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What If You Could Do It All Over?

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Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#191

Post by bonoboTP »

onecommentman wrote: post #182
bonoboTP wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many normal people get a chance to work at a top law firm in a fancy position just because they graduated from some law school? Better jobs are competed for strongly. Good stuff is never free and never available by default.

The really good stuff is always free. If you take a more expansive interpretation of “stuff”. The pretty good stuff is often in short supply.

Sounds deep, you probably mean things like love and faith and kindness.

But it's misleading. Friendships and relationships aren't "free" in terms of effort and achievement. They take the same kind of work/luck/genetics/network combination as getting an interesting and fulfilling job does.

Sure, even the hobo on the street can have faith in Jesus and mental peace for free if you mean that sort of thing, but most things people want are scarce or at least aren't available by default, without either effort or connections.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#192

Post by TheCoelacanth »

onecommentman wrote: post #180
closeparen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's as shallow as you make it sound. I'd rather have respect for being a successful adult who exercises a skill to create value, for doing something difficult and being good at it, than for my taste in music or something.

Taking the “more dates” comment with justification at face value and assuming it to be true, the additional dates are primarily attracted to your job, as stated. It is reasonable to infer that these additional dates are actually interested in dating your job , and your essential self and body are just along for the ride. Your job goes, you go. The problem is you will forget this at some point and start thinking a par…

I would wager that less than 10% of first dates are based on the "essential self" rather than some superficial quality. You don't get to know peoples' essential selves that quickly.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#193

Post by rewgs »

ReactiveJelly wrote: post #173
quickthrower2 wrote: post #17

It’s worth thinking about how we measure how “good” a life is and if that is superficial and too much influenced by fashion. For example the cliche is go travelling or get rich starting a business. “I raised kids” doesn’t have the same boastworthyness in a lot of circles, but arguably it’s more interesting. Or maybe not. What’s the life well lived metric?

For me? I wish I was happy. And I think some hard-to-treat mental illness is preventing my day-to-day happiness. When I feel envious of others, it's not only that they're rich and they travel a lot. They also have friends. They might even have a family they care about. They have hobbies and they have _something_ to do. A lot of them say they have problems with mental health, but you can't film a year-long depressive…

> The world seems clean-split between people who have everything and people who have it even harder than me, and I always just feel alone in this middle ground, where I have all the material elements to be healthy and happy but I can't put them together.

You're not as alone as you think, because this just resonated like I can't even explain.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#194

Post by MaximumYComb »

dorchadas wrote: post #144
acwan93 wrote: post #8

This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…

As someone who feels like I've wasted most of my 20s since graduating university (turning 29 in 2021) with a job(s) I don't see any future in, man this hits hard. My lack of risk taking, and an unfortunately timed death in the family in 2016, really are me sitting there watching these figs dry up. Damn.

I wasted my 20's and got diagnosed with cancer at 30. It changed my perspective quite a bit and so far my 30's have been the best time of my life.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#195

Post by andi999 »

anderspitman wrote: post #187
pansa2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fantastic analogy. To go a bit further, what surprised me when trying to choose which branch to take was how narrow each branch is. It’s not enough to pick the “software development” branch, you have to pick a specialty within that. And, it has to be a single specialty. In my particular case, it was hard to accept that I couldn’t be both a successful programming language designer and a successful game developer.

> I couldn’t be both a successful programming language designer and a successful game developer Why not? Jonathan Blow seems to be making a pretty good run at it.

King without a land?

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#196

Post by locusofself »

Felony_Fred wrote: post #75
acwan93 wrote: post #8

This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…

Excellent break down of the concept by Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto ( 9:18 ); Jordan Peterson Pick Your Sacrifice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5--W9mhC4zA

I don't expect everyone to love Jordan Peterson, but how badly he is maligned by so many people really disappoints me. His maps of meaning lectures on youtube were hugely inspiring (and entertaining), and part of the reason I married my girlfriend and had our daughter. I attended one of his conversation/debates with Sam Harris in Vancouver and that was a lot of fun as well.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#197

Post by michaelsbradley »

While everyone can look back with regret, wishing to correct one's mistakes or redo a failed attempt, we know that it is beyond our power to do so. But it is not beyond God's power to bring some good out of it. I don't see how we can read the Gospels and come up with any other answer. Nor do the lives of Christ's saints lead us to any other conclusion.

If we do not always understand why God allows certain events in our lives — why He permits the evils we do or endure — the saint's witness assures us: the same mercy that restores life, that can reunite mother and son, may also permit death as the prelude to restoration.

— Fr. John Henry Hanson, O. Praem., Saint Monica and the Child of her Tears, 2019

https://stjosemaria.org/saint-monica-child-of-her-tears/

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#199

Post by onecommentman »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #17

It’s worth thinking about how we measure how “good” a life is and if that is superficial and too much influenced by fashion. For example the cliche is go travelling or get rich starting a business. “I raised kids” doesn’t have the same boastworthyness in a lot of circles, but arguably it’s more interesting. Or maybe not. What’s the life well lived metric?

“‘I raised kids’ doesn’t have the same boastworthyness in a lot of circles...”

Wait twenty years and it will be the only thing...

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