For those that can spare some cash. Get yourself a vacation for a couple weeks to Greece or Turkey, meet some locals there. Even better, try living abroad there or other nations that are known for their social culture. Believe me you will change. You get to experience a new culture and learn a thing or two about yourself.
The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
911–920 of 1001 posts
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#912Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Whatever it is today, I fear the future will be much worse. This is an easy trap for humans to fall into. "The sky is falling" type stuff. Humans have faced lots of problems over the millenia, but the reality is that our lives continue to improve as a whole..not get worse.
> Humans have faced lots of problems over the millenia, but the reality is that our lives continue to improve as a whole That's untrue. Human civilizations tend to go through cycles. They rise, eventually stagnate, and then decline over the span of hundreds of years. The Akkadians, the Mycenaeans, the Romans, and the Maya all collapsed and the lives of people living in those empires got worse, often for a very long t…
I think comparing modern day civilization to the rise and fall of the Roman empire is a mistake, particularly European civilization. We learned our lesson. We’re not building empires, not waging expensive wars, not succumbing to armed revolution. People are for the time being mostly happy and prosperous.
That isn’t to say we don’t face challenges, but they’re fundamentally different from those of the empires of old. Something changed with true global markets, and mutually assured destruction.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#913I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…
I felt very similar but at the age of 20 I shut myself indoors and it's been like that ever since. Everyone has long forgot about me. I turned 31 an hour ago. I think I just got used to it. I was lucky that I inherented a small flat, although in bad condition and location. I score some freelance gigs time to time to keep myself alive. I have tried online communities or friends so to speak but I don't really get it ho…
Happy Birthday!
Also, if I may be so presumptuous as to offer a suggestion: try contacting someone from earlier in your life. Many times, people are lost in their own world, their worries and problems and life just happens as it always does. However, they are very likely to be happy to suddenly hear from an old friend. I have been on both sides of this and it was ultimately a good experience. In one case, I also happened to have contacted someone at an opportune moment and saved them from self harm.
Again, a very happy birthday to you and I hope that, this year, you find joy in life.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#914Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it so incredibly ironic that it was immigrants, fleeing countries utterly lacking in comfort, wealth, or happiness, in search of a better life for themselves and their children, that helped build the comfortable industrialized nation of the United States. It seems life - human existence - is cyclical and has amnesia. We forget too quickly what real discomfort is. Or at least, fail to strike a proper balance.
America was founded by pioneers. Immigrants didn’t start coming for their “better life” until the mid-19th century.
America was indeed founded by immigrants seeking a "better life" whether that was Puritans fleeing persecution or economic opportunists. It's not like anyone immigrated to America simply to "pioneer" for pioneering's sake.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#915Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a similar rule with my wife, that she doesn't know about. If she wants to do something with me, then I say yes, as long as I don't have a prior commitment, or, you know, am not sick or physically unable. I started this rule with her from the moment we met. I think it is part of why we stayed together all these years, and why we worked out well when so many of my previous relationships didn't. I love a lot of s…
>the "as you wish" rule Beautiful.
> the "as you wish" rule
That's not what it's about. It's about doing things. Together. Marriage isn't just about signing your names on a piece of paper; it's a (supposedly) life-long commitment to a team of two people where you are one of the team members. My wife and I do the same thing (and yes, it goes both ways), and we both agree that's the one reason we're such an awesome team.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#916Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…
This guy took that idea to the extreme: built an app to randomly join random Facebook events and forced himself to go wherever it took him. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/06/08/53...
Interesting link, thanks for posting it
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#917Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…
I have a similar rule with my wife, that she doesn't know about. If she wants to do something with me, then I say yes, as long as I don't have a prior commitment, or, you know, am not sick or physically unable. I started this rule with her from the moment we met. I think it is part of why we stayed together all these years, and why we worked out well when so many of my previous relationships didn't. I love a lot of s…
I think this is great advice. I'm not particularly lonely, being married and having two kids, but sometimes my wife and I don't do enough together. We instituted a regular babysitter night every two weeks, and we are required to find something and go out that evening.
But only passively saying yes to everything is not enough. I need to take action and organise something to do with her. And also take initiative to organise things with other friends. Sadly, those friends don't seem to follow this "as you wish" rule.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#918Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing. When people talk about dismantling the patriarchy, or about racial privilege, they are not actually talking about any one particular person. You are fully able to be white, male, privileged, and still be an ally to those who do not benefit as much from the power structures in our society. Instead of feeling per…
Take for example a comment from this very thread: "Feminism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." How should we take a step back and listen more carefully to this? How are we to interpret that other than as an attack on all men?
[flagged]
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#919Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel as though having children will make a lot of people very happy. But there is also a significant part(>1%) of the population that would be miserable. I believe a lot of the unhappiness is often from someone who was pressured into a choice they didn't critically think about or didn't want but caved in. Even if the pool of people is small the experience could be quite negative. Where as all the people who always…
==I took care of my brother and sisters a lot as a child and it made it very clear that I never wanted children.== Being a parent is not the same as taking care of your siblings. Using the experience of one to justify your decisions in another is short-sighted. How many parents have you ever heard say, "I wish I didn't have kids"?
Yeah, his experience taking care of kids in no way prepares him to take care of kids.
Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
#920Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same situation. A non sustainable life. With her all changed. I go to the gym so she does not have a skinny boyfriend. When I find something good at netflix I wait until she is home and we can watch it together. When I find a nice place, I remmember it so I can show her the nice bench under that tree in my hometown. I always have flashback about the time I moved to another city without family bondings. Then…
> I go to the gym so she does not have a skinny boyfriend. PSA, there's nothing wrong with being skinny, and some people prefer a skinny partner.
Some people go to the gym to get skinnier.
In any case, I used to hate working out, and always had terrible posture. I've been doing crossfit for half a year now and improvements are visible to a lot of people around me. I don't want to bulk up, but better posture is good for anyone.