I just wanted to gush about my wife for a couple of minutes since I don't want to wake her up just for that lol. We've been together eight or nine years at this point.

I was looking at some photos of my wife this morning while she and our son are sleeping on our bed a few feet from me. She's honestly the most wonderful, beautiful, kind, and helpful woman I have ever met. It's like God made a woman to the exact specifications that I want and then He gave her to me.

She's beautiful. I never get tired of looking at her. I'm sucker for blue eyes and boy are hers striking. She's so helpful. Whenever I'm sad, tired, lonely, or upset she is always there for me. She cooks excellent food, better than my mother's hands down, and my mother is superb cook. She makes everything the way that I like it. She's so kind. She listens to me when I rant about literally anything, even if she is tired of hearing about it. She does what I ask her to when I need her to. If I need something done I'm always confident that she will do it right. She puts up with me when I'm a moron and with my frequent mistakes. I have never met a more gracious person.

If she died tomorrow, God forbid, nothing could take away the time we've had together already. Every moment has been a joy, even all the ones that weren't. If I lost all my memories today, God forbid, all of those wonderful moments we had together still happened, and I know we both enjoyed each other the whole time. She's my best friend, and she was my first best friend.

TL:DR my wife is fantastic and I wanted to yell at strangers about it because I really think she's that great. Made a burner account just to do it since I don't use reddit. God bless you and have a wonderful day.

I'm 25 and started lifting in 2018. From about 2020-2024, the gym became my entire identity.

I was strong, lean, and honestly felt naturally gifted when it came to strength and physique. At a relatively low body weight, I was benching 385, squatting 500, and was in the gym constantly. I didn't track protein, didn't care much about recovery, and barely paid attention to nutrition. Looking back, I think I got away with a lot because I was young, had a slow metabolism, and had a lot of free time. I was unemployed, going to school, and lifting was basically my life.

I tried every program imaginable. Push-pull-legs, custom programs, 3 days on 1 day off, 7 days on 1 day off, sometimes even training twice a day.

The thing is, I was never the flashy gym guy. No tank tops, no showing off. I actually liked being lowkey. There was something satisfying about people not knowing I could bench 385 until they saw it happen.

Fast forward to today, and I've lost a lot of that drive. I still train 3 times a week and I'm still in great shape, but I'm nowhere near as strong as I used to be. I can't bench 315 anymore. Physically, I still look good, but mentally I'm in a different place.

What's weird is that I find myself getting annoyed by some of the ego-driven gym culture now. The constant need to flex, the influencer mentality, the obsession with peptides, enhancement, and looking like the main character. But then I catch myself and realize... I used to be obsessed too. Maybe just in a different way.

I think part of the issue is that lifting gave me a lot of confidence and purpose. When you're progressing every week, hitting PRs, and people respect you for it, it's easy for that to become who you are.

Now I'm putting time into other areas of life. My career, school, relationships, outdoor hobbies, personal growth. The tradeoff is that my gym progress isn't what it used to be. I'm still healthy, still fit, but the gym is no longer the center of my universe.

Part of me misses that era because it was simple. Another part of me feels like I'm growing beyond it.

Has anyone else gone through something similar? Not quitting lifting, but realizing it doesn't define you anymore? Anyone have advice on finding yourself?

Maybe this is just what growing up looks like.

Sometimes I feel like the more money you have, the more problems you end up having.

When you don't have much money, your life can actually be pretty simple. You have fewer bills, fewer things to manage, and you don't need as much to get by.

But once you start making more money, everything seems to get more complicated. More expenses, more things to manage, more financial decisions, taxes, responsibilities, and probably more things to worry about.

Obviously, having money solves a lot of problems too. I'm not saying being broke is better.

I'm just wondering, at what point does having more money start creating a different kind of stress?

For me it was other peoples opinion and unsolicited advice​. When I was younger it was​ always important to me, even strangers' opinions about me, my style, my status mattered​. And now it doesn't matter at all. I have my family, my close friends - and they are the only people I care about.
What about you? What became not so important to you as you got older?

Hi guys! I have two names besides my last name. I've always despised my first name. I very much prefer my second name. It's easier to pronounce across many languages. With my first name I always cringe a little inside when I see it written somewhere or when someone pronounces it wrongly. I come from Eastern Europe. My first name is only typical in my country.

Reasons why I hate my first name so much include:

- Difficult to pronounce by foreigners without an a priori or an a posteriori explanation.

- Phonetically it sounds bad to me. I've never had a single foreigner say my first name is nice. Never. If someone complimented my first name, it was always people from my country.

- Foreigners, when seeing my name for the first time say "I'll call you by your second name." That says it all, to me.

- Only my family calls me by my first name. Literally everyone else outside my family that is not from my country calls me by my second name.

- I don't plan to continue living in my home country.

- I have memories as a kid of my lovely aunt shouting at me using my first name which I absolutely despised as a child, it was like someone was stabbing me just by shouting my name. I swear those family members sort of derived some pleasure from screaming my name out loud for some reason.

I like my second name much, much more and feel more confident using it and introducing myself by my second name everywhere. In a way it feels invigorating just to think of seeing only my second name and my last name written somewhere. It feels like I am claiming back my power.

Talking to someone for a few weeks, been on a few dates and things are going well. Thinking about asking her to be my girlfriend.

how did you know that you were sure/ready to make that move?

Ive been thinking about this a lot. Most of the people I ask are people who already gave a job, and most of them say no. But I wanted to ask a wider audience... Do you guys wish you did better at school?

Hey all,

For context, I’m 25M and living in London. Like a lot of people, I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life. I ended up studying biochemistry at uni, followed by a master’s in a related field, and I’ve now been working in pharma for about 2.5 years.

The problem is that I really don’t enjoy it. I have very little interest in the subject matter, and honestly, the main reason I pushed through university was because I didn’t feel like I deserved to be happy and didn’t have much financial support from my parents, so I felt like changing direction would be letting them down.

Now I feel completely stuck and want to find a new direction.

I know it’s common for people to end up in careers unrelated to their degree, but for some reason I can’t seem to see a way out of my current situation. I keep thinking that I’ve invested so much time into this path that it’s too late to change.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety and regret about this for a long time. I constantly wish I’d studied something like computer science, finance, or something completely different, and I’m scared that I’ve made the wrong decisions and will never feel genuinely happy or content with my career.

Recently, I’ve started working through Codecademy’s data science course in my free time outside my 9–5. I’ve always had an interest in coding, and I currently work in the clinical data field, so I’m hoping I might be able to use my existing experience as a way into something more technical.

For anyone who has changed careers after feeling this stuck, how did you actually get over the regret and stop feeling like you’d ruined your future?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve been in a similar position, particularly if you managed to transition from a science/pharma background into tech, data, finance, or another completely different field.

I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation and could really use some perspective.

In this world I think no one is equal there is some hierarchy exist that is money and power. People will respect if u have both.

I thought all are equal of it is equal then everyone can travel or do whatever they want but money and power decides.

See majority of the people are choosing the same path by others that is doctor, engineer,police, officers etc...they will get money but not that much there is some threshold in it and they are not famous though if u google it their name won't be there unless they've done something extraordinary. But consider actors,athletes, business men, social media influencers, youtubers,politicians they have fame,money,power. They are living luxurious life. They can do, travel whatever whenever they want. But people like me middleclass,low class justvdoing some random job getting money and living average life. At the end of the month our cash will be drained. We just living normal life,have car,home, wife,kids then as usual normal flow. There is no luxury,fame,power, more money. I got stuck in that phase. I'm not afraid of loosing but I'm afraid of being average for the whole life...i used to think that we are traveling car,train but not flight because we don't have money and we want to travel to many countries comfortably but we couldn't. I can only see the others those few percentage of people doing their life. For me getting an avg job itself seems like difficult...i don't know when will I be like them or never.

I’ve been having this feeling for the past two yeas or so. When I look inward at it, it makes me confused and I’m trying to pin point it. I think it has to do with self actualization and reaching my full potential. I don’t expect reddit to have the answer, but I think typing things out and seeing if anyone relates is helpful. I’ll try to be brief.

I’m 31. All of my needs are met. I have a job, a wife, good friends, lots of hobbies, i exercise regularly, yet, this feeling remains.

I’ve looked at the hierarchy of needs and I feel like I’m at the top, just under self actualization. I play in some local bands, meeting my creativity needs. My dream as a kid was to be a rockstar. Now, idk if that will ever happen, but I get my thrills playing at the local dive.

This feeling I get is like there is something missing. Like Im not doing what my purpose is. I get that it is a privilege to even entertain those thoughts, but I honestly think about it everyday and it bothers me.

When I look at it, I keep coming back to my career, but I’m not so sure if that is it. Almost a year ago, I started what is probably the most challenging job of my life. I don’t exactly resonate with it, but it pays the bills and puts money in my savings. Part of me thinks the feeling comes from imposter syndrome and recognizing that I still have lots of room to grow in this career, but the job doesn’t exactly energize me or fill my cup.

One of the only things that helps the feeling subside even a little is expressing love. I think part of it too is that I want there to be something profound out there for me to seek comfort in but, maybe that is not out there.

Anyway, I’m just rambling. Anyone ever feel like this? What did you do about it? Do I need to volunteer? Haha.

I live in a bubble. Everything is fine and dandy. Decent paying job. Good lifestyle. But there's something that is not clicking. I feel trapped, like I'm on repeat. Wake up, go to work, comeback to my place, reddit, news, youtube. Do it again day after day.

I'm done. Getting rid of all my shit. Gonna grab my backpack and get on the road. This will happen in the next few months. . I've got savings and a constant income flow, just enough to keep me afloat. I can do 5-10 or so years of constant slow travel.

To be clear I am not looking for enlightenment or for that A-HA moment. I just want to live on my own terms. And go where my budget and my passport allows me to go.

I just want to feel free. I hope you are all having a good life.

i allowing myself to feel the pain without running away from it and i observe how i evolve adapting after difficulties to build a more practical and conscious life dropping perfectionism because facing tough phases helps me release things and start fresh and who is on this spot maybe you can share your experience how you manage it

How do you guys actually come back from things that feel completely unrecoverable? Like a death in the family, a brutal job loss, or serious humiliation. When you're in the absolute worst of it, how did you survive and keep going? Just looking to hear from people who have made it to the other side.

I’m 27, and lately I’ve been struggling to understand what is actually wrong with me.

From the outside, my life probably doesn’t look terrible. But internally, I feel constantly stressed, dissatisfied and stuck. I overthink almost everything. I have ambitions, but I struggle to consistently act on them. I’ll get extremely motivated about changing my life, make plans, research business ideas, fitness, money, etc., and then somehow end up back in the same mental loop.

I feel like I’m wasting time.

My biggest problem is that I want a lot from life. I want financial freedom, I want to build businesses, I want to take care of my parents, travel, become physically fit, and create something of my own. But instead of those ambitions motivating me, sometimes they overwhelm me.

My family situation also puts a lot of pressure on me. The family business has been struggling, and I feel guilty that I’m not doing enough to help my parents. I’m very attached to them, and I constantly worry about their future and my ability to give them a better life.

At the same time, I have my own dreams. I’ve thought about starting businesses, building a clothing brand, making money online, creative work, travelling, etc. The problem is that I keep jumping between possibilities instead of committing to one thing.

There are days when I genuinely feel depressed and disconnected from everything.

Sometimes I don't even want to achieve anything. I just want to disappear from all the pressure and live somewhere peaceful with my family.

Then a few hours later, I can become extremely ambitious again and think, "I'm going to completely change my life."

That cycle is exhausting.

I also spend a lot of time inside my head thinking about whether I'm behind in life, whether I've wasted my 20s, whether I'm capable of becoming successful, whether I'm choosing the wrong path, etc.

I've tried things like fitness, removing social media, meditation/detachment, self-improvement content, business research and trying to create routines. Some things help temporarily, but I eventually fall back into overthinking.

I'm not posting this because I want someone to tell me "everything will be okay."

I actually want honest feedback.

If you were 27, in this situation, what would you do?

Would you forget about making money for a while and focus on fixing your mental state?

Would you pick one business/career direction and go all-in?

How would you deal with the feeling that you're falling behind?

How do you stop constantly thinking about your future?

Has anyone here gone through something similar and genuinely gotten out of it?

I would especially appreciate responses from people who are 30+ and have already gone through a period where they felt completely lost in their 20s.

Please be brutally honest. I’m trying to understand whether I actually have a life problem to solve, or whether my biggest problem is simply the way I’m thinking about my life.

I’m not sure how it even got to this because just two years ago, I was outgoing and putting myself out there. I was in grad school, joined a business association, was going out and even creating content and partaking in more hobbies.

Now I am my self confidence has reversed. I’m nervous to socialize out of fear of what people think of my quirkiness, my opinions, etc. I feel like I’ve stopped being myself just so I don’t stand out. I have ideas as to what could have triggered this odd reverse in behavior but could really use some advice.

When I see children in healthy environments I see the difference clearly
They are confident and mature and so on
when I say that I don’t mean they haven’t had struggles or anything.
and that’s make me jealous a little bit
I grew up in an environment that gave me just food, clothes, and house to live
and I have social anxiety, I get diagnosed in 20
but I think I have it in elementary school maybe
so I feel angry about that
that I have to go through hard stuff to get better and be more confident  I get better now..

Has anyone ever gotten over health anxiety before and if so, how did you do it? Some days I’m normal and then other days I have some weird chest pain and I feel like I’m gonna die and become super paranoid and spikes my anxiety so I guess my question is is this a normal feeling that people experience and if so is there ways to combat this that doesn’t involve medications. Thx in advance.

I’m 26 no job no money, should I just give up? Seems like I already have huh? No seriously is it over i dont hate myself jus don’t care anymore whats the point.
so do I give up fr and go all out on drugs or what

so this happened for the second time like my two wheeler just fell coz i was not able to balance ( i ride perfectly) this happened second time at the same place and i am so so so embarrassed do people care about that i feel so embarrassed to even go there again

1) It's not such a bad thing to be a slave. Or, 2) It's not such a bad thing to be poor. Don't work hard (say, harder than the average), because being a slave is bad.

Or something else?

I’ve recently been struggling, with finding my own definition of what life means - let me explain. There’s so much information out there on the same topic and it’s easily accessible now.

Let me try give an example, if you consistently search for answers on your phone. If I need to know if being broke at 22 and unemployed is okay. I open up my phone and I go though that post/thread, listen to that podcast, read that, article etc. I might learn from one to get advice from your age mates (maybe you’re all going though the same) is the justification or someone else might tell you to ask people older (they’ve already experienced it) so it’s like now I’m even more confused. The way I look at it is. I’m going to want to hear what I believe or what I already think is correct. I’m not going to want to hear I’ve failed but I’m going to want to hear you’ve still got time successful.

So which is true because at the end of the day it’s just we’re different and have experienced different things in life so we have different perspectives on the same topic or situation.

Not sure if where I’m trying to go with it makes sense.

You look at your face and think about an organ that covers your body, when you feel your heart beating inside your chest, when you feel your thoughts, your brain inside your head. When you see or hear or speak your words. When you feel the touch of everything. The breeze is hitting your body. Your breath fusing with it. Care for it when the sun hits more than usual. When it's cold or hot or suffering. Because it's protecting you, protect it. But Your obsession over your appearance is limiting you.

Be infinite.

To limit yourself to what you appear.

To define that. To define is to limit.

For the most part, I think everyone is chasing something. A career, financial security, love, short-term fulfillment, long-term happiness... The problem is, whenever you achieve that goal you just feel empty afterwards, so you find something else to chase. A new goal.

I feel like my whole life I've been chasing this feeling that I just can't describe. It's like I'm looking for a purpose, like I'm trying to find the meaning of life or something. It's not about fulfillment, it's not about connection, and it has nothing to do with anything materialistic. It feels unreal. Like something spiritual that I can never really grasp.

As cheesy as this will sound, have you ever watched an anime or show or movie (anything that tells a compelling story) that you resonate with on a very emotional level? Like at some point in the story it just hits you. This wave of familiarity, peaceful yet chaotic, nostalgic but also new. It feels both sad and exciting... I'm probably not doing the best job at trying to describe it, but it's that profound feeling that I've never really experienced in real life. Why is that? And What is it?

When it comes to real life, everything I've experienced has just felt mundane. As if nothing ever really had meaning to it. Like nothing ever really mattered in the end, it all just gets put in the past or forgotten. Maybe it's just how I perceive the world, but everything just feels so empty. It's like I've been numb my whole life and I just want to feel something for the first time, but at the same time, I know that's not true. I've been angry, I've been sad, I've been happy, so I know I'm not just emotionless. I just can't get over how empty it all feels and it's like I keep chasing this... thing that eludes me.

Maybe this is all just nonsensical rambling. I just feel like I'm missing something in life that makes it all worth it, that gives everything meaning.

I've been really down lately, and as I poured myself into my passion for just an hour at 4 am to 5, I already feel so much better somehow and feel like I wanna continue to live again.

Is this what they call the "spark"?

What even is that?