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I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

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Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#421

Post by Chris2048 »

shard wrote: post #385
dgfitz wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hesitate to endorse Robbins. He’s had a litany of sexual abuse claims against him, among other legal problems

I despair at the modern trope of dismissing something of worth due to a person's thoughts/actions in an unrelated area (in modern parlance, "cancelling" someone). It seems like an ad hominem attack to me. How will this trend evolve in the future? Will the works of people like Beethoven, da Vinci, Einstein be cancelled due to them being meat eaters? (Substitute someone of equal stature if the people listed are actuall…

> in an unrelated area

But what his area? If it's living a successful, balanced life like himself, then his person problems are relevant to his self-help franchise.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#422

Post by krageon »

3qz wrote: post #303
otikik wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could try to focus on my hobbies, but you realize very quickly that to get good at anything, you need hundreds/thousands of hours. The point of hobbies is not "getting good at them". It's enjoying them for their own sake. Otherwise they turn into ... work. > I'm just a blip in the universe and when I'm gone it will be unchanged, the same as if I had never existed. Yes. The Universe doesn't expect or have any spec…

> The point of hobbies is not "getting good at them". It's enjoying them for their own sake I think his point is that being really bad at something is no fun. If my goal is to have fun I would rather do something I will enjoy right away.

> I think his point is that being really bad at something is no fun

Children are terrible at everything but they have a lot of fun anyway. Clearly it is possible, which makes this a mindset issue. Thankfully, that is within your power to change. Start having fun today :)

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#423

Post by krageon »

frontman1988 wrote: post #409
qwerpy wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that this comment got downvoted. There's hundreds of millions of years of evolution that codifies "you should have children" into our genes, and it's not hard to see that this has something to do with how middle age can feel meaningless if you don't. Just because it's difficult and/or not fashionable to have kids these days, doesn't mean those biological imperatives aren't still there, subtly affecting your…

I would rather be sad than bring children into this world just for my own selfish reasons. Not to forget the fact that how we are polluting the planet and not doing enough to counter climate change, there's a good chance life is gonna be tougher for upcoming generations.

This line of thinking exterminates itself. It is better to have kids and raise them to actually take care of the world around them, otherwise the sum total of future culture will be shaped by people that don't care about that.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#424

Post by krageon »

theguru2323 wrote: post #306
scrollbar wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you're getting downvoted maybe because of the mean spirit of your comment, but your idea is probably held by many, to which I say: Therapy can be such a powerful force for self-discovery and mental well-being. To think that believing a given philosophical statement can have the same effect as deep inner work is to completely write off the power of therapy. I would highly recommend it for anyone who has gro…

I think that ship has sailed. Even the word "therapy" has lost all meaning, just like "mental health" and we are all just conditioned to believe that the only way to achieve anything is through group think and therapy. If you're fucked up, try drugs, (preferably the _legal_ kind, but certain herbs work really well) before you try therapy. Therapy is expensive for a reason; it's 50% a scam.

Your implication that anything expensive is closer to a scam is of course nonsense. An MRI is very expensive, but it is not a scam. An oncologist is expensive, they are not a scam. Therapy is expensive and it is not a scam (because it works for most people, most of the time).

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#425

Post by krageon »

slothtrop wrote: post #350
ectospheno wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found that therapy is a bit like minecraft in that the people knocking it have almost certainly never tried it.

Colloquially "therapy" tends to refer to just talk-therapy. It's useful to the extent that talking out your issues with someone is useful, but at $100/h. There are forms of therapy as interventions that are generally shown to be effective according to research (e.g. CBT and variants), and I think we'd be rid of a lot of confusion by better distinguishing one therapy from another.

You are describing a paid friend. That is indeed vapid and baseless. Therapy is something you seek for meaningful long-term change in an area of your life that you see as an impediment to living. All health care is (or should be) focused on that question: What do you see as a problem. If your therapist just wants to sit down to listen to you vent for an hour and asks for $100 for it, find a new therapist. Preferably one that went to school.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#426

Post by swores »

goatherders wrote: post #401
mjg59 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having spent time in biology, being CEO of Google is a way more realistic goal than curing cancer. As far as the moon, I grew up on Star Trek and the idea of spending my life in space and seeing new things was absolutely what I wanted. But once I found that Earth contained a lot of utterly fascinating people, being able to meet them mattered more to me than spending a shitload of time getting as far away from them as…

Well sure. But if one is looking to find "purpose" in life then neither a unicorn nor being ceo of Google does much relative to curing cancer or space exploration. I guess i found it interesting that the suggested "purposes" were so....meager.

Considering the huge role that Google plays in many peoples lives and in many other businesses, surely the CEO has a huge potential to do good (or evil). Hell, they could decide to invest shitloads of Google money into cancer research and space exploration.

It's not a career path I'm shooting for, but if you made me Google CEO tomorrow I doubt lack of purpose would be an issue.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#427

Post by paulcole »

CRConrad wrote: post #414
paulcole wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's good enough for (the other) animals, why not for us too? My cat drinks from the toilet.

It's water. I drink water too. I didn't lick my kid clean when he was a baby either, but on the level of having him in the first place your cat and I -- and you -- have more in common than not.

Yeah except as people we have options for how to respond to our needs and instincts.

We can open a bottle of Evian instead of drinking from the toilet. We can cook an Impossible Burger instead of stalking, hunting, and devouring a cardinal in the front yard. We can run a bath instead of licking ourselves. We can realize having kids is a terrible choice given what we know about the world and choose to not have them.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#428

Post by needlefish »

roci-ceres wrote: post #286
cl42 wrote: post #271

The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has lived the future that he once dreamed, sees life as a tragedy; for he has learned that his power, however great, will not prevail against those forces of accident and natu…

how would one go about skipping directly to the thrid?

IMO it would be something like not trying to skip anything. Really internalizing and enjoying the folly of youth as it happens.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#429

Post by dangerface »

andruby wrote: post #250
dangerface wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't get much out of it - don't worry, they will. Im very selfish I get nothing out of helping others but I do it anyway and usually it ends up hurting the person I am trying to help, as the help is unwanted or the way I was helping was unwanted. You would think people would just be grateful for you trying but it turns out they are just as focused on themselves as myself. It seems most people don't really w…

That’s a very pessimistic view. I’m sorry you’ve had such experiences. Are most of those in the context of your work or also in the context of family, friends and neighbors? I’ve had mixed reactions with work, but usually good reactions when helping people in my social circle.

> That’s a very pessimistic view. I’m sorry you’ve had such experiences.

It is and I would like to change it tbh but I mostly don't want people to resent me.

I think the issue that cause those bad experiences is specifically I try to help when its not wanted and I find it difficult to figure out when help is actually wanted. Often people will say "Im fine" when they are not and really want some one to show interest and listen to them. Some times they are fine and are tired of every one prying, I just don't have the emotional intelligence to determine between the two.

Its easier (safer) for me to do nothing and wait for some one to explicitly ask me for help which never happens, no one wants to be a burden even tho I would quite welcome the burden.

I recognise this problem is solely a me problem and I would like to improve on this but its difficult to know when to help and when to leave alone. Some one else suggested I "get real" but I don't know what that means or how to do that. I tried touching grass it was wet still no idea how to help people without them explicitly asking.

Thanks for replying I think the differences between helping in work and social is true and something I haven't really considered before perhaps that can help me understand when to help.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#430

Post by oonerspism »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #405
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality does surprise me now and then by reifying a meme I laughed at a few years ago. Usually the physical manifestation is less funny than the original meme though. I think it was all related to the 2016 US election which is when those 4chan chaos magicians joined forces to elect ‘orange Pepe bad’ to troll normies.

Man what a funny prank that was. Truly hilarious.

50 million tonnes of sarcasm pressing down upon this comment has produced a diamond.
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