The thing that comes only with age is: to not give a fuck.
When we learn that it doesn't matter we can all be little old people who are purple mohawk headed, wearing clashing neon adidas jumpsuit with zebra primted boas.
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The thing that comes only with age is: to not give a fuck.
When we learn that it doesn't matter we can all be little old people who are purple mohawk headed, wearing clashing neon adidas jumpsuit with zebra primted boas.
I only learned this a few weeks ago at 40 years old, now my hair is blue, both my ears are pierced and I'm a lot happier. I told my 19 year old daughter that "what will people think?" has been my mantra, now it's "fuck 'em"
"at 20, you care the world what everyone thinks of you
At 40 you learn to not care what anyone thinks of you
At 60, you realize nobody has been thinking about you at all, the whole time."
There’s always someone who will look at your life telling you you’re doing everything wrong. And you know what? That’s fine. It really doesn’t matter.
The sunk cost fallacy is a very easy way to get stuck being miserable.
Sometimes a drastic change might be painful at the time but will be much better for you overall.
To just invest in broad index funds instead of trying to play the stock market.
Brushing teeth regularly, and flossing , is more important than I ever realized.
I'm dreading the day my bad mouth hygiene will catch up to me... I know how bad it is but I still can't get myself to brush every night.
Have you tried putting your toothbrush and toothpaste in the shower? I've struggled with brushing my whole life and this is the only thing I've ever tried that actually worked. I also put a brush and paste at every sink but the only time I can ever actually manage to brush is in the shower.
Brush whilst the water is heating up means you're doing your bit to help the environment! And other such half truths I tell myself to get through the day.
I'm a perfectionist and I realized I've been making life too hard for myself. Choosing a low bar for success but keeping the ceiling high has felt like a much healthier approach.
People just don't care about you that much, if you go into the street wearing nail polish as a a male presenting person no one will care if you don't act weird about it. Same thing for shaving your legs.
Family might care though, what helped me was understanding that I spend a few days per year with my family maximum, but I spend that whole time with myself. So who cares what they thinkbe yourself.
This helped me start transitioning at 19
"Fake it till you make it" doesn't mean pretend to be happy until you are happy. I committed to a relationship I wasn't happy in, a career I wasn't happy in, and hobbies I wasn't happy doing, all because I wanted the approval of others. A divorce, career change, and hobby swap made me much happier.
Yeah, fake it till you make it only applies to overcoming self doubt, and should not be used to dismiss glaring problems. It certaibly doesn't work as a cure all for actual problems.
It can in rare cases work for happiness, but only if the reason is one that is just based on self doubt while things are actually going well.
I was never going to "find myself" and so I should have just gone to college with my friends for computer science and made the good money when jobs were easier to get even though I had no interest at all in it. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that jazz. Now I'm a worthless schmuck in a factory living in someone's garage paying their mortgage in rent prices.
All my interests are hobbies, some of them even too expensive for me to do lol they're nothing you can monetize.
All my interests are hobbies, some of them even too expensive for me to do lol they’re nothing you can monetize.
Work is for making money, hobbies are for spending money. I think a lot of people mix that up and lose their enjoyment; money changes your perspective on why you're doing something.
Take heart: had you done comp sci just for the money, you'd be where you are now. Comp sci isn't for greedy people but for people who find it exciting and have no idea their career is timesheets. :-p
The things that don't kill you, do not always make you stronger, but leave you wounded forever.
Any work or study done during an all-nighter is a waste.
If you meet someone and all they do is talk about themselves, they won't be a good friend.
Nobody really cares how you look or what you wear. And anyone who does has bigger issues they would rather not deal with.
Any work or study done during an all-nighter is a waste.
Depends. I did some of my best work at this time (private project. not for my actual workplace).
That it doesn't matter what other people think of me as long as I'm happy.
Your high school diploma. Nobody ever asks for it. No job I have ever held has asked for proof that I completed high school which I didn't. My last job had a class they wanted me to take at a night school and that's when they realized I didn't have it after 7 years of competent, exceptional work, so they just shrugged and got me in there anyways
Your own happiness is more important that somebody else’s happiness.
Not to say you shouldn’t be nice or help people, or invest in other people’s growth.
But don’t do it to the detriment of your own.
You can just ask people out. You can just ask to kiss someone. I was in my mid 20s when someone told me the first one, and late 20s when someone told me the second one. Dating got a lot easier after each revelation.
You can just ask people out.
I know I can, but you think I dare do that?
Not too late but later than I should have:
Relationships can be anything you want them to be. I wish I spent less time trying to figure out if someone liked me and just tried to have fun with everyone I met.
Compound interest.
Stoicism. The philosophical ideas of how to live a purposeful and good life.
Manage your finances. Know where every penny goes. Budget as best as you can - plan for all of the things you know you spend money on through a year. It doesn't mean you can't spend money on things you like, but it does mean that you know when you can afford it. It gives you confidence and control no matter how much you are making.
When someone is abusive or hurtful to you, 90% of the time it's not your fault. It's that there is something wrong or something broken in them. They are malfunctioning and it's necessary to understand that.
The other 10%.... Well, own that and fix your mistake.
But a very large majority of the time, it's them being broken and wrong.
That it's never too late!
That I have moderately severe to severely severe ADHD and I'm on the autism spectrum.
Makes functioning as an adult quite difficult.
It's OK to only do what you KNOW you are capable of doing. Too many people hurt themselves trying to push themselves too hard, when they just aren't ready yet.
My family is never going to return the favor. Should've gone to school instead of taking care of them.
Lying can get you ahead in the immediate, but then you’re a liar, and liars lose friends and alienate people.
Take it sleazy. Not for everyone, but for some people the most productive way of getting stuff done is doing it with less effort. Don't go too fast and burn out
Probably would’ve been nice to know I was trans a few years younger but I started hormones at 20 as did a friend my age who came out at 16, so like it probably would’ve been less consequential than much.
The importance of studying. And related, calculus and how electricity works. Both would’ve saved me a lot of money to have learned 6 months earlier.
Also how to say no to someone trying to negotiate your boundaries and use your kindness to push you into a relationship. I should’ve walked away the second she said she wanted to negotiate my no and that she wasn’t going to give up on pursuing me. That situation fucked me up and wasn’t even the first time someone with insufficiently controlled bpd wound up pressuring me into romantic/sexual situations I wasn’t comfortable with by making it harder to say no than to give what they wanted.
Dad was not lying on top of mum to squash her.
No matter how much 6yr old me was complaining after entering their room early one morning.
you don't have to make a living from the thing you enjoy most in life, in fact it's sometimes better not to.