“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Perhaps some extroverts don’t read Twain.
The snopes boards used to have a thread called Unhijackable; it couldn’t be hijacked because the topic was that anybody could post about anything at all. Is that the idea here?
You don’t know one of my cats.
The one who will climb up you, claws and all, if he’s ignored when he wants attention. Which is often.
Is this the thread for introverted French owners of male cats?
I don’t like small talk but I do like talking about my personal life and hearing about others.
What is the meaning of life? We each have to figure that out for ourselves. Maybe that is the great task of living.
I’ve been thinking about my mortality a lot lately. At the rate I’m going I’ll probably be dead by 70. I’m asking myself just how much discomfort I’m willing to tolerate in order to live longer.
Yes, but there are a couple threads here that don’t have set topics, but people give personal information. This thread is like that but personal information is optional.
Last night’s chat was in real time, which was fun. I’m hoping there will be more of that.
This would be an interesting thread topic. Why do you feel that discomfort will allow you to live longer? Perhaps in some cases, more often than not, I think, the opposite would be true.
I had a heart attack and unstable angina 6 years ago. When I had a coronary angiogram, angioplasty, and stent placement I was told that if stent(s) was insufficient, I’d need bypass surgery. I refused to consent to thoracotomy as it would be more pain than I was willing to endure.
The older you get, the more pain you need to endure to live longer, IME. I know exactly where @Spice_Weasel is coming from.
I am talking about the discomfort of healthy living. I guess it’s discomfort now vs probably more extreme discomfort later. My main psychological hurdle is having to spend time on something that isn’t really a lot of fun for me, at the expense of things that are more fun. It’s having to fight against persistent low mood and low energy to in essence become a different person. I’m an object at rest who tends to stay at rest. My passtimes are very cerebral - the Straight Dope, writing, reading… Amd I enjoy long naps with the sun streaming through my curtains. My life is pretty comfortable.
But at the rate I’m going, I’m going to die of heart disease. My Aunt, who is very much like me genetically, and who suffers from binge eating disorder, is currently struggling with a possible diagnosis of diabetes. She’s only 13 years older than me. I feel like this could be my future if I don’t turn things around.
The odds are overwhelmingly against me, and making a change now would mean less time to do the things I love, not to mention giving up that sweet sweet rush of dopamine every time I eat comfort food.
Thus the question - How much discomfort is worth extending my life? Especially given that the odds of failure are about 95% and there are no guarantees that my life would be extended.
Except that you’re predicting a discomfort that might not happen. What if healthy living gave you more energy? What if you got the same dopamine rush from different foods because of different associations? What if learning about new ways of healthy living turned out to be intellectually challenging?
I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Everyone is different. But I think there are some, maybe many, people who feel that healthy living is less discomfort.
My assumptions are certainly worth interrogating. I’ve done the healthy living shtick before. I enjoyed life quite a bit. But it wasn’t comfortable.
I think I’ve just arrived at a moment in time where taking action would be a wee bit easier than it has been historically. I’m motivated to do outdoor stuff with my kid as well as teach him how to eat more things (he is a really picky eater, but I’ve been trying to cook more and expose him to different foods.) I just started a medication that gives me more energy and has a side effect of suppressing one’s appetite. I’ve lost a few pounds since I started taking it. So it’s kind of like… If not now, when?
Heh. I am pretty fatalistic. I don’t even really believe in free will. I’m fine pretending, though.
Kudos on your progress. I hope you find what works for you, and I hope you find it effortlessly.
I was going to add in the last post that for me, there’s some discomfort in the idea that what I’m doing is harming me so that’s a trade-off for me sometimes.
Also, like the meaning of life, I believe we get to choose what healthy living means because as you say, the statistics aren’t a guarantee.
If you want to live longer, and I’m not saying you do, you’ll endure more discomfort than you’d think was possible.
The important word is ‘If’
Baby, I got goals.
I have a bucket list, of a kind, that I intend on finishing.
A post was split to a new topic: Grundig Posts
I’m looking up the definition of introvert. It’s all over the map, but this surprised me, if true.
It doesn’t seem like it to me.
I’m behaving less like an introvert after COVID. It’s very wearing, but probably good for me. Before COVID I limited social interactions to once per weekend. Now I’m doing social things multiple days per week.
Yes, I’m tired. 
But I don’t want my kid to miss out on life just because his Mom’s a stick in the mud.
Yup. Healthy behavior for one person is not necessarily the same as healthy behavior for another. Whether or not one is in good health.
And there are all sorts of intermediary things. It’s not a choice between ‘never move from the couch except to go to the john and eat nothing but potato chips’ (though if that’s the only thing that makes you happy, that’s up to you) and ‘spend six hours every day at the gym, eat nothing but whatever’s on the current ‘healthy’ list and weigh every bite of it’ (though again, if that’s what makes you happy . . . ). There’s also, as you say, playing outside with a kid or a dog or in the garden and cooking neat stuff sometimes for the fun of it, while also sometimes lying on the couch eating chips.
That’s true, and radical attempts at behavioral change tend to be the least sustainable, so there’s that to keep in mind.
I also think about what “they” have been wrong about in the past. At one time, cigarettes were good for you. Eggs were very bad.
Maybe one day donuts will be on the good list. Heh.
Couldn’t you make a Facebook account that you only use for interacting with the SDMB Facebook group?
And have no PII (Personally Identifiable Information) from your real life and only SDMB info. Like the name you use for the account is “Big Tee” as the first and last name and make a gmail account for that Facebook account be “BigTee@gmail” or some such thing?
Eggs have switched places between ‘very good for you’ and ‘very bad for you’ multiple times in my lifetime.
Full-fat dairy appears to be well on its way to doing the same (on this round, for the dairy-tolerant, at least.)