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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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431–440 of 464 posts

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

#431

This is always a tough subject for me because everyone seems to have at least an idea of what they want to achieve. When I was younger I had these silly dreams of moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich (haha). I did become a programmer and got married, but never left the country or became rich. Now on my 30s I know how limited my options are.…

> moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich

I still dream of those things, except getting married. TBH 30s isn't that late - things get far more difficult if/when you have kids.

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

#432
post #83

The problem with many people today, is that their only measure of success is whether they are a success in the eyes of others, often strangers or people they don't even care about. Find out what you really want, don't care what others think. This way it's much more realistic to have success, and you will probably also be much happier. I don't think many would want to be a CEO if they didn't care what others think.

I really only stopped caring what people thought after I got divorced (I was 43 at the time). Before that, it was 'the big house', 'the bmw', 'running the cool business'.. ostensibly, showing off to everyone else how impressive I could be (I wasn't). I felt like a fraud because I hated what I was doing. Others still had more money, a bigger house, and a cooler car. It was an arms race and I was losing. But when all o…

Your comment is packed with wise advice. Once you lose too much and you must rebuild one's life, there is a fascinating perspective shift that happens auto-magically. For you, it was going through divorce. Mine was becoming refugee. Still, we all came out on the other life with similar lessons. Glad that you shared your experience. My best wishes to you cmollis.

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

#433
post #19

Poor bastard. I think a lot of older people really don't understand this, but our generation (late millennials, or at least middle-class late millennials) were genuinely fed the lie our whole life that we were special and could do anything. At some point, you have to admit to yourself that you're just an ordinary human being and Elon Musk has something special that you don't have. Only when you're in this mindset can…

Elon had starting capital. Never forget that he had the ability to have a soft landing all his life.

Every immigrant has starting capital, be it money or knowledge or courage. What you make out of it is totally uncertain. Do you know there used a time when he was a broke teenager, in a foreign individualist society, scrambling for cash to pay rent or take a shower?

Let's see what that Prince from England will do in the next five years in North America. He's got all it takes to succeed in a capitalist country. So, can we expect for him a much brighter financial success than Musk's? I have many doubts.

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are very rarely the main character in the various stories that would get written about the time we are alive by an omniscient narrator. Most of our lives are much too boring to hold the reader's attention.

knowing this, should we do intentionally lift-and-coast? Get out of the rat-race? Going to a medical test center in America is insightful. Old folks who drive alone to get tests they know the results to, to take prescription drugs they know don't work. Tax money and or insurance is supporting this right?

What about making the choices you want each day - and doing the very best you can for yourself, and also those around you?

I don’t mean just monetarily. Doing the best you can ethically, morally, etc.

I realize some of that is subjective - but “don’t let perfect get in the way of good”.

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

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am describing what it indeed often becomes, but even clients who describe it as such may still care to pay for the privilege. Ethics aside there's no rigorous standardized approach for general psychotherapy. A therapist can draw from any direction.

If seeing a therapist is to be maintained indefinitely, then it's not triggering meaningful long-term change. You can't chalk up a problem of this scale to a matter of education.

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

#436
post #385
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…

I would encourage you to read at least the Wikipedia page of Robbins. I’m no fan of cancel culture either, but he doesn’t seem like a good person or someone I’d take advice from.

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

#438
post #28

There's something cross cultural here that just doesn't cross. I can't relate. I'm responsible for me - my success, my failures. I also sure as hell better check on my neighbour and lend a hand. Fulfilment comes from within, not externally. Results driven fulfilment comes from the gradual achievement of small goals, slowly combining into larger goals. They can be as small, as simple as reading a book. The best advice…

I take it this writer would agree with that. It sounds to me like he can’t figure out why he can’t just do that in his own life.

I also cannot relate. My parents drilled into us the ideas of discipline, hard work and an absolute refusal to quit. I’m not super successful. I’m not a CEO. But I’ve accomplished more in my life so far than I thought I would.

Or perhaps my expectations are too low…

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

#439

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…

Man come on. This sounds like you've tried to help some people you care about with issues that are down to a lack of discipline (addiction, financial problems, etc), and people resented you for it. Now you're writing off all charity and volunteerism because of it? Get real. This is just lazy nihilism.

Im not trying to write off all charity and volunteerism, my comment is about myself and the problems I have trying to help others, I simply noticed that how I was trying to help wasn't helping.

For example you'r comment to "Get real" what does that mean? I assume you don't think I am a robot I assume you mean it as genuinely trying to help in the way you might tell an addict to get real or grow up its a platitude telling them to stop doing the thing they know is bad.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you but I have had a realisation about the way I try to help people, does it help them?

Will they stop being addicted? probably not, most likely they have heard it before and will just take offence at being talked down to they will double down on the bad behaviour out of spite.

Does it help me? When I tell people to grow up it boosts my ego makes me feel like I know what I am talking about, like their problems are so easily solved if only they where on my level of understanding.

When I realise that my style of help, helps no one and nothing but my ego is it really help? No it's not, its simply me being arrogant.

When I realise that my style of help is no help at all should I continue to subject people to it? No it's not helpful to do so, I don't need my ego stroked and I don't want to hurt others with my good intentions.

This doesn't mean that I am agains't helping others I simply realised a problem with how I specifically was trying to help others, I was just trying to boost my ego.

I wish I could claim this realisation as my own but in truth it was pointed out to me. If some one pointed out that your idea of help was the same as mine could you accept this realisation or would you become resentful?

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

#440
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. Otherwise they turn into ... work. For some of us, the point of almost any endeavor in life is to be “good” at them. That isn’t even to say you can’t enjoy it, or you have to feel anxious about whether you’re good enough at it. The point is the go through the process of becoming good at the things you choose to do because we…

I disagree on the hobbies I like trying to get to excel on the ones that stick and then suddenly. Once I prove I can do it I relaxed. For example on photography went on the competition cycle and ended with some winners and with one picture on a good museum for awhile.

After that the pressure was off and now I just do dog photo's for instagram from the dog park :)

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