# Olaf's dilemma. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 21, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893 "2013-01-21T07:48:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/1 "2013-01-21T07:48:23Z")
Some time ago, I have described the situation of my friend Olaf: > [@](#): > > Olaf The Innocent was convicted of a crime in 1990, when he was still young. Since then he lived in a Stockholm prison. Now he can be granted parole whenever he wishes. > > Nevertheless, he has a comfortable room with a private shower cabin, good color TV with 15 channels, good food, library access, some video games. His knowledge about prison rape, gangs, etc. is limited to the films he saw about the horrible US prisons. > > Should he just leave everything? Where will he stay in the cold Stockholm winter? Why should he work in a restarant? Unfortunately, the situation is a bit complicated. Olaf is working on a special program. Yet a female guard and a male guard are angry at him for not doing his work well. His life with these guards is not perfect. Olaf threatened to quit his job and the guards threatened to kick him out – although I doubt the threat is serious. What should/can he do? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_I\_Am](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@Sam\_I\_Am](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_I_Am)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/2 "2013-01-21T16:57:33Z")
This, again? Olaf needs to build a life of his own. Why should he work in a restaurant to be able to afford somewhere to sleep in the cold Stockholm winter? Because that is life. Facing challenges, adversity, and building our own meaningful lives is what it’s all about. Staying voluntarily in a prison is not living. What is meaningful about what you are doing now? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/3 "2013-01-23T03:19:34Z")
> [@Sam\_I\_Am](#): > > This, again? > > Olaf needs to build a life of his own. Why should he work in a restaurant to be able to afford somewhere to sleep in the cold Stockholm winter? Because that is life. Facing challenges, adversity, and building our own meaningful lives is what it’s all about. > > Staying voluntarily in a prison is not living. What is meaningful about what you are doing now? I do not know, for Olaf Swedish prison is life as he understands it. How can he change everything he is used to? ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/4 "2013-01-23T03:46:33Z")
Just out of curiosity, why bother couching anything in analogy/metaphor/whatever, at this point? It could not be more clear that you’re Olaf, the prison is your home, and the guards are your parents, whom you still live with at the age of fortysomething. Honestly, I’m not threadshitting, but the jig is up. Just ask the question for yourself like an adult, and not for “a friend.” Anyway, I’ll ask the same thing I asked in a previous thread: what are you planning to do when your parents are dead or unable to care for you anymore? You need to learn to support and take care of yourself. That is why you need to move on and form your own independent life. And if you have to work in a restaurant (the horror!) to do that, then so be it. If your parents have threatened to kick you out, perhaps you should take this as a chance to start a new life for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/5 "2013-01-23T03:58:16Z")
Find and care for a little bird. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/6 "2013-01-23T04:41:54Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Olaf threatened to quit his job and the guards threatened to kick him out – although I doubt the threat is serious. What should/can he do? You should move out on your own. Sorry, forgot that this is for a “friend.” _Olaf the Innocent_ should move out on his own. He should take that ten-dollar-an-hour job as a fry cook at McDonalds, find a crappy apartment in a shitty part of town and live on his own. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/7 "2013-01-23T12:38:45Z")
At some point - maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe with much notice and maybe with none - the guards will leave, the prison will close, and the longer Olaf postpones reintegration into society now, the harder it will be for him once he is evicted from the prison grounds. So Olaf needs to put forth effort and struggle **now** while he is younger, more capable, and create an employment history via even menial labor at first, to show that he is a dedicated and able worker, and thus a good person to hire for better jobs. If Olaf lounges and stagnates for years and years, and then finds himself without shelter, he will have little luck in finding not just meaningful work, but **any** work. And who would **want** to hire older Olaf under those circumstances? When asked what he had done with himself, what excuse can he give that will sound appealing to an employer? It was too hard adjusting to the outside world a decade prior? Two decades, three, four? What employer would think, “But of course, only **now** are you a fully-formed, capable adult who understands the working world and can give his all to this menial task!” Olaf clearly fails to understand that we all must strive to better our situations, and that he is making his own prison out of his preconceptions and scorn for simpler labor. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/8 "2013-01-23T13:34:47Z")
Is Olaf using his maths PhD? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/9 "2013-01-23T19:24:47Z")
> [@Rollo\_Tomasi](#): > > Just out of curiosity, why bother couching anything in analogy/metaphor/whatever, at this point? It could not be more clear that you’re Olaf, the prison is your home, and the guards are your parents, whom you still live with at the age of fortysomething. Honestly, I’m not threadshitting, but the jig is up. Just ask the question for yourself like an adult, and not for “a friend.” Given my passion for writing, I have to use literary analogies. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/10 "2013-01-23T19:25:58Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > _Olaf the Innocent_ should move out on his own. He should take that ten-dollar-an-hour job as a fry cook at McDonalds, find a crappy apartment in a shitty part of town and live on his own. The whole idea seems so unimpressive to him given his current situation. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/11 "2013-01-23T19:27:56Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > At some point - maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe with much notice and maybe with none - the guards will leave, the prison will close, and the longer Olaf postpones reintegration into society now, the harder it will be for him once he is evicted from the prison grounds. > > So Olaf needs to put forth effort and struggle **now** while he is younger, more capable, and create an employment history via even menial labor at first, to show that he is a dedicated and able worker, and thus a good person to hire for better jobs. > > If Olaf lounges and stagnates for years and years, and then finds himself without shelter, he will have little luck in finding not just meaningful work, but **any** work. Thank you. He does not think in terms of long – term plans. All his plans like becoming a writer have crumbled – so he thinks in terms of now. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/12 "2013-01-23T19:48:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > _Olaf the Innocent_ should move out on his own. He should take that ten-dollar-an-hour job as a fry cook at McDonalds, find a crappy apartment in a shitty part of town and live on his own. > > > [@CCitizen](#): > > > > The whole idea seems so unimpressive to him given his current situation. Look, you’re unhappy with the situation as it is. So perhaps you’d be happier even if you’re living in a crappy apartment and working at a minimum wage job, simply because you’d be on your own, and responsible for your own fate. You’d no longer be able to blame your parents for the situation in which you find yourself. And stop pretending this is about a friend. That’s not helping you grasp reality. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/13 "2013-01-23T23:42:50Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Look, you’re unhappy with the situation as it is. So perhaps you’d be happier even if you’re living in a crappy apartment and working at a minimum wage job, simply because you’d be on your own, and responsible for your own fate. You’d no longer be able to blame your parents for the situation in which you find yourself. And stop pretending this is about a friend. That’s not helping you grasp reality. Olaf got parole in 1998, but he returned to prison 6 months later. He got another parole in '03 and returned in 8 months. Should he try again? Why? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/14 "2013-01-24T00:17:27Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Olaf got parole in 1998, but he returned to prison 6 months later. He got another parole in '03 and returned in 8 months. Should he try again? Why? Your little story of poor Olaf serves only to romanticize your all-too-mundane tale and to allow you to believe that you deserve consideration not given to others. You are apparently using it as a defense mechanism against feelings of inadequacy. You say you only think in terms of now, but we are **always** living in now. Someday, your now will be a true tale of woe if you consider in this fashion, rather than a “oh woe is me, must **I** of all people slave away in meaningless tasks?” melodrama of your own making. If you’re not convinced by the argument that someday - perhaps even tomorrow - your parents will probably die before you and may well leave you homeless and incomeless in the process, then nothing else I say will have any effect. Goodbye, and I wish you luck because you’ll need every bit you can get. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/15 "2013-01-24T00:33:26Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > Look, you’re unhappy with the situation as it is. So perhaps you’d be happier even if you’re living in a crappy apartment and working at a minimum wage job, simply because you’d be on your own, and responsible for your own fate. You’d no longer be able to blame your parents for the situation in which you find yourself. And stop pretending this is about a friend. That’s not helping you grasp reality. > > Olaf got parole in 1998, but he returned to prison 6 months later. He got another parole in '03 and returned in 8 months. Should he try again? Why? Have you ever talked to anyone in real life about your situation? A real-life friend, perhaps? A rabbi, priest or other religious official? An actual counselor? Because I think you could really benefit from speaking to someone about this. (I admit that I’m curious whether you use the “Olaf” metaphor if you ever did so.) ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/16 "2013-01-24T00:55:50Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Given my passion for writing, I have to use literary analogies. It’s a false analogy. Prisoners have no choice but to stay in prison. You can get a job and move out any time you want. As **Ferrett Herder** said, you use this Olaf story as an excuse for not getting on with your life. As long as you continue to believe that you are in the same situation as a prisoner, there’s no way that any of us can help or advise you. What are your plans for when your parents are no longer able to support you? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/17 "2013-01-24T01:03:23Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Your little story of poor Olaf serves only to romanticize your all-too-mundane tale and to allow you to believe that you deserve consideration not given to others. You are apparently using it as a defense mechanism against feelings of inadequacy. Few people can understand me without being in my position. As I have said I dream(ed) about being a writer, thus I can find the best expression to fit my situation. ---
**Author:** ![Sevencl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sevencl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevencl)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/18 "2013-01-24T01:04:14Z")
… wow, that went from an interesting thought experiment to creepy rather quickly. Anyone got a link for the previous threads someone implied exist? More specifically the part the conversation became about a creepy, autistic sounding old guy refusing to move out? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/19 "2013-01-24T01:04:47Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Have you ever talked to anyone in real life about your situation? A real-life friend, perhaps? A rabbi, priest or other religious official? An actual counselor? Because I think you could really benefit from speaking to someone about this. (I admit that I’m curious whether you use the “Olaf” metaphor if you ever did so.) Everyone. In real life, on Russian forums, on English forums. But no one can help me. After all, some problems are unsolvable. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893/20 "2013-01-24T01:07:09Z")
> [@Rollo\_Tomasi](#): > > What are your plans for when your parents are no longer able to support you? I try not to think about that time. What will we do when we are no longer alive? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olafs-dilemma/647893.md?page=2)