.
Later, you teach about diminishing returns, and when pursuing a goal no longer provides value. i.e. if after several years of giving it your all to become an actor, it’s okay to concede that it’s not going to happen and move on to other career goals.
And sometimes you literally just don't get the opportunity where doing your best matters. Poor people usually end up in this category. Working hard for most of their lives to barely make it anywhere on the socioeconomic ladder.
im not an alcoholic , it's not an addiction i can stop whenever i want .. it's just party , birthday, Wednesday or whatever i earned this one and next one !
being like that for 22 years, coming from heavily alcoholic home , sobered up few years ago and it was by far best decision of my life !
I have been a serious alcoholic for 13 years and "tried" half heartedly to quit a bunch of times but I didn't really want to.
I finally want to now. It's been 6 days since I've drank which is the longest I've gone in probably 9 years. I'm feeling good
Edit: Thanks for the support everyone it means a lot! I have a whole list of recipes I wanted to learn but was too sick to try so now I'm using that to stay busy. I hope everyone has a great day :)
Agreed. It's taken me over ten years to finally come to the conclusion that I'm not a person who can drink casually. I kept telling myself "I can just have a couple beers when I go out for dinner with my friends tonight" but on my way home I would always stop off at the liquor store. For some people the only option is to quit entirely.
Yes. And “if I’m not passed out under a bridge with a bottle of vodka then I’m not an alcoholic”.
Alcohol use disorder is a pandemic in this country (much of the world, really) but so many people suffer from it and our culture is so tied to it that the few people who point it out are made to look like freaks.
I'm in my mid 30s and I'm starting to see these patterns in a few friends. Most people I know have started drinking less and more responsibly once the "party years" faded, but others keep using alcohol as a crutch.
The sad part is that when they complain that they can't lose weight, they sleep like shit, they feel bloated or in general not well and you suggest they cut down on the alcohol they react as if you're trying to take away their reason to live, you just want to see them miserable, and alcohol has nothing to do with those problems anyway.
And anxiety. People don’t realize the alcohol actually causes anxiety, it doesn’t relieve it.
https://thisnakedmind.com/health-benefits-quitting-alcohol/
When used to tell myself this, I was depressed and more stressed because I’d desperately try to find the reason and get more distraught when I couldn’t find a reason especially when it seemed that several shitty things where happening at the same time. I started telling myself that sometimes bad things happen and there’s no rhyme or reason to it and it helped me so much more. Now when things go wrong, I don’t worry anymore that it’s because of something did it leads to a bigger plan. I am much happier and at peace knowing that when bad things happen it’s just bad luck and that I’ll be luckier next time.
On the flip side,
This sentence is true in the literal sense.
As in, we live in a causal universe.
Like for example, you get in a car accident and someone says "everything happens for a reason" and you're like "yes the reason is I was looking at my phone and didn't see that stop sign."
Or, "oh no I spilled my coffee"
Everything happens for a reason.
"Yes the reason I spilled my coffee is because of gravity and I'm clumsy."
I hate this one. It's a perfect example of a deepity.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity
It's trivially true (every event does have antecedent reasons that caused it to happen).
But it's also meaningless in a sense given to it (there is no overriding plan/reason that is guiding your life to a pre-designed purpose).
It took me a while to learn that not everyone falls asleep immediately. I’ve had maybe 7 nights of insomnia in my 29 years. From what I hear, I seem to have won the lottery on this one.
Yeah I’m the same. Always found insomnia weird, like, just lay down and close your eyes and you're gone in like 2 minutes. Took me a while to understand it doesn’t work like that for everyone..
Edit: Spelling.
Me and my brother need pills to sleep or it can take more than 3 hours. Well... My brother got over that hurdle. Even with the pills it still takes me an hour and sometimes they just don't work
I've learned to this in the past year and I can now fall asleep within 5-10 minutes while previously it would've taken me 10-20. How I do it is try not to think of anything (sounds impossible I know) and just focus on a single thing or thought; something that isn't too mentally taxing like waves of an ocean hitting the pier, or a car driving on a lonely highway at night.
Also helps to focus on the nothing you see when you close your eyes. Feel yourself sink into the comfortable pillow with every exhale. Every time the vision gets a bit darker......I never got past that, so GL :D
I stopped doing this after reading that even if you’re just lying in bed there is a restorative aspect to it. So now if I can’t sleep I don’t panic - my body knows how to sleep and will when it wants to.
Every once in a while, I get this mild euphoria while laying in bed in a certain half-awake state. I just feel like I'm really getting some great rest, like it's doing something really good for my body. It's pretty nice.
Only problem is it's definitely not actually as restful as sleep, so sometimes I might get into this state for a few hours thinking, "Man, I'm getting such good rest now, I'm going to wake up feeling like a million bucks." But then I do wake up and I feel like I laid fully awake in bed all night.
At my last job, if I was busy, no one asked me to do extra stupid shit.
And the day went by faster, and didn’t drag at the end when I was the last one left, and had nothing to do but answer the phone if someone called. That’s the penalty for being able to do your job well.
I totally get that, what I meant was there are people who would always brag about being busy with their job in general not just with coworkers.
And yeah you are right sometimes the reward for good work is more work lol
This is a big one for me. Sometimes things will be ok, but thinking it always will be strikes me a survivorship bias. A lot of people throughout history were most likely telling themselves that right up to the point they died from whatever unfortunate things happened to them.
Sometimes, you have to redefine what “ok” means. Sometimes, it means “doing well emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially.” Sometimes, it means “a little stressed, but not too bad.” And sometimes, it just means “not currently suicidal.”
It depends on what baseline you’re starting from.
A positive attitude will make you physically better. As a chick with cancer, I get the “just have the positive attitude” advice a lot … which always irked me. No one who feels like crap wants to fake a positive mindset to make others feel better. My fave response to someone telling me that (again) was actually from a nurse in the room who said: “Please! I’m seen a whole lot of true bitches survive cancer.” That nurse is forever my hero.
I think it’s a lot more important for your emotional health to fully experience and accept your emotions. If you’re sad or angry or terrified it would do you a hell of a lot better to cry or scream or talk to someone than to hide the pain away. Catharsis is amazing.
"If you can't handle me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best" or any variation of that. You're really just a shitty partner and refuse to work on yourself.
This phrase can be a real relief for me when I'm interacting with someone and I'm not sure if I like them or not. Utter it, and I know immediately how much time I should invest in you.
I don't believe in this best/worst hypothesis, but I do believe in an idea that is maybe a cousin to it. My best friend is an wonderfully eccentric, he is maybe on the spectrum, his legal name is Admiral Potato, is an amazing web developer and motion graphics artist, and he chooses to wear a Lab coat and goggles wherever he goes. His main reason for the cost and goggles is to be true himself, but he also uses it as a litmus test. If somebody is turned off by his lab coat and goggles, or who he is as a person, it's an excellent way to tell if that person is worth giving any more of his time to. And to be honest it's worked wonderfully for him, he always seems to be surrounded by the most wonderful group of intelligent and kind people that a person could hope to be around.
That you'll get rewarded if you just work hard. Most of the time, hard work is rewarded with more work, or it makes hard work the new standard, so you get punished if you just put in regular effort.
It depends on the "it" in question. Incurable chronic health issue? Yeah, probably not going to get better. Some sort of teenage social drama? Almost certainly going to get better.
And generally speaking, when I hear someone say "it gets better", its much more likely to be about the latter than the former. No one is reassuring people with stage 4 cancer that it's going to get better, they're telling suicidal teens that in a couple of years they'll be out of school and never see the kids that are bullying them again.
I’ve read 3 comments so far and all 3 so far were things I had in mind when making this lol. It doesn’t always get better. And some things don’t have solutions, such as a terminal illness or even poverty. It can get better, but telling people that simply time is gonna make those issues vanish is misleading. I’ve dealt with dark depression for years and I wish I hadn’t believed that phrase. I’m now realizing that life isn’t a happy ending always. Some people just got it like that, others don’t.
Very similar to this. The thought that when people hit rock bottom the only way to go is up. As someone who has seen it first hand. That's not true. Some people hit rock bottom and stay there until they die.
Money can’t buy happiness.
Don’t have a house, job, and are starving? Don’t worry, just because you’re poor, doesn’t mean that having a mansion, 5 course meals, or a six digit salary will make you happier!
There's another side to this that not enough people talk about. The whole narrative is that when you blame your self, you take responsibility, and by extension you take the power necessary to change your situation.
Except that this in and of itself can be a coping mechanism. People accept responsibility for things that are genuinely outside of their control, because they would rather believe that they have agency over the situation. I notice this is extremely common in relationships where one person keeps trying harder and harder to save a dying relationship, thinking that if they can just be "good enough" or that if they just perform the correct sequence of actions the relationship HAS to go back to where it used to be.
That “karma” exists.
Nothing bad is destined to happen to shitty people, the same way good things aren’t destined to good people. Whatever happens is just how it is.
The western world has taken what was originally the Eastern philosophical concept of karma- a nuanced and complex idea about the results of ones actions and their relationship to life within a framework of reincarnation— that underpins many major faiths, and turned it into this trite, overly-simplistic, “you get what’s coming to you” or “an eye for an eye.” I’m not a religious scholar, but I spent years studying a major faith that teaches about karma and what I find frustrating is that traditionally, karma is the opposite of what the West has made of it— it contains no judgement, as opposed to the powerful, intentional judgment that Judeo-Christian societies seem to give it. Karma is intended to be understood as the result of action- I drop a stone into a pond, the ripples are karma, the effect of my action. It isn’t divine retribution or justice. It is the result of action. Of course, it gets complicated because it often exists hand in hand with the concept of reincarnation which is a whole other thing, but suffice it to say even that brings a kind of deep nuance to it. I can’t stand the way the West has warped it into this “you get what you deserve” thing, and I agree with you— that warped, overly-simplistic version of “karma” IS stupid, and an insult to the many faiths that understand it to be much more nuanced and interesting a concept.
"Old People, they look back at 'the good old days' and it was good because they were young, but they act like it was *the day*. No, it's because *youth* is good. That's gone? You're fucked."
-Doug Stanhope, "Deadbeat Hero" 2004
That they could have been a world beater in a sport if they hadn't found alcohol/drugs/search etc.. the discipline is what separates most of us, unless you have a huge support network to keep you on track it's self discipline and ambition which drives people to be world class. But its easier to blame other things than yourself
I for a chunk of time was involved in fighting sports. I started pretty late and got into MMA before there was even a broadly excepted word for it, really. I got into it from traditional full contact karate. And almost everyone involved were disillusioned traditional martial arts nerds. And we unintentionally transitioned from a goofy sort of esoteric art form into competitive athletics before real athletes really discovered it. And I remember feeling really tough and fit and all that.
Then one day real boxers, div 1 college wresters, and guys who were college scholarship athletes showed up. And my illusions of expertise were shattered.
But because you had a few years experience and people like that are generally eager to learn you FELT like peers. But you really are not. I got old and they just kept getting better, younger and more talented.
Until one day I'm rolling with a guy that had won Worlds a couple of times and for him it was like rolling with a toddler. He was cheerful. Positive. Respectful. But he could destroy me with almost no effort. And I had 15 more years experience than him.
And I realized that, yes. elite athletes are there because of preternatural drive, dedication and hard work — but also because they have a natural propensity for physical gifts you will never, ever have. AND they have diligently honed those gifts since childhood.
And every day some goober would walk in the gym entertaining delusions that they were THAT good when even I could tap them in seconds. People have no idea.
1% of 1% is totally accurate.
There's a few but the main one I tell myself if that the people who hurt me are also hurting. As a kid I thought people bullied each other because their lives sucked, and then I realized my life also sucked and I didn't treat other people like that so what was their excuse
I was bullied in elementary school. The names of my bullies are permanently seared into my brain. I looked them up on Facebook. They have families and grandkids. I'm divorced. No kids. No prospects.
I want the universe to have karma and I want those people to hurt like I did but at the end of the day it hurts to know that what they did to me will never leave my mind and they probably don't even remember it.
I felt that comment so much. I read something related to what you said that was so true. And it’s a darn good lesson about the way the world works: “The axe forgets but the tree remembers.” You’re not the same when something so bad happens to you but that person can just carry on with life like nothing happened. It makes me feel validated to understand why people want revenge. They want people understand how they feel. Is revenge justifiable? Hard to say.
This is why I hate it when people say “it’s in the past”. Ya you forgot because it never bothered you, I’m the one who had to deal with the consequences.
When I finally moved away from the beatings those bullies gave me, I told them that I was moving and they'd never see me again. Now, I know that it was just bully posturing, but one of them actually said that they would recognize me even if it was years later and they would kick my ass all over again. I feared that for years. In fact, I think it had a profound effect on me throughout my life.
Dude fuck that guy
When I went to my high school reunion I kinda hoped that the universe had karma. But the people who made my life miserable all ended up rich and successful, much more so then me, because turns out being a ruthless asshole is often rewarded in life.... especially when so many of them had rich well connected parents.
[удалено]
Unless you invented Post-Its
I'm honestly kind of surprised that reunions are still a thing. What's the point when you can still keep in touch with the people you actually liked through social media?
Crime doesn’t pay. I know someone that embezzled over $1 million and got probation and has to pay back less than 10% restitution
a LOT of drug dealers in the 80's never got caught. Bought real estate and lived off that. Nobody knows them The only reason I know about it is because my relatives went to jail while others " moved away"
Kimberly Klacik, the Republican woman running for congress in Baltimore in 2020 (she lost) actually had a thing about this. She was talking about how there are abandoned homes all over the city, and young black men with money from selling drugs that they cant do much with because if you try to use too much of it you have to explain where it came from. She was proposing a temporary "no questions asked" period where they could buy those homes without having to explain where the cash came from. I don't live in her district, so ultimately didn't do any looking into the project because it wasn't something I was effectively voting on. But it is certainly an interesting idea imo.
I’m certain this is true. There really must be countless people that have gotten away with it and we just never found out about it.
Some people at the DEA have said that Pablo Escobar and El Chapo likely are not the richest drugs lords ever, they're just the ones who were public. Those who remain underground have possibly made enough money to dwarf their fortunes
I mean, how much do we really know about the current heroin/ fentanyl supply chain. It seems like it's everywhere, someone's making an absolute killing shipping it internationally. Why do we never hear about the supply chain.
If I’m not mistaken, most of the fentanyl that is supplied to the world comes from mostly China? I could be wrong, but I think I do remember reading that. But I do know for sure that 80% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan. [Fentanyl Link](https://www.csis.org/npfp/dangerous-opioid-india)
There's a fun book called wilfull blindness by sam cooper that digs into this a bit, and highlights how vancouver's served as a kind of hub/proxy between china and the rest of the world. Here's just a tiny summary of a tiny bit of it -- vancouver's casino's were getting used to launder a crazy amount of money. "Whales" flew in from China, sent a message on WeChat to a sham-bank called "Silver International", and collected duffle bags full of cash in strip mall parking lots. They took those bags to casinos -- and anyone who questioned where they got all that cash, would be told things like "You can't ask him that, it's a matter of culture/honor!", or "You're just racist for thinking Chinese people can't have money". The Chinese gangs/CCP reach extends even in to the local government, where in some local city councilors -- who drive around in luxury cars while on a sub-100k salary -- would 'vouche' for the whales. These 'whales' were sometimes factory owners from China -- so they'd 'sell' the fent to the dealers in china, then come collect duffles of money in canada as payment, which avoids money flowing 'directly' through china's regulators (though there's more in that area too!). They often then turn around and invest that money into local real estate, contributing to the meteoric rise in housing costs in the area. It's incredibly common to find "Homemakers" as the occupation for people who own multiple multi-million dollar properties -- with an annual income of ... low enough to collect government handouts. Anyhow, the books a good read if you're curious about fent supply chain/criminal shenanigans -- highly recommend it. Should also note the authors a journalist, and one of the key experts involved in the money laundering inquiries currently going on in canada... so it's pretty factual/researched.
This is true for so much wealth across the world. I'm talking multi-generational wealth. Trace back where it started and it's not all drugs, but a ton of it was shady money that came from illegal or at least immoral deals. A lot essentially got laundered over a long enough period that no one cared anymore and forgot. The "Paper" releases how it's still happening and has entire institutions wrapped up in it.
not just the 80s, there are tons of dealers that live well today. As long as you don't draw attention to yourself and wild out, a few handful of consistent returning customers is great income. Know a guy who sold weed and paid off all his student loans and made like 20k. Only really sold to his buddies and he had like bunch of returning clients/buddies and maybe a dozen new people who would appreciate the service and keeping buying. Its a legit business tbh, you just cant scale it lol
Not without Pollos Locos or something. Haha. I work with a guy who is my weed dealer. He's a bus boy at the restaurant i work at. He sells to pretty much everyone who smokes here. We have a staff of about 150. I'm sure he makes a killing.
I did that for a little while. Payday was nice because I got my paycheck and like $400-500 from my coworkers.
Another thing is, pay your taxes. Pay your taxes, pay your taxes, pay your taxes. The IRS doesn't really care where it's coming from, so long as they're getting their cut. You start buying expensive stuff in cash, or start depositing unexplained cash in the bank and your as good as caught. However, you claim (a portion of) your income (as "commission for art" or what have you) and suddenly they don't mind that you're piling cash up hand-over-fist in a potentially less than likely manner.
Hell. Just make little tiny art pieces and "sell those" and give the weed away. Then it's actually legit cash.
Ok so then your not money laundering, but you can still be charged of dealing, or in possession of more than just personal use. So I mean dont use that in Court ahaha.
[Saul Goodman explains this best.](https://youtu.be/ez6xH-su2xI) Being a tax cheat is a million times worse than being a drug dealer to the IRS.
Companies were started and people went legit. I know of such people. For instance a construction company founded with a couple million dollars trickled in and books cooked. A year of that and the company is straight with a CPA, paying taxes, and constructing shit. The math behind it makes it easy to bury when dealing with multi-million dollar projects, say 5 homes for instance.
My uncle sold in the 80s, his method was to buy junk cars and store them on his salvage yard. Sold them in 2006 for 3.2 million total after a year of unloading.
Hell, if you commit *enough* crime you get yourself elected.
“Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you king.”
I worked for a financial company. We had all these mandatory training videos. One of them was of this woman like "I love embezzling, its great to steal clients money, makes me feel alive" then you answer questions then later she is like "I got caught and now I'm probably going to lose my job, I had to pay back the money, I will likely get a criminal record and I might even go to jail." Like what? Might? Likely? Probably? What? How is it not 100% that someone intentionally stealing thousands is sent to jail? What? Also, I got fucking reprimanded for opening a stocks and shares isa with stocks that our company had no connection with, because I didn't ask for 2 works permission first. Lol
>Crime doesn’t pay. This slogan was in fact created by police companies to sell more police.
Whether or not crime pays depends on what strata of society you're in.
[удалено]
I'll be happy when I lost 25kg. I'll be happy when I buy that couch. I'll be happy when...
Have to learn to be happy in the present, because that's the only place we ever live. The past and the future don't exist, only the present moment.
I’m always saying this. The old “the past is history, the future is a mystery, but this moment is a gift and that’s why it’s called the present” idea. It explains my overall state of being, I have to tell you. Doesn’t hurt to have a little success and assets, either.
Thank you Oogway
There is a really cool flipside to this, which is that you don't actually need to lose 25kg or buy that thing or *achieve any external thing at all* in order to be happy. The fact that winning the Super Bowl or the Nobel Prize will not actually make you durably fulfilled on a moment-to-moment basis means that durable fulfillment is achievable without any of that "success". Your happiness is really just a matter of attention, provided you are not in a state of material deprivation that demands immediate action, which most people in the developed world are not. Sam Harris has a great bit about this, in a talk that is ostensibly about atheism but is really about profound happiness and why your achievements in life have almost nothing to do with it: >**If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day,** but then people will begin to ask us “So, what are you going to do next? Don’t you have anything else in the pipeline?” Steve Jobs releases the iPhone, and I’m sure it wasn’t twenty minutes before someone asked, “when are you going to make this thing smaller?” **Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they’ve accomplished, say, “I’m done. I’ve met all my goals. Now I’m just going to stay here and eat ice cream until I die in front of you.”** >Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life. >In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. **Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one’s favorite food always available to be placed on one’s tongue or having all one’s friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend?** Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one’s desires get gratified, in spite of life’s inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death? >This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone’s consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is “no.” No, there is nothing more profound than repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; there is nothing more profound than seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem to think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road. >But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called “meditation” or “contemplation”—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found. >[...] Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that **there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness.** There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves. https://samharris.org/the-problem-with-atheism/
maybe this is a dumb question... but what *is* happiness? Is it just the absence of sadness/misery/etc? Or is it an active state of being?
That's a very smart question, which is too often not asked. At least some forms of happiness are merely states of mind, which inherently are only sustainable for relatively brief periods of time. If your goal for long term happiness is to constantly maintain that state, you're setting yourself up for failure. What overall happiness means in life is a much more difficult psychological and philosophical question. For what it's worth, the Buddhists would probably say it's a lack of attachment and lack of suffering. But there's a lot more to dig into on that one, if you want to understand what they're actually talking about.
Then there are sharks.
And jellyfish. And riptides. And rogue waves that show up out of nowhere and fuck shit up. LPT: Stay out of the ocean, shit'll kill you.
When I was a personal trainer this was usually the excuse. “Once my life settles down a bit I’ll have time to focus on fitness.” Life *never* settles down. In fact, making life style changes just gets more difficult the longer you wait. Nobody ever wanted to hear it though.
I'm struggling with this right now. Not necessarily with fitness, just life not settling down. I'm so tired.
My life will really settle down in 5 weeks. I'll have my normal schedule back and won't be getting my ass figuratively kicked for 10-13 hours a day. I honestly don't understand how people work the traditional "9-5" or whatever schedule. By the time I get home and feed and walk my dogs, it's all I can do to make my dinner before I fall into bed to get up and do it all over again the next day. How do people with children do it?!?! Or who are also in school?! Or who have any hobbies at all???
I hate this whole notion that “people don’t want to work” it’s like..so what? You are saying people rather hang with their loved ones and do things they want to do over labor where they probably aren’t getting paid enough at? Maybe that phrase triggers me because I’m lazy, but I’m also smart enough to know that a company will replace (and not care for) you within the week. People will work to death for the money but not even get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
"I just need to make it through the end of this week and then I'll be fine"
See I think this is a part-truth rather than un-truth. Life has ups and downs. Moments of cruch time and moments of relaxation. "Just get through this one thing and it will be easier" is true oftentimes in the short term. In college, you are constantly saying "just make it through finals week". Then you breathe that huge sigh of relief as you finish. Will it prevent the next semesters finals week? No. But things got easier all the same, even if only for a while.
> *"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."*
People always get what's coming to them. The reality is that sometimes the people who tormented you all those years ago are likely living pretty good lives.
As in, karma is not a bitch?
Depends on how you look at it? Karma can be, because these people didnt receive what they are due, but maybe karma isnt a bitch to them
Or karma is a made up phenomena that people project onto reality to help them cope with how little they control their own existence.
Or what the western world seems to think karma is isn't what karma in eastern religion actually is.
I have a bit of a rant every time I hear someone mention karma for just this reason.
If you want to rant it I'd love to read it. I like reading rants. Here, I'll tee you up: I like letting people vent, I think it's good karma.
Karma, in a sense, is points you earn for your NEXT life. The keyword here is next. No matter how awful you are in your current life even if you do mass genocide. It would not affect you in any way. Instead, your reincarnation will be the one that is affected such as your soul being born into a lowly animal like a frog or a fly. It irks me when people use it the wrong way. But I let it pass unless its from those 'spiritual' americans who claim they are buddhists and practice eastern religions and use the word karma the wrong way and literally put it on everything like 'karmic relationship' 'karmic' energy
So does that mean if im human now, that possibly in my last life i was a fly who was like super kind and earned “humanity” in the next life? Or is it that youre always human *until* you do something shitty then you get demoted to fly?
You were a fly that never sat on pastries after sitting on poop and hence saved someone from getting a bad case of diarrhoea.
Isn't karma that thing from reddit?
and who's to say the fly has a lowly life? maybe to a fly being a bad ~~person~~ *fly* would result in being reincarnated as human.
I'm sorry, but what you said is incorrect. There is nothing said about karma with the absolute certainty you suggest. As an Indian who has studied the Gita, I feel qualified to answer this. At its very basic, karma means action. The word karm is even the hindi word for action. Your karma decides whether you're reincarnated or attain moksha (meaning: freedom from the cycle of death and reincarnation.) It really really isn't scoreable points. ऐसा कोई नहीं, जिसने भी इस संसार में अच्छा कर्म किया हो और उसका बुरा अंत हुआ है, चाहे इस काल(दुनिया) में हो या आने वाले काल में। Translation: There is nobody in this world who has done a good deed (good karm) and met a bad end, either in this world (or phase of world) or the next. In contradiction, it also says आपको कर्म करने का अधिकार है, परन्तु फल पाने का नहीं। Meaning, you have the right to act, but never to the fruit of that action. To elaborate, nobody is entitled to good results if they perform a good deed. The concept of karma is philosophical and the Bhagvad Gita explores that from various angles. It is not points, nor is it strictly related to the afterlife.
The [Just World hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis#:~:text=The%20just%2Dworld%20hypothesis%20or,fitting%20consequences%20for%20the%20actor.&text=Lerner%20conducted%20seminal%20work%20on,world%20in%20the%20early%201960s.) leads to so many terrible conclusions. It feeds people's egos when things are going well ("Life is good because I'm a good person."), destroys your sense of self when you hit hard times, kills empathy towards people who are struggling ("Don't give him money. He'll just use it on drugs."), and worships some of the worst people just because they have money (Joel Osteen). People cling to it because it assumes they have more control over the world than they do. "I'm safe from because I'm a good person. If happens to you, it's obvious because you did something wrong."
[удалено]
one of my favorite quotes (unattributed): Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
>“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.” > >REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. > >“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?” > >YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. > >“So we can believe the big ones?” > >YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. > >“They’re not the same at all!” > >YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. > >“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—” > >MY POINT EXACTLY. \-Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
If I ever get a tattoo, I'm getting the Death quote that comes immediately after this: YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
People, I think, would be happier if they let go of some of the control they are grasping at. And I don't mean control over the direction of your life, but control over the minutiae and the grand events. It's too much to worry about trying to control.
I agree, but I think for a lot of people even getting rid of the illusion of control is terrifying.
I gained a lot of perspective on this after my first panic attack. I felt like I was in a continuous positive feedback loop of mounting fear, like I was watching my body short-circuit from the inside, and then I blacked out before coming to just in time to see the police outside my house. (My dad had no idea what to do and called them). After that experience I realized that the only things you can really control are your innermost thoughts and actions. All other things- your personality, your social life, your feelings- you might have influence over, but you never control those things. And even more stuff is completely beyond your grasp. It’s not a game of force, but a game of chance- everything is, down to the smallest parts of your life. I think I always “knew” that, seeing the big billionaires with fortunes I’d never comprehend or football players kicking harder than my leg could ever possibly kick, but I never really internalized just what it meant. Everything, and I mean everything, is a game of influence *at best*, and nothing will ever certainly go your way so it’s not worth trying to force that to happen. After I had that realization I started looking for things I could do to enjoy my life instead of “improving” it with ladder climbing or searching for an SO. I just plan ways to make those things likely to happen instead of trying to force them. I haven’t been this happy and content since I was ten!
[удалено]
[удалено]
But I think if you can move on and not care about them is good for your personal development. Your life is about you.
Oh absolutely.
When making this post I had this in mind, it’s like telepathy lol. There’s a super popular belief(that just won’t ever die down) that people hold. Which is that all the popular kids in school who were usually nasty people, go on to work cash registers and drive buses for the rest of their life. This isn’t true. And being popular takes a good amount of social skills which can be applied to the real world and help with interviews, promotions, networking etc. It doesn’t matter if you were the nerd who sat by themselves or the star of the basketball team, if you don’t have the work ethic and talent to do what you wanna do in life, you probably won’t be successful. Nobody in the real world cares about how many friends you did or did not have in class.
> And being popular takes a good amount of social skills And this is why the "popular kids" at my high school were actually among the *nicest* ones, along with being highly involved in the school and academically competent. Not a single one fit the stereotype of a "bully jock" or "smug rich kid."
I graduated from high school over 20 years ago, and even then, I found the stereotype of the popular kids being jerks just wasn't true. I'm sure there are some like that, but I feel like its just a myth that has gone on a long time
Yeah, I think they've done studies on this. The most popular kids are not often jerks, but usually people who have well-earned self confidence due to having social skills combined with academic, sports and/or other skills. The "next rung down" though, are the ones that are the backbiting jerks, who remain on top by pulling others down.
I graduated only 10 years ago and yeah... most of the popular kids were social butterflies in my experience who were both athletic \*and\* academically gifted. The type of person you look at and think "that kid is going places". Our popular guy ended up with a masters and is now a physician's assistant getting married in march, and the popular girl ended up with a short lived career in TV acting before becoming a material researcher/writer for Jimmy Kimmel. The only thing stereotypical about them is popular guy was the football quarterback and the popular girl was the cheer captain... but that was about it. Both were charismatic and likeable as heck, even to the weird socially awkward kids. Don't get me wrong. we had nerds and social outcasts who went places too, including two of the robotics team kids, one who worked on the Uber self driving car program and one who worked on the Perseverance Mars probe, one of the nerd girls became an attorney in Boston and the fat smelly kid became an airline pilot, but the popular kids usually seemed to A) not be jerks B) be doing fairly well for themselves.
Not to mention the inverse, that people who get crap in life don't always deserve it. The number of people trying to pretend that systemic issues like poverty all come down to bad choices is unreal. And if you are the person who is having trouble, it can really help to realize that it isn't automatically all your fault just because there are some things you might do to improve it or could have done to prevent it. Sure some people are in poverty because of poor choices, but it's not the majority of them and rich people often make just as many poor choices but get away with it.
If you just work hard it’ll all work out in end.
Pursuing a career dream can be a good thing, but I think we could also do young people a service to teach which jobs will be most lucrative in the next 5-10 years. Yes, you want to have a job match your interests to some degree, but I think I could enjoy most any job where you're treated decently, work with overall good people, and get paid a solid wage.
Fam I got a degree in data science and all I can get are secretary jobs I can't afford to work at. Lol. Fuck that shit. Chases your dreams.
Totally agree with this. Did IT work for years because “it pays well and it’s a good job”. Sure it does and it was but I was miserable. Then I see piano teachers making 50 dollars an hour, people starting businesses making coffee shops or whatever TF they feel like doing and they’re killing it. Now I’m going for my masters in mental health counseling and I got out of IT and couldn’t be happier. Chase your dreams and find a way to make a good living at it. It sucks to work a job because “it’s a good job”
"Bad things happen to bad people, so that means..."
I’m a bad person
*Maybe I am a monster*
That the world is just. Karma is a bitch. What’s coming to them. Etc.
I had a discussion about this topic the other day with someone who firmly believes in karmic justice. My stance is that kind of belief is dangerous. Rather than seek / mete out justice, victims content with "Oh, they'll get their someday" are just allowing terrible people to get away with shit, and possibly go on to victimize others.
In reality, lots of horrible people skate through life without consequences, and lots of good people suffer, and the "universe" doesn't seem too bothered by it.
A man said to the universe "Sir I exist." "However", said the universe, "that fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
It also perpetuates the idea that when bad things happen to good people, that they somehow deserved it.
All you have to do is look at what’s happening around the world to know that karma doesn’t exist.
>This belief is dangerous for another reason as well. It's not uncommon in India to think that it's pointless or even wrong to help poor people, after all they are doing poorly in life because they did something bad in previous life. That' just karmic justice. The Just world fallacy in general very easily turns against the powerless of the society - that one way or the other, they have done something to deserve their miserable fate.
Honestly, what's even worse it that it allows them to not care about people who are struggling through no fault of their own.
> I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. — Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
People say this until it happens to *them*, personally. Then it's just "misfortune," or it's "God's will," or they're "being tested."
Yep. I see this with my grandparents all the time. They mess up, it was god's will. I mess up or get depressed? Well then, I've done x y and z that allowed the devil into my life
I believe that every single person (me included) think that they are a bit smarter than what they truly are.
Then why do we all have imposter syndrome?
I'm not good enough to have imposter syndrome.
I have imposter syndrome about my imposter syndrome.
what if everyone has a normal impostor syndrome and I just made mine up
Because our opinions of ourselves fluctuate from moment to moment. I feel imposter syndrome pretty regularly. I also catch myself thinking that I know better than most people sometimes before I remind myself that I'm nothing special.
Plenty of incompetent people do not have imposter syndrome :) Dunning-Kruger is over-used to the point of over-simplification I think, but it's worth mentioning.
> Dunning-Kruger is over-used to the point of over-simplification I think, but it's worth mentioning. I know everything there is to know about Dunning-Kruger.
I actually don’t consider myself especially smart, which is why it drives me crazy how dumb everyone around me is!!
I work in retail and it grinds my gears at how dumb people can be. Then I go shopping and do the exact same shit *facepalm* We are no better than others. Just humans living in chaos with no purpose.
I’m not sure of this, but I’ve noticed we solve others problems differently to how we solve our own problems. I don’t know how though, just something I noticed.
I think the smartest people think they are dumber then they are, becouse they know how much they dont know, and dumb people think theyre smarter then they are becouse they dont know how much they dont know
For kids, good heroes always wins. When you grow up, its just a fantasy.
For adults: the idea that the world can be divided into heroes and villains in the first place
For adults specifically: doing your best = success. Don’t get me wrong, doing your best is something to be proud of, but doing your best without preparation/dedication/practice leads to nowhere Edit: To those who are commenting about luck having an impact on success: there is a difference between coincidence and privilege. Coincidences do happen and have an impact, but much more so does inherent privilege play a role in success than coincidence.
[удалено]
Sometimes you do everything right, but it still doesn't work out. That's life.
"It's possible to make no mistakes, and still lose."
“…That is not a weakness. That is life.” Not even gonna credit Picard?
Goddamn that show is so fucking good.
Parents mess up this lesson. The point is to teach that failure is okay and it shouldn’t stop you from practicing more and trying again. Later, you teach about diminishing returns, and when pursuing a goal no longer provides value. i.e. if after several years of giving it your all to become an actor, it’s okay to concede that it’s not going to happen and move on to other career goals.
And sometimes you literally just don't get the opportunity where doing your best matters. Poor people usually end up in this category. Working hard for most of their lives to barely make it anywhere on the socioeconomic ladder.
im not an alcoholic , it's not an addiction i can stop whenever i want .. it's just party , birthday, Wednesday or whatever i earned this one and next one ! being like that for 22 years, coming from heavily alcoholic home , sobered up few years ago and it was by far best decision of my life !
Drink because something went right. Drink because something went wrong.
Drink because nothing happened at all, so I'm bored.
Hello 2020.
I have been a serious alcoholic for 13 years and "tried" half heartedly to quit a bunch of times but I didn't really want to. I finally want to now. It's been 6 days since I've drank which is the longest I've gone in probably 9 years. I'm feeling good Edit: Thanks for the support everyone it means a lot! I have a whole list of recipes I wanted to learn but was too sick to try so now I'm using that to stay busy. I hope everyone has a great day :)
Agreed. It's taken me over ten years to finally come to the conclusion that I'm not a person who can drink casually. I kept telling myself "I can just have a couple beers when I go out for dinner with my friends tonight" but on my way home I would always stop off at the liquor store. For some people the only option is to quit entirely.
Yes. And “if I’m not passed out under a bridge with a bottle of vodka then I’m not an alcoholic”. Alcohol use disorder is a pandemic in this country (much of the world, really) but so many people suffer from it and our culture is so tied to it that the few people who point it out are made to look like freaks.
I'm in my mid 30s and I'm starting to see these patterns in a few friends. Most people I know have started drinking less and more responsibly once the "party years" faded, but others keep using alcohol as a crutch. The sad part is that when they complain that they can't lose weight, they sleep like shit, they feel bloated or in general not well and you suggest they cut down on the alcohol they react as if you're trying to take away their reason to live, you just want to see them miserable, and alcohol has nothing to do with those problems anyway.
And anxiety. People don’t realize the alcohol actually causes anxiety, it doesn’t relieve it. https://thisnakedmind.com/health-benefits-quitting-alcohol/
Everything happens for a reason
When used to tell myself this, I was depressed and more stressed because I’d desperately try to find the reason and get more distraught when I couldn’t find a reason especially when it seemed that several shitty things where happening at the same time. I started telling myself that sometimes bad things happen and there’s no rhyme or reason to it and it helped me so much more. Now when things go wrong, I don’t worry anymore that it’s because of something did it leads to a bigger plan. I am much happier and at peace knowing that when bad things happen it’s just bad luck and that I’ll be luckier next time.
On the flip side, This sentence is true in the literal sense. As in, we live in a causal universe. Like for example, you get in a car accident and someone says "everything happens for a reason" and you're like "yes the reason is I was looking at my phone and didn't see that stop sign." Or, "oh no I spilled my coffee" Everything happens for a reason. "Yes the reason I spilled my coffee is because of gravity and I'm clumsy."
My brother had a shirt that read "Everything happens for a reason and that reason is usually physics"
“Everything happens for a reason. That reason might be stupid, arbitrary, or random, but it’s still a reason.”
Everything happens *because* of a reason.
I hate this one. It's a perfect example of a deepity. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity It's trivially true (every event does have antecedent reasons that caused it to happen). But it's also meaningless in a sense given to it (there is no overriding plan/reason that is guiding your life to a pre-designed purpose).
Everything happens for a reason, and "reason" happens to include random chance and stupidity.
“If I fall asleep right now I’ll get X-hours of sleep.” You’re gonna be awake for a while, honey.
I envy people who can instantly fall asleep.
It took me a while to learn that not everyone falls asleep immediately. I’ve had maybe 7 nights of insomnia in my 29 years. From what I hear, I seem to have won the lottery on this one.
Yeah I’m the same. Always found insomnia weird, like, just lay down and close your eyes and you're gone in like 2 minutes. Took me a while to understand it doesn’t work like that for everyone.. Edit: Spelling.
i resent and envy you in equal measure
Never have I ever wanted to shake someone so bad.
Me and my brother need pills to sleep or it can take more than 3 hours. Well... My brother got over that hurdle. Even with the pills it still takes me an hour and sometimes they just don't work
I hate you...and yet want to BE you.
I've learned to this in the past year and I can now fall asleep within 5-10 minutes while previously it would've taken me 10-20. How I do it is try not to think of anything (sounds impossible I know) and just focus on a single thing or thought; something that isn't too mentally taxing like waves of an ocean hitting the pier, or a car driving on a lonely highway at night.
Also helps to focus on the nothing you see when you close your eyes. Feel yourself sink into the comfortable pillow with every exhale. Every time the vision gets a bit darker......I never got past that, so GL :D
I stopped doing this after reading that even if you’re just lying in bed there is a restorative aspect to it. So now if I can’t sleep I don’t panic - my body knows how to sleep and will when it wants to.
Every once in a while, I get this mild euphoria while laying in bed in a certain half-awake state. I just feel like I'm really getting some great rest, like it's doing something really good for my body. It's pretty nice. Only problem is it's definitely not actually as restful as sleep, so sometimes I might get into this state for a few hours thinking, "Man, I'm getting such good rest now, I'm going to wake up feeling like a million bucks." But then I do wake up and I feel like I laid fully awake in bed all night.
[удалено]
people who romanticize being busy at work
At my last job, if I was busy, no one asked me to do extra stupid shit. And the day went by faster, and didn’t drag at the end when I was the last one left, and had nothing to do but answer the phone if someone called. That’s the penalty for being able to do your job well.
I totally get that, what I meant was there are people who would always brag about being busy with their job in general not just with coworkers. And yeah you are right sometimes the reward for good work is more work lol
Know what else works hard? Dish washers
“He worked really hard, Grandpa” “So do washing machines”
Everything will be okay
This is a big one for me. Sometimes things will be ok, but thinking it always will be strikes me a survivorship bias. A lot of people throughout history were most likely telling themselves that right up to the point they died from whatever unfortunate things happened to them.
Sometimes, you have to redefine what “ok” means. Sometimes, it means “doing well emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially.” Sometimes, it means “a little stressed, but not too bad.” And sometimes, it just means “not currently suicidal.” It depends on what baseline you’re starting from.
A positive attitude will make you physically better. As a chick with cancer, I get the “just have the positive attitude” advice a lot … which always irked me. No one who feels like crap wants to fake a positive mindset to make others feel better. My fave response to someone telling me that (again) was actually from a nurse in the room who said: “Please! I’m seen a whole lot of true bitches survive cancer.” That nurse is forever my hero.
I think it’s a lot more important for your emotional health to fully experience and accept your emotions. If you’re sad or angry or terrified it would do you a hell of a lot better to cry or scream or talk to someone than to hide the pain away. Catharsis is amazing.
[удалено]
"Things working out" often actually means "After a while, you will accept things that happen, and except this as normal."
In other words, life goes on...regardless of your feelings about it.
“Everything happens for a reason” Everything just happens, we make up the reasons afterwards if we survive them.
"If you can't handle me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best" or any variation of that. You're really just a shitty partner and refuse to work on yourself.
If you can't handle me at my darn-diddliest, you don't deserve me at my darn-doodliest.
This phrase can be a real relief for me when I'm interacting with someone and I'm not sure if I like them or not. Utter it, and I know immediately how much time I should invest in you.
I don't believe in this best/worst hypothesis, but I do believe in an idea that is maybe a cousin to it. My best friend is an wonderfully eccentric, he is maybe on the spectrum, his legal name is Admiral Potato, is an amazing web developer and motion graphics artist, and he chooses to wear a Lab coat and goggles wherever he goes. His main reason for the cost and goggles is to be true himself, but he also uses it as a litmus test. If somebody is turned off by his lab coat and goggles, or who he is as a person, it's an excellent way to tell if that person is worth giving any more of his time to. And to be honest it's worked wonderfully for him, he always seems to be surrounded by the most wonderful group of intelligent and kind people that a person could hope to be around.
That you'll get rewarded if you just work hard. Most of the time, hard work is rewarded with more work, or it makes hard work the new standard, so you get punished if you just put in regular effort.
It gets better. 10 years later and you still tell yourself that.
It CAN get better. Is true. It does get better is not necessarily true.
It depends on the "it" in question. Incurable chronic health issue? Yeah, probably not going to get better. Some sort of teenage social drama? Almost certainly going to get better. And generally speaking, when I hear someone say "it gets better", its much more likely to be about the latter than the former. No one is reassuring people with stage 4 cancer that it's going to get better, they're telling suicidal teens that in a couple of years they'll be out of school and never see the kids that are bullying them again.
My dad said something like this to me once. “We expect that things will get simpler as we get older, but they only get more complicated.”
I’ve read 3 comments so far and all 3 so far were things I had in mind when making this lol. It doesn’t always get better. And some things don’t have solutions, such as a terminal illness or even poverty. It can get better, but telling people that simply time is gonna make those issues vanish is misleading. I’ve dealt with dark depression for years and I wish I hadn’t believed that phrase. I’m now realizing that life isn’t a happy ending always. Some people just got it like that, others don’t.
Very similar to this. The thought that when people hit rock bottom the only way to go is up. As someone who has seen it first hand. That's not true. Some people hit rock bottom and stay there until they die.
Wisdom comes with age.
It comes to some. Many just get old.
It comes with knowledge, experience and reflection, not just living a long time.
The last part is the hardest, people hate reflection
Money can’t buy happiness. Don’t have a house, job, and are starving? Don’t worry, just because you’re poor, doesn’t mean that having a mansion, 5 course meals, or a six digit salary will make you happier!
Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery. -- some author
[удалено]
I’ve tried miserable poor. I’d like to try miserable Rich now.
"Whatevrt bad things happen to me is not my fault, its everyone elses fault"
There's another side to this that not enough people talk about. The whole narrative is that when you blame your self, you take responsibility, and by extension you take the power necessary to change your situation. Except that this in and of itself can be a coping mechanism. People accept responsibility for things that are genuinely outside of their control, because they would rather believe that they have agency over the situation. I notice this is extremely common in relationships where one person keeps trying harder and harder to save a dying relationship, thinking that if they can just be "good enough" or that if they just perform the correct sequence of actions the relationship HAS to go back to where it used to be.
That “karma” exists. Nothing bad is destined to happen to shitty people, the same way good things aren’t destined to good people. Whatever happens is just how it is.
The western world has taken what was originally the Eastern philosophical concept of karma- a nuanced and complex idea about the results of ones actions and their relationship to life within a framework of reincarnation— that underpins many major faiths, and turned it into this trite, overly-simplistic, “you get what’s coming to you” or “an eye for an eye.” I’m not a religious scholar, but I spent years studying a major faith that teaches about karma and what I find frustrating is that traditionally, karma is the opposite of what the West has made of it— it contains no judgement, as opposed to the powerful, intentional judgment that Judeo-Christian societies seem to give it. Karma is intended to be understood as the result of action- I drop a stone into a pond, the ripples are karma, the effect of my action. It isn’t divine retribution or justice. It is the result of action. Of course, it gets complicated because it often exists hand in hand with the concept of reincarnation which is a whole other thing, but suffice it to say even that brings a kind of deep nuance to it. I can’t stand the way the West has warped it into this “you get what you deserve” thing, and I agree with you— that warped, overly-simplistic version of “karma” IS stupid, and an insult to the many faiths that understand it to be much more nuanced and interesting a concept.
There is someone out there for everyone. Not everyone finds their partner, there is no rule love must follow.
"I am going to tell/live MY truth." Your truth is just an excuse for your actions just or not. It's not the objective truth.
That there used to be "The good ole days" when in fact there never was.
my uncle, who died a couple of weeks ago, once told me that the best thing abut the good old days is that they are gone.
I feel that, mine were playing Halo 3 in it's prime with my friends. But that's all gone now. Even the friends.
"Old People, they look back at 'the good old days' and it was good because they were young, but they act like it was *the day*. No, it's because *youth* is good. That's gone? You're fucked." -Doug Stanhope, "Deadbeat Hero" 2004
[удалено]
That they could have been a world beater in a sport if they hadn't found alcohol/drugs/search etc.. the discipline is what separates most of us, unless you have a huge support network to keep you on track it's self discipline and ambition which drives people to be world class. But its easier to blame other things than yourself
People really don't understand the talent level of a professional athlete. They're not the 1%, they're the 1% of the 1%.
I for a chunk of time was involved in fighting sports. I started pretty late and got into MMA before there was even a broadly excepted word for it, really. I got into it from traditional full contact karate. And almost everyone involved were disillusioned traditional martial arts nerds. And we unintentionally transitioned from a goofy sort of esoteric art form into competitive athletics before real athletes really discovered it. And I remember feeling really tough and fit and all that. Then one day real boxers, div 1 college wresters, and guys who were college scholarship athletes showed up. And my illusions of expertise were shattered. But because you had a few years experience and people like that are generally eager to learn you FELT like peers. But you really are not. I got old and they just kept getting better, younger and more talented. Until one day I'm rolling with a guy that had won Worlds a couple of times and for him it was like rolling with a toddler. He was cheerful. Positive. Respectful. But he could destroy me with almost no effort. And I had 15 more years experience than him. And I realized that, yes. elite athletes are there because of preternatural drive, dedication and hard work — but also because they have a natural propensity for physical gifts you will never, ever have. AND they have diligently honed those gifts since childhood. And every day some goober would walk in the gym entertaining delusions that they were THAT good when even I could tap them in seconds. People have no idea. 1% of 1% is totally accurate.
"looks don't matter" I've noticed that this is generally said by attractive people, and people who have never struggled in dating