What drives you crazy

[lily_b]

People who work in an open office and insist on eating at their desks, slurping and sloshing their food and saliva so that everyone can hear it. Every. Freaking. Day. And then typing really loud and fast so that no one else can think straight.

 

[TheRealCallie]

People who work in an open office and insist on eating at their desks, slurping and sloshing their food and saliva so that everyone can hear it. Every. Freaking. Day. And then typing really loud and fast so that no one else can think straight.

I hate that anywhere. lol

 

[Claudia1794]

When my long-haired tabby cat gets in the car because the window is down but I don’t know he is back there and he doesn’t wake up and make an appearance until I’m damn near to work.

 

[user 139760]

Arrogance and indifferent people. I return it in kin.

 

[Claudia1794]

When my knees swells like a grapefruit and all movement is painful. Plus, I don't like having to favor my other leg because it eventually starts hurting...and the limp isn't cool.

 

[TheSkaFish]

No no this is interesting, to mee.

I think the argument is, if there was no monetary way to distinguish between say a road sweep and a doctor, no one would want to be a doctor. Most people my age want to be TikTok or OF famous, because that beats anything else, monetary wise. I dont hear anyone saying I want to be a doctor ever. I am the weirdo of my friends for wanting to be a counsellor lol.

Or maybe not limiting it to age, but you have 2 years in your life, and you can only cash it in once. As truthfully not everyone is ready to find their path at any age. Some people go through crazy things, and are still expected to function.

Do you want to be successful Ska? If you could choose something to be successful in, what would it be?

I understand that. It would be very hard to get anyone to want to put up with the studying, stress and pressure, and risk of being a doctor, if it paid the same and had the same social status as a janitor. I don't know if it's possible to get to that point, or if it would even be a good thing to do (that said, doctors who are in it mainly for the money and status, tend to not be as good of doctors, as the ones who are in it because they're actually interested in the material, and/or interested in helping people).

I don't know about your age group though. I find it hard to believe that most people want to be TikTok or OF or other social media famous, just because it makes the most money the easiest. I'm sure some people still want to be in professions, or at least performances like pro sports or entertainment. In my time, which isn't that much older than your time, plenty of people still wanted to be professionals. I think there must still be people out there who are interested in doing serious things because they're genuinely into it.

Do I want to be successful? Well, I'm starting to get to the point where I want to either be successful or dead, one or the other. So yeah, you could say that. If I was a praying person, I would pray to be given an avenue to success - not to take me there, but just for it to be possible for me at all - to wake up whatever potential I might have, or if I don't have any, then mercifully put me out of my misery as quickly and painlessly as possible. I wish I could look forward to a next world to go to, but I struggle with that.

I'm starting to wish that if I wasn't born genetically gifted enough to be successful, then I wish I wasn't born or conceived at all, any of it. Because if I can't be successful, then I was just born to be frustrated, humiliated, powerless, miserable, and then die. It's like if I can't be successful, then I feel like I'm not even supposed to be here at all. My conception and birth were mistakes. I wasn't good enough for this world.

I'd rather have a shorter life as a successful person, than a long life as a mediocre/unsuccessful person. When I was in bad jobs, I hated every waking second of every day. Nothing made me happy, ever, because I felt like I was inherently inferior/a loser/incompetent/with no potential and fit for nothing but servitude and exploitation, and nothing took the edge off that. It felt like nothing was going to get better, and I had nothing to look forward to. I couldn't go back to the things I liked before, because how much they made me feel good, versus how much a bad job made me feel bad from feeling like I must be inferior, wasn't even close. There is no movie, no tv show, no video game, no band or song, no website, no topic, no fandom, nothing, that makes me feel good enough to make up for the feelings of inferiority and powerlessness that being unsuccessful makes me feel. I couldn't work some ****** minimum wage job and then come home and watch Star Wars, that wouldn't work at all. I wouldn't even care enough to be interested. If feelings were numbers, then in an unsuccessful life, the positive side is just gone, it's not available. Negative is the default, and the best I can get to is zero, and I can only get there through drinking. It temporarily lifted the weight of powerlessness and despair, and allowed me to just feel nothing but wanting another drink.

I don't want to feel like I'm in life to be subservient and submissive and low status. If that's what I am, it's time to "check out early". I need to be in some sort of skilled work/profession, to feel like I'm "just OK", "normal", capable and competent. To have an at least normal level of pride and dignity. Not inferior or a loser. It's one of the most important things to me. I need to be able to have a life I at least tolerate, I need to be able to look myself in the mirror and look other people in the eye and feel like I can be assertive and challenge them if need be, instead of being someone who has to take it in life, because I'm inferior. I need to be able to be at least OK with myself, without that much, nothing else matters.

The problem is I don't know what I can get good enough at to do that, because I've never felt naturally good at anything, and I never felt like I got much better through practice. I always thought that practice only really helped people who were born good at things, get even better, that you needed to be above a certain threshold to start with and have a high enough skill ceiling - through genetics - for practice to do anything for you. Otherwise you were just fooling around pretending to do something that you really can't do. If I don't feel like I can get good at something, I lose interest fast, because I feel like it's not going to be my avenue to success, pride, and a better life, so it's hard for me to care that much about it.

But without feeling like there's anything I can see myself getting good at, it's hard for me to say what I find that interesting. That's the problem, I'm not interested in skills, I'm interested in proving that I'm at least normal/not inherently incompetent/inept/inferior/mediocre/limited - while at the same time fearing that my lack of being naturally good at anything, is proof that I'm inferior. Either way, it's been hard for me to get that interested in anything. I don't have a skill I like doing or a field I like learning about, or a cause I care about. I care about not being a servant/loser/inferior/low status.

I guess that's been where I've been stuck.
Sorry if I rambled but this is basically what I feel 24/7, all the time.

 

[user 190541]

I understand that. It would be very hard to get anyone to want to put up with the studying, stress and pressure, and risk of being a doctor, if it paid the same and had the same social status as a janitor. I don't know if it's possible to get to that point, or if it would even be a good thing to do (that said, doctors who are in it mainly for the money and status, tend to not be as good of doctors, as the ones who are in it because they're actually interested in the material, and/or interested in helping people).

I don't know about your age group though. I find it hard to believe that most people want to be TikTok or OF or other social media famous, just because it makes the most money the easiest. I'm sure some people still want to be in professions, or at least performances like pro sports or entertainment. In my time, which isn't that much older than your time, plenty of people still wanted to be professionals. I think there must still be people out there who are interested in doing serious things because they're genuinely into it.

Do I want to be successful? Well, I'm starting to get to the point where I want to either be successful or dead, one or the other. So yeah, you could say that. If I was a praying person, I would pray to be given an avenue to success - not to take me there, but just for it to be possible for me at all - to wake up whatever potential I might have, or if I don't have any, then mercifully put me out of my misery as quickly and painlessly as possible. I wish I could look forward to a next world to go to, but I struggle with that.

I'm starting to wish that if I wasn't born genetically gifted enough to be successful, then I wish I wasn't born or conceived at all, any of it. Because if I can't be successful, then I was just born to be frustrated, humiliated, powerless, miserable, and then die. It's like if I can't be successful, then I feel like I'm not even supposed to be here at all. My conception and birth were mistakes. I wasn't good enough for this world.

I'd rather have a shorter life as a successful person, than a long life as a mediocre/unsuccessful person. When I was in bad jobs, I hated every waking second of every day. Nothing made me happy, ever, because I felt like I was inherently inferior/a loser/incompetent/with no potential and fit for nothing but servitude and exploitation, and nothing took the edge off that. It felt like nothing was going to get better, and I had nothing to look forward to. I couldn't go back to the things I liked before, because how much they made me feel good, versus how much a bad job made me feel bad from feeling like I must be inferior, wasn't even close. There is no movie, no tv show, no video game, no band or song, no website, no topic, no fandom, nothing, that makes me feel good enough to make up for the feelings of inferiority and powerlessness that being unsuccessful makes me feel. I couldn't work some ****** minimum wage job and then come home and watch Star Wars, that wouldn't work at all. I wouldn't even care enough to be interested. If feelings were numbers, then in an unsuccessful life, the positive side is just gone, it's not available. Negative is the default, and the best I can get to is zero, and I can only get there through drinking. It temporarily lifted the weight of powerlessness and despair, and allowed me to just feel nothing but wanting another drink.

I don't want to feel like I'm in life to be subservient and submissive and low status. If that's what I am, it's time to "check out early". I need to be in some sort of skilled work/profession, to feel like I'm "just OK", "normal", capable and competent. To have an at least normal level of pride and dignity. Not inferior or a loser. It's one of the most important things to me. I need to be able to have a life I at least tolerate, I need to be able to look myself in the mirror and look other people in the eye and feel like I can be assertive and challenge them if need be, instead of being someone who has to take it in life, because I'm inferior. I need to be able to be at least OK with myself, without that much, nothing else matters.

The problem is I don't know what I can get good enough at to do that, because I've never felt naturally good at anything, and I never felt like I got much better through practice. I always thought that practice only really helped people who were born good at things, get even better, that you needed to be above a certain threshold to start with and have a high enough skill ceiling - through genetics - for practice to do anything for you. Otherwise you were just fooling around pretending to do something that you really can't do. If I don't feel like I can get good at something, I lose interest fast, because I feel like it's not going to be my avenue to success, pride, and a better life, so it's hard for me to care that much about it.

But without feeling like there's anything I can see myself getting good at, it's hard for me to say what I find that interesting. That's the problem, I'm not interested in skills, I'm interested in proving that I'm at least normal/not inherently incompetent/inept/inferior/mediocre/limited - while at the same time fearing that my lack of being naturally good at anything, is proof that I'm inferior. Either way, it's been hard for me to get that interested in anything. I don't have a skill I like doing or a field I like learning about, or a cause I care about. I care about not being a servant/loser/inferior/low status.

I guess that's been where I've been stuck.
Sorry if I rambled but this is basically what I feel 24/7, all the time.

I think you should first of all consider why you give so much importance to status and all of that, because, clearly, most people don't, at least not as much as you do. People hate ****** jobs not because they're "low status" per se, but because they're demaning jobs that offer very little pay. I think most people don't give a damn about what society thinks about them and their jobs, and rightly so. If you ask a street clearner if being a street cleaner makes him an inferior person to, say, a lawyer, he's probably gonna answer something along the lines of "absolutely not! why the hell would it?". So, maybe seeking some counseling could help in your case. Many people benefit from it. In truth, I've known people who really believed they were inferior to others, and were even okay with it, but not because of status in itself, but rather because there's still this almost Platonic notion around here that if you're uneducated, not only you're inferior to the educated few, but, because of your ignorance, you deserve to be ruled by the few educated, superior people that hold onto power. So far I've only found this in people who came from the rural parts of the country, and it's no doubt related to the country's aristocratic and agrarian origins, but even among those people this is on the decline, being substituted by a more modern way of looking at things.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I think you should first of all consider why you give so much importance to status and all of that, because, clearly, most people don't, at least not as much as you do. People hate ****** jobs not because they're "low status" per se, but because they're demaning jobs that offer very little pay.

Oh no, I definitely hate them for that reason as well.
I'm not just talking nonsense here either. I've been in bad jobs, and it felt as terrible as I said it was. It made me feel like I was there because I was too incompetent to do anything else, to do complex enough work that would advance me in life, and that I was fit only for servitude and being exploited, being drained of my time. It made me feel like society was making me its b****, basically. As a result of that, and feeling hopeless about making a better life for myself, I enjoyed nothing, was interested in nothing, cared about nothing, looked forward to nothing. Like I said, the only thing that made me feel better was drinking every chance and excuse I could get.

And don't forget the sheer BOREDOM of being in unskilled work. I used to think that I was bored in school but it's not even close. At least school is building you up somehow. In unskilled work though, you're just being drained of your time, instead of being developed, like in school. You're being taken from, not added to. You feel like you're just doing nothing with your time, not learning anything that's going to make you better, not getting smarter or more capable or growing or making progress in any way. You're working just so you can survive to live a life that sucks, so you can work, to live a life that sucks...it's a loop from hell that never leads to anything better. Nothing you could do there adds up to anything or leads to a meaningfully, significantly better life. It's a no-win situation, the only way to "win" is to somehow learn a skill outside of there so you can leave.

I give importance to status, for quality of life, to have self-esteem, to be able to believe in myself, have hope for the future, to have something to look forward to, to believe I have the power to make my life better. I don't want to be forced into being servile and submissive. I want to be bold and proud, and I want to feel like I have a reason to be, through knowing I'm competent at something. I want to feel like I have potential.

Also, I guess people value different things. For me, it is important to me to feel at least equal to the majority of the people around me, and the people I consider my peers. I want to feel like I'm more or less as intelligent and competent as them, and equal in ability, and therefore equal in...I don't know, quality I guess, for lack of a better word. They're the people that I would want to be seen as similar to, at the very least. I want to know that I'm competent enough to do what I consider normal, and that I'm not just hopelessly limited, especially in terms of genetics. I want to know that I'm competent enough to build a life that doesn't suck.

I'm sorry if what I said was offensive in any way. But these are things I feel intensely. I don't want to go to counseling so I can feel OK with being low status/in unskilled work. And I don't really want to get drunk/high so I can be OK with it either. I don't want to be OK with it at all. All I want to do is escape. All I want is the peace of mind that I have more in me than that.

 

[CenotaphGirl]

I understand that. It would be very hard to get anyone to want to put up with the studying, stress and pressure, and risk of being a doctor, if it paid the same and had the same social status as a janitor. I don't know if it's possible to get to that point, or if it would even be a good thing to do (that said, doctors who are in it mainly for the money and status, tend to not be as good of doctors, as the ones who are in it because they're actually interested in the material, and/or interested in helping people).

I don't know about your age group though. I find it hard to believe that most people want to be TikTok or OF or other social media famous, just because it makes the most money the easiest. I'm sure some people still want to be in professions, or at least performances like pro sports or entertainment. In my time, which isn't that much older than your time, plenty of people still wanted to be professionals. I think there must still be people out there who are interested in doing serious things because they're genuinely into it.

Do I want to be successful? Well, I'm starting to get to the point where I want to either be successful or dead, one or the other. So yeah, you could say that. If I was a praying person, I would pray to be given an avenue to success - not to take me there, but just for it to be possible for me at all - to wake up whatever potential I might have, or if I don't have any, then mercifully put me out of my misery as quickly and painlessly as possible. I wish I could look forward to a next world to go to, but I struggle with that.

I'm starting to wish that if I wasn't born genetically gifted enough to be successful, then I wish I wasn't born or conceived at all, any of it. Because if I can't be successful, then I was just born to be frustrated, humiliated, powerless, miserable, and then die. It's like if I can't be successful, then I feel like I'm not even supposed to be here at all. My conception and birth were mistakes. I wasn't good enough for this world.

I'd rather have a shorter life as a successful person, than a long life as a mediocre/unsuccessful person. When I was in bad jobs, I hated every waking second of every day. Nothing made me happy, ever, because I felt like I was inherently inferior/a loser/incompetent/with no potential and fit for nothing but servitude and exploitation, and nothing took the edge off that. It felt like nothing was going to get better, and I had nothing to look forward to. I couldn't go back to the things I liked before, because how much they made me feel good, versus how much a bad job made me feel bad from feeling like I must be inferior, wasn't even close. There is no movie, no tv show, no video game, no band or song, no website, no topic, no fandom, nothing, that makes me feel good enough to make up for the feelings of inferiority and powerlessness that being unsuccessful makes me feel. I couldn't work some ****** minimum wage job and then come home and watch Star Wars, that wouldn't work at all. I wouldn't even care enough to be interested. If feelings were numbers, then in an unsuccessful life, the positive side is just gone, it's not available. Negative is the default, and the best I can get to is zero, and I can only get there through drinking. It temporarily lifted the weight of powerlessness and despair, and allowed me to just feel nothing but wanting another drink.

I don't want to feel like I'm in life to be subservient and submissive and low status. If that's what I am, it's time to "check out early". I need to be in some sort of skilled work/profession, to feel like I'm "just OK", "normal", capable and competent. To have an at least normal level of pride and dignity. Not inferior or a loser. It's one of the most important things to me. I need to be able to have a life I at least tolerate, I need to be able to look myself in the mirror and look other people in the eye and feel like I can be assertive and challenge them if need be, instead of being someone who has to take it in life, because I'm inferior. I need to be able to be at least OK with myself, without that much, nothing else matters.

The problem is I don't know what I can get good enough at to do that, because I've never felt naturally good at anything, and I never felt like I got much better through practice. I always thought that practice only really helped people who were born good at things, get even better, that you needed to be above a certain threshold to start with and have a high enough skill ceiling - through genetics - for practice to do anything for you. Otherwise you were just fooling around pretending to do something that you really can't do. If I don't feel like I can get good at something, I lose interest fast, because I feel like it's not going to be my avenue to success, pride, and a better life, so it's hard for me to care that much about it.

But without feeling like there's anything I can see myself getting good at, it's hard for me to say what I find that interesting. That's the problem, I'm not interested in skills, I'm interested in proving that I'm at least normal/not inherently incompetent/inept/inferior/mediocre/limited - while at the same time fearing that my lack of being naturally good at anything, is proof that I'm inferior. Either way, it's been hard for me to get that interested in anything. I don't have a skill I like doing or a field I like learning about, or a cause I care about. I care about not being a servant/loser/inferior/low status.

I guess that's been where I've been stuck.
Sorry if I rambled but this is basically what I feel 24/7, all the time.

I see and respect you vulnerability in this Ska I think what you are describing has been coined as the “stress of the rat race”. So many people all trying to be successful at something, however, the only avenues mapped out are ones to jobs that has an influx of naturally gifted people.

There are so many paths Ska and I genuinely think you are worth more than the media will allow you to think you are, you’re not just a number

I think it’s hard for me, the only thing my father wanted for me was endless travels and Champagne glasses, he never expected anything of me so the pressure just is not there. So I cant pretend to know how much it hurts. What do your parents do Ska, could you follow in their footsteps ?

 

[okidoke]

Oh no, I definitely hate them for that reason as well.
I'm not just talking nonsense here either. I've been in bad jobs, and it felt as terrible as I said it was. It made me feel like I was there because I was too incompetent to do anything else, to do complex enough work that would advance me in life, and that I was fit only for servitude and being exploited, being drained of my time. It made me feel like society was making me its b****, basically. As a result of that, and feeling hopeless about making a better life for myself, I enjoyed nothing, was interested in nothing, cared about nothing, looked forward to nothing. Like I said, the only thing that made me feel better was drinking every chance and excuse I could get.

And don't forget the sheer BOREDOM of being in unskilled work. I used to think that I was bored in school but it's not even close. At least school is building you up somehow. In unskilled work though, you're just being drained of your time, instead of being developed, like in school. You're being taken from, not added to. You feel like you're just doing nothing with your time, not learning anything that's going to make you better, not getting smarter or more capable or growing or making progress in any way. You're working just so you can survive to live a life that sucks, so you can work, to live a life that sucks...it's a loop from hell that never leads to anything better. Nothing you could do there adds up to anything or leads to a meaningfully, significantly better life. It's a no-win situation, the only way to "win" is to somehow learn a skill outside of there so you can leave.

I give importance to status, for quality of life, to have self-esteem, to be able to believe in myself, have hope for the future, to have something to look forward to, to believe I have the power to make my life better. I don't want to be forced into being servile and submissive. I want to be bold and proud, and I want to feel like I have a reason to be, through knowing I'm competent at something. I want to feel like I have potential.

Also, I guess people value different things. For me, it is important to me to feel at least equal to the majority of the people around me, and the people I consider my peers. I want to feel like I'm more or less as intelligent and competent as them, and equal in ability, and therefore equal in...I don't know, quality I guess, for lack of a better word. They're the people that I would want to be seen as similar to, at the very least. I want to know that I'm competent enough to do what I consider normal, and that I'm not just hopelessly limited, especially in terms of genetics. I want to know that I'm competent enough to build a life that doesn't suck.

I'm sorry if what I said was offensive in any way. But these are things I feel intensely. I don't want to go to counseling so I can feel OK with being low status/in unskilled work. And I don't really want to get drunk/high so I can be OK with it either. I don't want to be OK with it at all. All I want to do is escape. All I want is the peace of mind that I have more in me than that.

Ska, I'm going to sound a little harsh here, maybe too harsh, but your arrogance is too much. Yes, arrogance. Who do you think you are? No really, think about that for a moment. You're basically saying "I feel like I should be as good as everybody else around me". As talented, as skilled, as intelligent, as attractive maybe too. You think that everybody else just got where they are without any effort? Yeah, sure some actually do due to family money or the like, but most people just have to put in heaps of effort to get anywhere. And if you have a look around the world, there are people in less developed places living contented lives with so much less than what's available to you right now. Maybe go live in one of those places and discover how such people are getting by, how they view life, what gives their lives meaning. You could learn skills they have learned, to survive with limited resources, build an abode, cook creative meals, etc, etc.

I apologise, because I sound too critical of you and am giving you a hard time, but I really don't intend any malice. I'm trying to get you to see a different POV, to change your focus on what you don't have and refocus to what you can do, and maybe that what you're thinking is so important to your "success" really isn't that important.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Ska, I'm going to sound a little harsh here, maybe too harsh, but your arrogance is too much. Yes, arrogance. Who do you think you are? No really, think about that for a moment. You're basically saying "I feel like I should be as good as everybody else around me". As talented, as skilled, as intelligent, as attractive maybe too. You think that everybody else just got where they are without any effort? Yeah, sure some actually do due to family money or the like, but most people just have to put in heaps of effort to get anywhere. And if you have a look around the world, there are people in less developed places living contented lives with so much less than what's available to you right now. Maybe go live in one of those places and discover how such people are getting by, how they view life, what gives their lives meaning. You could learn skills they have learned, to survive with limited resources, build an abode, cook creative meals, etc, etc.

I apologise, because I sound too critical of you and am giving you a hard time, but I really don't intend any malice. I'm trying to get you to see a different POV, to change your focus on what you don't have and refocus to what you can do, and maybe that what you're thinking is so important to your "success" really isn't that important.

Who do I think I am - well, an at least normal person. I don't understand how it's arrogant to say that I'm normal. I don't know how much more I need to do to prove that I'm just normal, not even anything special. I don't think I'm a superior person, but I do feel like I'm at least a normal person. At least average intelligence/mental capacity, and therefore I should be capable of learning how to do something that requires at least average intelligence, that a person with average intelligence should be able to do. There should be some middle ground somewhere, between things you have to be a superhuman for, and things that you don't need any intelligence to do at all. If I'm not even a normal person though, then I'm really in trouble.

I'd like to think I'm at least mentally equal to the people I grew up with. Sure, there were some really smart people there, so maybe not them, but not all of them were the second coming of Einstein. They aren't Bill Gates, or professional athletes and rock stars. They're just normal people. I mean, I made it through courses like calculus in college so it's not like I'm completely unable to process complexity at all. I was never the best, but I was never a remedial student either. In fact I was considered at least mildly smart, but it's that "mildly" that I was always insecure about - I always worried that I was smart enough for it to register on a test, but not smart enough for it to translate to any meaningful effect on my quality of life. I always felt like the least smart of "the smart people". But I could coast through normal courses easily enough - not ace, because I wasn't interested enough, but I could get through well enough on autopilot. The trouble is, math and science, the technical ones, were always hard though - and of course those are the ones the world cares about the most. It always bothered me that the things that was basically what got you anywhere in life, were the things I had a hard time with - just my luck.

The "kids in Africa" thing never did much for me though. Sure, I know there are kids starving in the Third World, it sucks and I certainly don't like that that is the case. But knowing that someone else is doing worse, doesn't make my own life better. Also, I think people in Third World countries are content because as the saying goes, "ignorance is bliss". They don't know how much better their lives could be, what they're missing out on. What us in the First World would consider misery, they don't know anything else. I think if you're going to be unsuccessful, then yeah, it's best to be as naive and ignorant as possible so you aren't tormented by how bad you have it. Another thing, it also probably helps that a lot of people in the Third World take it for granted that there is some kind of afterlife to look forward to going to, which gives them a reason to slog through this world, and will make all the misery of this world worthwhile. Personally I'm very skeptical of an afterlife, as much as I wish it were true.

Do I think people just got to where they are without any effort? I don't know. It did certainly always seem that way. It seemed like what you were born as, was the kind of person you were. I never saw an unathletic person become athletic, or a remedial student become one of "the smart people", through effort - or for that matter an "unpopular" person become "popular". I always felt like things like "hard work", "effort", and "practice" only multiplied what you were to start with. I didn't think they could transform you into something other than what you were born as. I thought that stuff only did something for you if you were born good in the first place, then it made you even better. Otherwise I thought it would maybe get you a little better, but not enough to have any real effect on your life. As we know, anything multiplied by zero, equals zero. I thought you had to have something to develop through practice in the first place, for practice to have any real effect.

For example - I ran cross country and track most of my 4 years in high school. I did the same practice anyone else did on the team. Did I improve? Sure. Was it enough to make me one of the "good" people though? No way, not even close. And the "good" people? They started off good at it, and when they practiced, they improved by leaps and bounds. But at the end of 4 years, I was still worse than they were day 1 of their freshman year. That's how I thought practice/effort/hard work worked. I improved a little bit, but not nearly as much or as quickly as the kind of person that's actually good at that thing and supposed to be doing it, and I didn't even improve to the point they started at naturally. I mean, there were other benefits to doing it, and I'm glad I did, but if my goal was to be good at it, or call myself an athlete, then no, it didn't work.

In adult life though, I don't know. Most people never really seemed like they approach their jobs, and for that matter their lives, with the same level of dedication that a professional athlete approaches their sport. A lot of these people seem to live for media entertainment, pro sports, getting drunk or high, and junk food, rather than professional achievement - sorry if that sounds mean but that's what I've seen. I don't even mean that as a judgment - they can do what they want, it's none of my business and I don't care anyway - it's just a statement of fact. I never felt like I saw these people that put in heaps of effort - instead I felt like I saw people operating at their default level of ability, all their lives, and just did whatever that was good enough for - what came naturally to them. They don't seem like they're going all-out or taking anything that seriously, and they still do OK, not awesome perhaps, but OK. Good enough. I guess I really don't know, I could be wrong. But that's how it seems to me.

I don't understand the last line though. "What I'm thinking is important to my success isn't important". Quality of life? Feeling capable and competent, especially as much as the people I grew up with and the people around me, as much as the average person seems to have? Doing something that gets me somewhere, and therefore allows me some measure of pride, instead of doing something that drains me of my time because it's assumed I lack potential? Those are all extremely important to me. In fact I'd say it's most of the point of life for me.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I see and respect you vulnerability in this Ska I think what you are describing has been coined as the “stress of the rat race”. So many people all trying to be successful at something, however, the only avenues mapped out are ones to jobs that has an influx of naturally gifted people.

There are so many paths Ska and I genuinely think you are worth more than the media will allow you to think you are, you’re not just a number

I think it’s hard for me, the only thing my father wanted for me was endless travels and Champagne glasses, he never expected anything of me so the pressure just is not there. So I cant pretend to know how much it hurts. What do your parents do Ska, could you follow in their footsteps ?

Thanks. It really has been hard for me, because I don't know what I can be good at, or would even be interested in doing enough to get good at. I always worried that life is all about being naturally genetically gifted, and that if you're not gifted, you can't get anywhere at anything, you're going to be stuck in a life that sucks, actively working to get nowhere, and that's it. It doesn't matter how hard you work, if you don't have enough ability at something in the first place to develop it into anything through practice, then anything times zero is zero. I've always hated that. And I always knew that if I was going to work anyway, then I wanted to work to get somewhere, to make my life better. It was always the whole point. Otherwise, I'm working to just barely survive, just to live a life I hate. If that's the case, I feel like...maybe I should just skip to the end.

Like I said in my response earlier, growing up I felt like I was considered one of the "smart people" but only mildly - enough for it to show up on a test, but not enough for it to have a meaningful difference in my life. I never felt like I was truly gifted, or if I was, then I was the least of the gifted people - so marginally that it was functionally the same as if I wasn't gifted at all. The problem is, I'm smart enough, to know that I'm not smart enough. I can't be blissfully ignorant.

The thing is, it doesn't matter what the media thinks I'm worth - what matters is my own quality of life, and ability to be capable and competent enough to do something to give me a sense of confidence, pride and dignity, self-esteem, interest in and liking myself. I need to feel like I have potential. I need to feel like I can get in motion and work for my own advancement, my own cause of making my life better. Working to actively get nowhere, would be hell for me. Your quality of life doesn't improve, no matter how hard you work, because you're not allowed to work on anything considered valuable enough to improve your life. Everyone looks down on you as lacking in potential, fundamentally inferior/limited, and that you're fit only for servitude to the genetically superior people to achieve their goals and make their lives more comfortable and convenient, because you're not competent enough to do anything to serve your own purpose or advancement. I always knew I didn't want that. I don't like the idea of being limited and stuck and frustrated, it's humiliating to think I have no competence at all, and the idea that I exist to be subordinate and submissive to someone else, instead of for myself, is degrading.

Your father had the right idea in providing a good quality of life for you, and in caring about something beyond himself. But it was all possible because of his brain. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a brain gym or brain dealer. Obviously I didn't know him, but I'm sure he didn't go from dumb to smart, I'm sure he was smart all his life. As far as expectations go, I guess the expectation always was that I should be able to at least get some kind of knowledge work career. That was what was seen as "normal". That was the culture, in town, at school, and at home - the emphasis on education and mental work. I don't come from the culture of the trades, I don't have the body for it, and I don't have any knowledge of it or feel like I'd be good at it. And I don't feel like I'd fit in there either - partially because I'm not good at it and partially because it is a macho culture, and I think you have to have the right personality and cultural background, you have to be born into it, otherwise you don't belong. It's not that I think I'm "too good" for the trades, so much as I think I'm unsuited to it. I never felt particularly mechanically inclined.

 

[TheSkaFish]

PS


The problem is I don't know if I'm truly suited for knowledge work either, because like I said, I don't know if I'm that smart. Again, I've always felt just smart enough, to know that I'm not smart enough. I just know I have more brains than brawn, or I have so little brawn that I have more brains by default. I arrived at majoring in business because at the end of high school they said I didn't have the math grades for engineering, so business was the next highest paying thing. But my heart wasn't in it, and I got off course because I thought the world was going to end within my lifetime due to running out of oil so it didn't matter what I did anyway, and I got really anti-capitalistic for a while - which I wish I hadn't done, not because I believe in it but because I never should have made my problems political, when they were always personal instead. I should have just done what's best for ME and ignored the world. I would have been much better off if I stayed ignorant of politics. The more class-unconscious I was, the better. It's weird. I'm kind of a leftist, but also kind of a materialist at the same time. So it's like I'm both and neither.

One thing has always been constant though - that it's important to me to know I have more potential, capability, and competence, than to be in menial/service work. I've always known, and I mean always, that that's not what I want to be and that I could never be OK - let alone happy - with my life and myself, in that situation. And if that's going to be my life, then I'm never even going to feel OK again, never mind happy. That's what I mean, if I'm going to hate every waking moment of the rest of my life because it makes me feel inherently limited and inferior, and my quality of life is going to suck, then why would I want to keep living? Some days, fear of the physical pain of ending my life, and fear of there being no afterlife, is the only thing keeping me going. Some days it's hard to see another reason, and if I knew a next world existed, there's a good chance I'd already be gone. Also, I'm not really religious, so I can't even take comfort in a higher power. I know you do, and that is OK, I respect others' beliefs, but I just don't feel it myself.

It's not even for women, it's deeper than that. It's for me. I need to know I have more in me than that, for myself, just to feel OK. But that's the thing. I don't know what field I'm actually interested in, or that I would be good at. Like I said, I feel like I have no muscle, and I'm only smart-ish. Also I'm not extraverted or cunning so sales is out. So I don't know what that translates to. I think I'd feel good with something where I'm doing a task - not serving people because again I don't like feeling like I exist to be a servant - but something where I know what I'm doing and can just do that task all day.

I used to think running my own business was for me - I'm working for myself and my own advancement, which has always been important to me, rather than being submissive and subservient to other people. But, I don't know what I could get good at to go into business doing, cause that's what people are paying for - expertise at something they can't or don't want to do themselves. And I don't really have practical interests - I always found that stuff dense and dry. I realized through thinking back on my life, that for most of my life my interests were more about liking things made by others, rather than doing things myself, because I didn't think I could. I've never really been interested in this world much. But it's hard to get anywhere if you're not.

As far as my parents - that's the trouble. I'm reluctant to talk about them on here because I don't want to seem like I'm trashing them, it's not nice and not a fair representation of them, it's not like we never had any good times ever or that they have no redeeming qualities. It's just that unfortunately, career success wasn't one of them. They didn't pick majors based on money, didn't get that great of jobs, and quit those jobs prematurely. My dad tried to play the stock market and long story short it didn't work at all. In the least mean way possible - I don't want to follow in their footsteps, because it's led to a quality of life even worse than we started with, that I would never be happy with. I never really did, even before things got worse, exactly because of this. If that's what I have to look forward to...then I have nothing to look forward to. Again sorry if that's mean, but it's honest. That was the problem with us. My parents didn't have good jobs, but emphasized niceness. I looked around me, and a lot of the people that didn't care about niceness but were cold and aggressive instead, also seemed to have stuff. So it made me wonder if we weren't natural losers, that there was a dichotomy between niceness and a good quality of life. It was always a big source of insecurity for me.

My brother is closer to something I'd feel better about but it's not without its downsides. He is basically a finance guy, but he does put in long hours, and has all but completely devoted himself to his work. He doesn't really do too much outside of it, just a little bit here and there. But he's married though, so he doesn't have to worry about that as much anymore unless he wants to.

I'd like to do something normal, but with enough work life balance to become interesting, because I have to do something to get someone interested in me - which is another problem. I feel like I've been juggling trying to get a normal job, and trying to learn how to be an interesting person, at the same time - while doubting if I can get good enough at anything to do either, and it burns me out.

I know this is a lot. But thanks for listening and bearing with me.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Just wanted to say, that was super long and not fun.

Feel free to bail on it at any time, absolutely no obligation to read, I understand and it's fine.

It's just a rambling vent.

 

[okidoke]

Just wanted to say, that was super long and not fun.

Feel free to bail on it at any time, absolutely no obligation to read, I understand and it's fine.

It's just a rambling vent.

I don’t mind all the reading, but there is so much to unpack that I’m hesitant to begin a response. Maybe I’ll try a little.

When I said “less developed place” I wasn’t really meaning Third World. I just meant little villages etc where people seem humble and content and busy doing “life” and have no desire to pollute their lives with tech.

True, you aren’t aware of the effort others put in. You assume too much about their natural abilities and expect to be just as “normal” as them. And how you talk about “menial” work also makes you sound arrogant and that such work is beneath you.

Running a business can be great, but it can also be full of obstacles, red tape, competitive challenges etc etc. It can be soul destroying and extremely stressful.

I’m going to stop here.

 

[user 190541]

I read your whole comment, Ska, you're an interesting guy (lol?), but, as okidoke said, it does seem that your unhappiness has a lot do with an unsatisfied pride, which is OK, we all gotta have something to pride ourselves on. Perhaps you should try to find something to be proud about. I doubt that superficial measures of success and self-worth are the only things you're capable of feeling proud of.

 

[TropicalStarfish]

nm

 

[CenotaphGirl]

Just wanted to say, that was super long and not fun.

Feel free to bail on it at any time, absolutely no obligation to read, I understand and it's fine.

It's just a rambling vent.

Awh let it out Ska! I think the hardest part is being misunderstood. Trust meee you arent the only man who feels this way, there are loads of men who's biggest fear is they didnt reach their full potential. However, I think you have tied an awful amount of sselfworth with something fleeting. Even with the perfect job, you will retire one day, you will become less able as the young new whippersnappers if thats what they are called lol and you will be replaced. Harsh reality we live in. So maybe look at it as a journey to self discovery whilst you learn about what you could excel in but understand, your worth as a person to your friends and family, will never include what you do for a living.

 

[user 135671]

Just wanted to say, that was super long and not fun.

Feel free to bail on it at any time, absolutely no obligation to read, I understand and it's fine.

It's just a rambling vent.

I agree with the Princess. I wouldn't say it's a fear but I do know I haven't reached my full potential and I can live with that.

Most of my life I've had a high sense of self worth, I was lucky enough to realise quite early on that the consequences of low self worth can be huge. Depression, risky behaviours, the willingness to tolerate abusive treatment, and a nagging sense of failure to reach your own potential are all signs of it. I honestly believe, low self-worth is often the cause, not the effect, of hardships in life, whether they are financial, relational, physical, and so on.

 

[okidoke]

................there are loads of men who's biggest fear is they didnt reach their full potential. .....................

....... I do know I haven't reached my full potential and I can live with that.........

I know I never reached my full potential. I honestly believe I was meant for more impressive things, but I've accepted my lot in life. I'm well aware of what held me back, but I'm not going to blame my genetics, my intelligence or my looks because they're just not good excuses in my opinion. Why? Because there are many, many people who have lacked in all of those things and made good success in their life. I wasn't strong enough to overcome what things caused me setback, so I have to own that. If I want to become good at something this late in my life, I know I could do it, if I really put my mind to it, but I also know that I just don't have the motivation now. I don't care anymore.