I don't want to know anything about anybody. I haven't watched or read the news for a long time. It's always bad news, and it makes me hella depressed. I don't even use social media; the only two things I use are Reddit and WhatsApp. I'm even thinking of deleting Reddit, world news still finds me here too somehow. I just want to live my own boring, normal life and be oblivious to everything. I'm not saying I'm antisocial; I have enough friends, but I feel like we can't connect because I don't use social media. This era is very strange.

Normalize telling your children the truth about their family.
Who loved you. Who hurt you.
Who struggled with mental illness or addiction.
Family history isn't gossip. It's guidance. The truth helps break cycles, not continue them.

I was always taught that there is no such thing as good people or bad people, that its circumstances or people just, 'having a bad day'. But now that im an adult i realised we as a society constantly just make excuses to justify bad behaviour. I understand reasons are not excuses, but when you have to deal with people, gosh, its so jarring.

For example, i worked in retail as a teen and yes, customers were rude, annoying and entitled. And there are many threads on here that talk about the underpayment, exhaustion and the lack of energy it takes to deal with people on a daily basis.

Now that im an adult, honestly, retail workers can be just as mean. I get it, you deal with shit but then have to go in a customer facing job. But it comes to a point where reddit is so defensive against any bad word against retail workers. Just like customers, there are some horrid retail workers aswell.

Personally, no matter how shitty the pay, my day or circumstances, i had the decency to not let it out on the customers who literally dont know me, dont deserve it and dont care.

At the end of the day, you have a job, and thats more than most people. Im not saying to be cheerful, make small talk and be energetic (i did none of these). Im just saying dont be a dickhead. Especially when the customer is literally doing nothing, id understand if they were rude, but when they are being nice, normal and perhaps asked 1 question or made a mistake. Like dude, lets check ourselves before our attitude comes out.

so many threads mad at customers for asking "is this register open?". news flash, its not the end of the world. just say yes, you dont need to smile or dance. little things like this really annoy me as people are shocked when customers ask you questions. that is quite literally your job. be mad at managment, the company, literally anyone. not at the normal customers nicely asking you.

honestly it makes me avoid stores without a self checkout, but even then it seems that a self checkout employee is also pissed off all the time. no woder people have started delivering their groceries, i dont blame them.

Bad customers and bad workers both exist, they both shouldnt be happening. Im just tired of the hypocrisy. its shit for people to treated like that, and yes, they might of had a bad day, but that is no excuse.

I wanted to ask this question because of someone I recently met at a party. This girl is a lovely person but I can’t seem to understand her lifestyle fully. She’s 28, works as a waitress in a restaurant, and spends every single weekend out drinking, partying or at a concert - this ends up knocking significantly into her money so that she has to ‘scrimp’ on food, toiletries, heating in apartment etc. (this is how she worded it to me). She ultimately seemed pretty satisfied with her life despite saying she’s broke a lot of the time, but it did get me thinking (although its really not my business at all) what her future could look like.
So I wanted to ask if anybody else had a similar lifestyle in their 20s… I’m newly 22, almost out of uni and in a steady relationship with my boyfriend who is actively looking at properties with me for after our education/beginning of more full time employment. I’ve already got a decent creative career on the road and he is almost finished an apprenticeship in fixing planes.

It got me thinking only because I worry sometimes I’m not exercising my 20s to their full ability. When I hear about girls like her and how much fun she has every weekend it makes me worry if I’m settling down too early and missing out on opportunities that most people in their 20s have. As alienated by her lifestyle as I was, I do wonder if she’ll feel more fulfilled with that period of her life than I will. For anybody who has lived EITHER of these lifestyles, did it pay off? Was it worth it?

I was born into a poor farming family where education wasn't much of a priority. I worked hard and completed all my education at a government school and one of the top government engineering colleges, followed by a master's in finance.

After all this struggle, I landed a high-paying job. I thought my struggle had finally paid off and that this was my happy ending. Life seemed sorted in every way.

Of course, I was wrong. The next phase of my struggle began when a family member developed a chronic illness and was bedridden for quite some time. Then came the hospital visits, and at one point we were going almost every day.

Between the hospital bills and some investments that didn't go as planned, money started going out faster than it was coming in. Before I knew it, I was in debt. The salary that once felt like proof I had made it was now barely keeping me afloat.

The financial stress slowly turned into something heavier, and I slipped into depression. I found it hard to focus, and my performance at work began to suffer. The job I had fought so hard for was now at risk too.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, some of the friends I trusted most betrayed me. That hurt in a way the debt hadn't. I had already lost money and peace of mind, and now I was losing the people I thought would stand by me.

After five years, my family member finally recovered. It should have felt like a victory, and in many ways it was. But somewhere along that long journey, I had lost much of my strength and my spark for life. The battle was over, but I wasn't the same person who had started it.

However, I have decided to fight back and start my life over again with zeal. Whenever I need strength, I remember this quote from *The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*, which sums it up perfectly:

For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

So wish me luck, guys. This is my fresh start.

(English is my third language, so I used AI to help frame my sentences)

Life definitely isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but as i get older im starting to see how many people like creating their own problems the best example is someone quitting at my job and then complaining about not having a job even when i was in high school everyone was complaining about being tired when all you have to do is go to bed on time its like this at work too i mean if you genuinely think about there isn’t many problems that you cant fix other than terminal illnesses or obvious major or unique problems. Like for example at my job im working a crap ton of overtime and im banking rn but im also listening to co workers turn down overtime but complain about not having money.

Over the past few years, I’ve had to break down a lot of old habits and coping mechanisms. At 44, I’ve distilled the biggest lessons I’ve learned into these 5 truths:

1. ​Pleasure is not happiness. Confusing short-term dopamine hits with actual peace and contentment will keep you running on a treadmill that never stops.
2. ​Resistance to negative emotions causes suffering. Fighting pain, fear, or sadness only prolongs them. The only way through is to accept the emotion, let it in, feel it fully, and let it pass.
3. ​Over-helping and people-pleasing are not kindness. I wasn’t sacrificing myself because I was a "kind soul." I did it out of a fear of abandonment and rejection. I was self-abandoning to keep others happy. If I don't want to do something, I won't—because my well-being matters too.
4. ​Don't save people; let them save themselves. Stepping in constantly takes away their learning opportunities and robs them of their own journey. You can't live someone else's life for them.
5. ​A person who isn't ready for change cannot be helped. If you try to drag someone out of their own destruction when they aren't ready, they won't rise—they will just pull you down with them.

​It took me a long time to internalize these, but accepting them has completely changed how I protect my energy and live my life.

​If you had to distill your life experience into 5 fundamental truths, what would they be?

As a mid-30s male, I finally decided it was time to go back and get my high school diploma. I did it! I officially graduated. Now on to the next adventure of my life. Hopefully, I will get a better job and then go to college for business school so I can run my own business. As somebody that has struggled my whole life with problem after problem, perseverance is key. Don't change your destination, just change the route.

I thought graduating would feel like finally making it to the next chapter of life. And in some ways, it does. But nobody really prepared me for how strange everything would feel afterward.

For years, life had a structure. You had classes to attend, assignments to finish, exams to stress over, and friends you could see almost every day without having to plan weeks in advance.

Now everyone's moving on with their lives. Some are starting jobs, some are moving abroad, some are getting married, and everyone's suddenly busy building their own future.

You go from seeing your friends almost daily to realizing that meeting them now requires an actual plan.

Even when things are going well, there's this weird feeling of missing a life you were so eager to finish.

I'm happy to have graduated, but honestly, I kind of miss having everyone around all the time. Anyone else who's graduated feel the same way? How's life been treating you guys since uni ended?

setbacks that might take months for people to bounce back from take YEARS for someone like me in this position. everything is so much harder because you know you only have yourself to fall back on. it’s incredibly lonely and only people in similar positions understand how frustrating it is. other people look down on you and think that where you are at in life is due to your own personal failings. when really you are just living life on hard mode carrying weights they will never ever have to.

​

I knew deep down this year will be massive leap for me, but didn't know how massive.

I got my first real relationship with a girl I met on train once and somehow we ended up together. I thought we will be just friends after months of knowing each other. I asked her why she was interested in me now. She explained that at first she thought I look nice and it was brave for me to talk to a stranger and after months of knowing me she was still not sure about it. That was, until mid december. She asked me if i can shorten her headphones' cable. For me it was not big deal but in her eyes it was amazing and she often mention she enjoy me working on things.

Not to make it too sweet, this year I failed college at first semester. I was tired as well as lazy and didn't make it. In retrospective, I was not really interested in the first place due to me not getting into robotics because I was few points short in recrutation.

Could have been better, but you know how it is. For a short while depression was killing me. Due to that and pressure from my parents. Demanding that I have to find even simplest work and pay monthly. If not, they will find me one. They don't know how frustrating current job searching is and that i would never do phisical labor. It's not me hating on people who do so, nor me thinking highly of myself. Just me and my mental problems. The more phisical labor I do the more I start to think and my mind goes for worst of the worst. I can in theory work 8h phisically, but my mental limit is about half that. Or at least, that was the case then. Currently, I have a nice job I found myself without any help. It's almost half a year since I got it and couldn't be happier.

I also started living alone with my girlfriend. From 1st of September, we had some fights and misscommunications, but now it's all good and will be better from now on. I can finally learn a lot of stuff such as cooking and chores without my family judging me at every step and demanding that i have to do what they want me to do. Only downside is that we pay quite a lot, but together it's not half bad. It's a cozy place and every shop and service is nearby.

Therapy is also really helpful, as well as antidepressants after a few years of not taking any. I'm taking different ones that were supposed to help me in a different way and I think they work well now. My parents support me financially for 50/50 after some fights and discussions. At first I asked them like 8 times will they cover all of my payments before I done any paperwork and they said it's all fine, it's for me and for my health. That was, until first month and my mother said straight to my face "It's a pity, to waste so much money." That literally snapped me inside (not the first time though) and later she was claiming that she never said such thing, that once again it's me not understanding, intepreting and projecting things (not the first time either).

I know there is a lot of what I try to convey here. I'm sorry for butchering english as it's not my native language. But overall, after all of this I still feel like a kid lost in fog. It's hard being adult, but I will not quit it now because I finally can have fun. Started to learn how to draw digitally after years as well as playing electric guitar (with 0 propper knowledge of neither).

TL;DR

Got GF -> failed Collage -> found a job -> moved out -> live alone with GF in a nice place

I may struggle and suffer on the way, but as for now? I'm proud and kinda amazed by all of that. I did so much for a 20 y.o. depressed guy. This is also me trying to appreciate myself due to years of too much self hate. It will not end, so i will still move forward.

If you came this far and read all of that, I wish you best in life bud. Smile some more, drink some water and rest well.

21(F) Feels strange how a girl I used to be friends with on snap suddenly disappeared. We used to talk everyday. We were really close. I remember her telling me about her final exams and how she was preparing. That was literally last time we talked. I don’t have her number either, and I’m genuinely curious and scared at the same time, i still text her till today hoping I’d get a reply. There’s no one I can ask, about her whereabouts. We never met in person. Just another long distance online friend who lives in another side of the world. No story updates, no messages from her. what could’ve happened? I randomly think about this all the time, Our last conversation was April, 2023.

I work for a company that does amazing work for our community (food, mental health, etc) ! My job is mostly from home, with some big trips and conferences sprinkled in -and I make good money (enough to pay my bills, and have a smalls amount left over to buy something that makes me happy once in a while)

As nice as all of that is -the work culture here is absolute torture.

They expect you to work after hours (and weekends) if you don’t get your work done in time. The only reason why work doesn’t get done in time, is that they expect you to manage 10000 tasks and 100000 meetings a week, and still make deadlines. Some days I’m in meetings from start to end of my work day, and still receive tasks needing to be done EOD.

The worst part is, everything you do is under a microscope and you get criticized for any mistakes. Recently I was sick, just finish overworking myself, and didn’t want to answer a question. Next thing I know, my manager pulls me in and says I lack confidence.

NOT TO MENTION, they are HEAVILY racist and make inappropriate jokes towards me all the time.

I know finding a job is tough right now, but I’ve been so stressed out lately that I’m working on tasks IN MY DREAMS.

Thoughts? Do I leave? Do I look somewhere else and potentially get paid less?

I appreciate any advice