Hey!
Continued from above:
Age 28, even sven says “bah” to me. Tres disappointes.
I have no life either. I work 4-midnight. I have no friends who work the same shift. I haven’t seen any of my old friends since I moved to this shift back in January. I see my GF maybe twice a week when I have days off. I don’t know when those days will be though because the work schedule changes from week to week.
And you’re giving up your soul? I’m sorry, but you’re being melodramatic. You’re giving up some time in your youth and some social activities. This will end. You will graduate school, make new friends, have more time, etc. The status quo is not the future.
Go back and read my previous post again. The bit about the car accident. I’ve had three knee surgeries in not quite as many years, the latest just a week ago. I can’t walk right now, I can’t bend my leg, I can’t drive. For the most part I don’t bitch about it, because I know it’s not permanent. It will get better. It’s a temporary set back and things will get better. Once you stop believing that, once you allow yourself to wallow in self-pity, it’s not easy to come out of it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself or you’ll forget how to enjoy the little things. I’ve been there.
So don’t count on outside forces to help you remember you’re a part of the world. Don’t wait for a holiday or a meteor shower. Make your own time, it’s possible. you’re stressed, that much is obvious and it seems to me in your stress, you’re relying too much on outside forces to make you happy. So you missed the annual meteor shower, I missed the SuperBowl last year cuz I had to work. You move on. Make yourself happy. Take time out of each day to forget the stress. You say you can’t remember the last time you made or recieved a phone call just to talk? Go do it right now. Get offline and make a phone call just to talk to someone. Don’t expect the world or the people around you to get you through because ultimately only you can get yourself through this.
Have you ever just taken a break? Just for yourself, a little 5 minute break? I do it all the time. Go outside and look up. Look at the stars. That light you’re seeing is millions of years old. That light just now reaching your eye started travelling from that star while dinosaurs still walked the earth. It travelled all that distance, and for what purpose? Just so you can see it right now, possibly. That star may not even be there anymore, it may have burnt out thousands of years ago, but the light from it still travels the universe. Just for you to look at. Take your shoes off and run your toes in the grass. When was the last time you rolled down a hill like a little kid? Take time out for yourself. Put things in perspective. Not enjoying life and the little things around us is a choice one makes.
What’s gone? Halloween? It’ll be back next year. Same with the meteors. It’s not gone, it’s just postponed. Find something to fill the void. Make up for it. You missed out watching the leonids with your friends? Call your friends and get together to do something else. Sure, it’s not the same as what you had planned,but it’s better than nothing. It’s better than sitting in a pile of your own pity wishing things would be better.
Take the initiative. Happiness is attitude.
Hope and looking forward to things are fine. The difference is, don’t rest your happiness on those things. Be prepared for something to interfere with your plans. You have to be adaptable or you’re going to hit a wall at almost every turn. The point of my previous post is that in life things rarely go exactly the way you want or plan. You have to accept that and be prepared for it when it happens. So go ahead and hope and look forward to things, but be prepared to accept the outcome when things don’t happen the way you want.
You can do what I did above - look at your life and pick out every little disappointing detail. Or you can look at it and pick out all the details that fulfilled your expectations.
Sorry if this sounds mean, but life is a series of disappointments. I know. The car accident was disappointing. My fiance dumping me was disappointing. My dog dying last month was disappointing.
But there’s a flip side to the coin:
Life is also a series of joys too. Learning to drive was a joy. Getting that first car was a joy. Falling in love was a joy. Getting that puppy 16 years ago was a joy.
Stop focusing on the depressing parts of life or soon that’s all you’ll see or remember.
Sven,
I am in no way undermining your right to be dissapointed with some of life’s blows. But to get you out of your funk think of it this way. Answer yes or no to the following questions:
-
Do you not have a roof over your head?
-
Do you have serious concern over where your next meal is coming from?
-
Do you have not one person who genuinly cares for you?
-
Are you suffering from a terminal illness?
If you answered no to all of these questions then it can’t be all that bad.
Just think about it this way: no matter how bad things get, they can ALWAYS get worse, be greatful they’re only as bad as they are now. If you are unhappy with something in your life, change it. You are the only person responsible for your happiness.
Well Sven, you are more than welcome to adapt the motto that I’ve lived with for the past 8 years or so:
Expect the worst, because everything after that is a pleasant surprise.
wow…I thought at 22 I had a good handle on megalo-drama what with a recovery from an eating disorder, an attempted suicide attempt, a decent recovery from mental illness (depression), living with years of verbal abuse and a horrific sexual harassment situation which plagued me for all of my formative adolescent years…oh and to top it off being abused by a high school teacher that I still have to occasionally see…which I’ve all managed to somehow thwart without effectively slashing my wrists and end up at least semi-literate but desperately bored in my parents basement as I wait for my law school applications to be…well accepted…leaving me umm, bored and inclined to fall into one my funks that frequenly spirals into months of despondency. Not to mention how the terrorist attacks have affected my personal life. But reading all your posts made me realise that
a.) I could have it worse
b.) There is probably ever so much megalo-drama to look forward to.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry as I think about this. Hell, at least my ass isn’t in Afghanistan…that’s all I have to say.
Good lord…four brothers with muscular distrophy? That is just…totally unfair somehow in the grand scheme of things…no other way to put it.
Is this what they mean by “killing with kindness?” I never expected a pissing match about who deserved to be depressed.
Un-fucking-believable.
I think that the problems with threads like these is that your material life doesen’t matter when compared to someone elses. Apples and pianos.
For my own life I am always happiest when everything is going wrong. Because before that I looked at my life and thought about it like lezlers. I always thought that I had no real reason to complain because on the outside my life was good. That made me depressed because in reality my life was pretty horrible.
I could make friends easily, but I didn’t want friends. I could make straight A’s in school if I had ever put forth any effort, but I never cared enough. I was kissed at age 14, but I didn’t care about that either. I thought I had only myself to blame for the way I felt and it killed me.
Now on the outside my life has gotten a little worse maybe, but as far as happiness goes I have improved dramatically. I just stopped listening to other people. I stopped comparing my life to others and trying to judge it that way because I realised that what happens to you has little to do with how happy you are. Happiness comes from how you react to what happens to you.
And whatever you do do not listen to the advice of “Be grateful because you could have it worse.” Because people often just like to make themselves feel better by posting all the things they have overcome.
In my chemistry class on Thursday, my teacher assigned a project. For our class period (2A) it was the day after tomorrow (this Tuesday.) The class period following ours gets to wait till after Thanksgiving break, i.e. a whole extra week. When I announced that it wasn’t fair, my teacher swiveled towards me and quipped,** “Life isn’t fair.”**
God, things really suck when you don’t believe in God anymore.
If only I was a moderator. I’d rename threads at a whim.
This, I would dub **Pity Party.
Thanks Sterra, that sums up what took me most of my second post in thread to get to.
The first post was meant mostly in tongue and cheeck (c’mon, who remembers their birth?) and that was before sven explained there was more to just missing the leonids and Halloween. I didn’t mean for people to start comparing and contrasting the level of suckitude in each other’s lives.
Most of the remarks I made in the second post about what I’ve been through compared to sven wasn’t so much to tell her she could have it worse and just suck it up, but to show through example that I’ve had my rough spots too so I know how it can feel.
Happiness resides in your self, sven. Just look for it.
I meant it in a “wow, maybe I should stop and re-evaluate all the really good things in my life.” At least my life is now on a steady(er) uptick…reading other posts made me feel a little bit better and like I got a good truckload of trauma in a scarey, compressed way…hell, maybe it will all be roses from here (crosses fingers).
As far as I’m concerned one (and I do it all the time) can always find legitimate complaints about their life and get seriously depressed about it. Hearing that everyone is going through crap makes me search less for that stuff and think a lot less about the past.
not in any pissing contest,
anu
Almost my thoughts exactly.
This is basically a thread to see who’s life sucks the most.
Well you know what? My life hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve had countless blessings besides.
Life is what you make of it. You do the best you can and keep your chin up.
Above all else, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Ugh.
Yeah, you can look at it that way if you want to disregard the posts that follow where people say that was not their intent. Keep in mind, before sven explained the context of why what happened sucked so badly, it did seem rather mild to cite those things as a “series of disappointments.”
Um, sven, IANAP(yet), but may I humbly suggest that you talk to someone about this? (Perhaps at your schools guidance/counseling center?)
Crying yourself to sleep every night, fundamental sadness and a complete lack of hope are some pretty clear signs that you need someone to talk to, as far as I’m concerned.
Unfortunately, it appears that unless you have had your eyeballs gouged out by wild boars, your dog run away from home, and your best friend having an affair with your SO, you’re not going to get much sympathy here on the SDMB.
Please speak to someone about this - you don’t need to feel sad all the time, even if you are busy.
Al.
[sub]when a person says they’re hungry and you tell them about starving people in Ethiopia, it doesn’t make them less hungry, it just makes them bitter.[/sub]
Sven, darling, you need some time for yourself.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and a little psychotic from frustration. You have no friends because you have no time for them. Find a way to free up some time. You can’t run at that pace for that long with out getting burned out, which is what it sounds like.
In the meantime, make the SO take you away for a weekend. That’s the SO’s job, ya know.
I’d like to thank all those who listed the woes in their life. I’ll explain why.
Bizarrely, for an average looking grumpy kind of guy, my wife is beautiful and far too good to me.
I love my work, and the company is succesful, much to the chagrin of me and the two other founders.
Since moving to Scotland the people have been horribly friendly, to the extent that a dreaded placement in a cold land has become the place I want to stay for the rest of my life.
And on todays news it looks like the upcoming winter should be great for snow, and I was just emailed by two friends in Whistler who have just invited us and some other friends over for a fortnight long ski party in February.
I’d just like to thank all of you who are suffering minor trials and tribulations. It would appear that I’m riding the flipside of your karma, resulting in a ridiculous series of lucky breaks. In exchange for this, if you send me your names and addresses I’ll happily send you a ‘thank-you’ card.
Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m off to take advantage of some flexi time and get some cycling in - the blue skies and cool air are just too much to resist, and the local hills have some great trails.
Gary - you crack me up.
As for me - when I was a lad, I had t’ live in shoe box in middle o’ t’road. Licked floor clean f’ breakfast. Twenty-seven of us, there was. We were thrashed within an inch of our lives every morning.
Then I had to go down pit - twenty miles uphill BOTH ways. Worked 32 hours a day.
Mind you, I had it easy. Bloke in our road - name of McCourt - you should’ve seen HIS life.
You folks these days don’t know you’re born.
pan
And you accuse me of being a comedian.
You’ve apparently still got your teeth and there are two tomatos waiting for you at home. Should they not contain any bug protein, I think you’re well on your way to a better tomorrow.
sven, you’re young; I do not mean to sound condescending, but a lot of what you’re feeling now will disappear on it’s own when you grow older and more experienced at living. I have never been as happy in my life as I have been in my 30’s (and I have a long history of depression).
- Don’t compare your life with other people’s; there will always be people better and worse off than you. No one has a perfect life. You never know what people are going through or feeling. I’m known as an extremely calm and unflappable person, and I have an anxiety disorder that I deal with every day.
- Appreciate small things, and live in the moment. I had a moment of sublime happiness this morning, because my bed felt so comfortable, and my bedroom was just the right temperature.
- Worry is useless. Do what you can, forget about the rest. You get the same result if you worry about something for weeks, then do it, than if you just did it. This is a hard lesson for me to live, but I’m working on it.
- Give yourself small pleasures. You’re on the right track with your two evenings that you enjoy, but do more of those, and rely on yourself to make them enjoyable. My SO had a crappy birthday one year, so he decided that he was going to go to the zoo on his birthday every year (which he really enjoys), and to heck with whether anyone else remembered it or not. He allows me the pleasure of accompanying him now, but he would still go whether I was there or not.
- Don’t forget to count your blessings, like we all need to. I’m jealous of you because you’re doing what you love. I would give up a lot of things in this life to figure out what it is that I love, and get on the path to doing it.
So, there you go. Me on my soap box once again, passing on my words of wisdom for all to see and enjoy.
{gets off soap box, picks it up, sticks it back in closet for next time}
At least you have friends sven…
