91–100 of 329 posts
start lifting, hire a trainer to do it right and safely see what your body can do, it is clear that your mind has accomplished a lot the contentment of a great workout is hard to beat
No this is not the dream. You’re still in debt. You still owe society a lot of work. You want to finish paying the mortgage, send your kids to uni and start something without putting everything at risk. Keep working. Keep working. This is the american dream. Work does not liberate you from work. It allows you to set enough aside to retire all right. The only way to get more is to risk more. These are the rules of the…
At no point in human history, anywhere, has a life if easy idleness been a part of the deal.
The way I see it there's two choices. You can either work in a comfortable society with food at the supermarket, water in your pipes, and a roof over your head, or you can work in a harsh society struggling against nature every single day for food, water, and shelter.
Yes there are people in our society who basically don't work because they have so much money. It's unfair that some people have to labour physically while others can do nothing and claim the value of the people who work for them.
Even if we did create a society where everyone could afford to be idle every day, someone would have to produce the food. Someone would have to mine the resources to produce the luxuries we enjoy. Someone would have to produce the luxuries... You see where I'm going.
Idle, easy lives are not the baseline to compare against.
They are the absolute ceiling of privilege.
“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” John A Shedd 1928
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Friendlier, less user-hostile link: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/so6e8h/commen... (The main site goes to great lengths to force registration, even hiding the content after a few seconds (!) when a mobile user-agent is detected)
I've been using this[1] plugin (made by a friend) for years now to get around this issue. 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-fixer/boahh...
You are describing the hedonic treadmill. Essentially, you become used to your surroundings, and while they are objectively great, from the perspective of inside your own head, this is now normal and you / your monkey mind wants more. There have been a lot of post floating around the internet with various solutions, the most popular being Stoicism > Positive Psychology / Happiness research > Buddhism / Meditation. I'…
You are describing the hedonic treadmill. Essentially, you become used to your surroundings, and while they are objectively great, from the perspective of inside your own head, this is now normal and you / your monkey mind wants more. There have been a lot of post floating around the internet with various solutions, the most popular being Stoicism > Positive Psychology / Happiness research > Buddhism / Meditation. I'…
Anecdote: As I deployed to Afghanistan from my duty station on Okinawa things got progressively shitty. Okinawa -> Manas: Living conditions suck but they have a decent chow hall. Manas -> Camp Leatherneck: Crappy living, crappy chow. Camp Leatherneck -> FOB: wow this sucks. FOB -> combat outpost: holy shit this sucks! How am I gonna do 7 months of this?!
I did. Got used to it. Was actually kind of fun after awhile. Then after deployment you do it in reverse and feels like being upgraded to better and better luxury.
Soon enough you're used to it and living in the barracks on Okinawa sucks again.
Point being that you adjust to living conditions- good or bad. Don't derive purpose from chasing more because you'll always adjust to whatever you attain.
> If Mephistopheles can grant Faust a moment of transcendence on Earth, a moment that he wishes to remain forever, then he will instantly die and serve the Devil in Hell. Faust does not believe that Mephistopheles can accomplish this and accepts the wager.
Maybe the disconnect comes from your (past) expectation that 100k, and house and kids is good enough. You see, the problem isn't the present you, the problem was the past you, with its mediocre expectations.
I say, if you want more stop complaining and make a plan.