She should look at the bright side; at least she's not stuck in an abusive marriage she hastily entered, corrupting a pile of kids in a toxic home.
‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
251–260 of 669 posts
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#252This is not meant to sound like an off the cuff comment, it is not, a lot of thought has gone into this: Remember this piece before you argue with someone that they should move away from their friends, family, their support systems for work or other development opportunities. It Takes A Village, and your local support system is not to be underestimated. In the end, all we have is family and/or loved ones ("chosen fam…
>Remember this piece before you argue with someone that they should move away from their friends, family, their support systems for work or other development opportunities. Blood is certainly thicker than water as they say, for good and for evil. I used to think exactly as you stated the above and I don't mean to suggest how rigid you are but my recent experience with family is that relationships must go both ways, a…
> your attempts at expressing yourself go unheard or ignored then perhaps cutting ties is the right approach.
Sometimes they are actively used against you. In that case the right course of action should even be clearer.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#253The most important thing for humans, is other humans. That gets left out of these types of discussions a lot, I think.
I'm not one to hark back to the "glory days" of primitive society, but original humans operated in relatively close-knit groups, even when those groups were nomadic.
I don't think we've moved on, psychologically, from that. There's a lot of cliches that touch on this, like "social media isn't the same as real relationships," but ultimately I think what Haunted needs is to just pick one place and find a community. A real community, not just girlfriends to drink with once a week.
In our modern, complex society, it's not as easy as it sounds, since we don't all get a community by birthright like a lot of rural communities in the 99% agricultural days did, but there are tools and such to help you find an interest and a community.
In her case, as someone who also aspires to write, there are writers seeking community with other writers in nearly every town in the USA, and definitely every major city. It sounds weird to say you can fix your problems on meetup.com, but there's no substitution for consistent human contact and real friendships that go beyond work functions or weekend softball games.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.'
As an addition, I really love Robert Anton Wilson's flavor of this idea: “under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
Gorgeous, thanks for that!
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#255Perhaps people of my age were lucky to have had this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQbb3FXSEI
Sunscreen causes skin cancer.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#256I could give better advice in a single sentence. To wit, "you should schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist to get screened for adult ADHD." These life problems are classic adult ADHD symptoms. Moving cities every few years. Not being able to hold down a long-term relationship. Your "who-knows-what-number" job. Debt from poor and impulsive decisions. Lack of internal drive. Difficulty making and keeping friends.…
This sounds like me, except the debt and relationship problems.
I'm 90% sure I have add, but I'm afraid treatment would turn me into a zombie. It would be really nice to be able to work on crap at work I can't stand doing, but at the same time it would be awful.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm sorry that I'm bad with people, and wrote a "privileged, muddled whinge." Don't apologise to me! What you got was my take on how you have presented yourself. I've been responsible for hiring people in the past, and I'll hire people again in the future. Maybe my first impression could be useful to you. All you need to do is take it (the criticism) or leave it. Defend it if you want, but there's no-one here inter…
The purpose of getting a CCNA is networking: not only the digital kind, but also the social kind. That could help me get a student visa to be in the right country, where I might meet the right people to help achieve my dream of settling there.
Well, if they're not offering the course than that makes it difficult, and if it turns out it's not the lack of CCNA that's preventing you getting a job then you've not done yourself any favours.
Maybe it will help, I don't know. Good luck though.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#258Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, shorter of br…
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking And you might be racing for something you don't really want. Figure out what you really want before you chase after it. If you're unmarried at 35, do you really want children, or do you think that you're supposed to have children and that doing so will make you feel more fulfilled? Not everyone needs or wants to be a parent and there's nothing wrong wit…
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Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#259Anyone else read the Dear Polly part ...and just couldn't bring themselves to the Dear Haunted / advice part? I felt like just trying to sit in that situation; sort of ponder the whole thing without coming to any conclusions. How many people do I know who could be Haunted? How many times have I been Haunted myself? What got me out of that space? I just couldn't read the advice part. I think to the points when I've be…
IMO, most of the advice given to to the stuff Haunted says is usually the same no matter who the advice giver is. "Just be yourself", "If you stopped being so negative all the time you would be happier", "You can do whatever you want to do", "The only person holding yourself back is you".
I've read a lot of this stuff and it generally feels like a wash. Like someone who has already overcame their problems and is at the high point is giving you these answers and to be honest, there isn't really much advice you can give unless you know them personally. There isn't much you can give a person who is feeling empty and disheartened.
Re: ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When youth starts to fade away, reality kicks in - the highly desirable partners are not interested, and the average ones are already committed to long time partners who valued them in their own youth. You're forgetting about a) divorcees and b) men who have also gone down the same path.
Men don't have the same time pressure to start a family with many starting at 45+. The other thing is men often become more attractive to women as they age due to things like financial success while the same can't be said for women.
They probably shouldn’t though, being an old man when your kids are teenagers isn’t very fair on anyone.