💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 2008 captured on 2024-08-18 at 22:02:17. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I guess this is a little personal rant but I'm genuinely baffled by how everyone seems to have everything figured out. I'm in my early twenties but genuinely I feel like a lost eighteen year old. I am trying to build myself and grow but god is it boring to try to bloom inside concrete walls. A mind can only be so creative when you are only presented with florescent lit shopping malls and 10$ horrendous coffee in minimalist coffee shops as places to explore. I often blame the space around me for what I am, but I am then presented with all those that can breathe in the same space that suffocates me.
How can everyone accept that we'll work until we die? truly. no one can convince me that they adore their work enough to dedicate it 8 hours of their day. How is it that I'm the only one feeling like I'm wasting my life away? Is growing up just accepting that life will only give you 2 out of 7 days a week? Am I the immature one for not accepting? or am I just doing something wrong while everyone actually does feel alive and happy?
All I wish to do is to consume the entirety of the universe's beauties, to dive deeply into the heart of humanity and the arts of it all, the blessings of the earth and the skies, to hold onto it all and give back just as much, but I guess it was decided that it's more important for me to sell stuff to some sucker and kiss some other sucker's boots so I can afford to stay alive and do it all again tomorrow.
sometimes foolishly I let myself dream of a reality where I can float around the entire globe, meet everyone to have ever been anyone.
If the concrete bothers you, there's always seedbombing to create a more inviting environment.
https://slrpnk.net/post/10818928
Howdy! I have crossed the 60 line. So I have seen some of what you mention :)
Rest assured: "No one has everything figured out!" Never. Some are talking in compelling sentences. But there are those, who can say something like "in my little world it works like so, but maybe that's not the whole story". It never is "the whole story". And nothing can travel faster than light!
And: "I don't need to know everything, in order to know something!" I snatched that from an Introduction to Philosophy and it has been helpful many times.
"work" in my opinion is a deal. I get so much units_of_currency for so much units_of_labor/braincycles. Now where exactly a balance is struck, that is up to myself at least partly. And I'd like to have a dry and safe place to sleep and connect to the net and to others in real life. I'm lucky though: I found a niche of interest, the details are all boring for others, and I get paid to know and act about all these dull details. In other words, choose something and get good at it. Getting there is work, as has been pointed out. But for all the detail-dullness involved --- I like that I can juggle these puzzle pieces and create magic stuff. I like them details, even after 27 or so years. :)
Another thing that I find helpful: Advertisement and its siblings will tell you in no uncertain terms, that you are missing out on so much! Now! Always! They want to make you run and collect all of this and more --- to their advantage, not yours! So once I accepted, that yes, I'm constantly missing out 1-\epsilon of options all the time, however, that does not proof that very small \epsilon, the stuff I'm actually doing, is bad. Not at all. If I decide to waste a complete afternoon researching an obscure detail, or with a nice person having an interesting conversation, or with viewing a sun set ... so it'll be. I enjoy the \epsilon and leave the rest to others. At the very least this makes for a calmer life.
Crossing 55 had made me realize, that my health is finite. So one last unsolicited advice: If you have something important on your list, do it at the earliest time you can possibly afford it. You may not be able to pursue this action/thing/whatever later.
Ah, and by all means: wear sun screen! :)
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1997/06/01/advice-like-youth-probably-just-wasted-on-the-young-2/
Been there. Rode it out. Plenty of pain. Plenty of confusion. Plenty of mistakes, Some of them huge. It's somewhat miraculous I'm still here to type about it. But I'm nearer the end, and can say that keeping the nose to the grindstone, and trying as much/often as possible to make fun/games out of minimalism/frugality worked. Yes, good fortune played a role, but not a lottery win kind of role. You'll have some of that. Don't squander it. Build on it.
Some basics you've probably heard before:
- Haste makes waste.
- A <unit of money> saved is a <unit of money> earned (acknowledging inflation will not make the latter quite what it should have been, of course...).
- An hour without a light on means a free hour somewhere down the line (ditto on/with other resources).
- Don't scoff at the value of a little, because lots of littles add up to something big.
- DO NOT GET MARRIED WITHOUT FIRST CONSULTING AS MANY OTHERS YOU TRUST TO GIVE YOU STRAIGHT ANSWERS ABOUT YOU AND THE OTHER AND THE CHANCES OF YOUR BLENDING LASTING.
- You can be just as happy/fulfilled right where you're at as anywhere else, so don't blow time/resources chasing happiness/fulfillment elsewhere.
- Post to Midnight Pub as much as possible. :-)
I saw a post on hackernews a year or so ago that stuck with me. The question was something along the lines of "What would you tell yourself if you were $X years younger?"
One of the replies was short and simple, but made me wish I would have heard it in my early 20s:
" IMO the biggest waste of life is wishing that you're elsewhere. You end up wishing for a different present and future, then find that all your present is now the past."
you're still young, and you will learn a lot about yourself and what you want out of life in your 20s. I'm in my 30s, and while I'm happy with where I'm at and what I'm doing, I'm still learning a lot of things about the world and how I see it, as well.
I could write a book about the experiences I went through from the time I was 18 to where I am now, but you learn a lot in the ten years of your 20s that will shape your view on things as you go about the world as an adult and gain experience in whatever you choose to do (or not to do).
Remember also that while the 'typical work life' at some job you hate isn't the only option you have. As ~softwarepagan mentioned, there are other things you can do, but it still requires work (everything worth doing in life does), just a different kind of work.
Wishing you well. You still have some of the best and healthiest years in your life ahead of you, and with enough insight into what you really want out of life as you move through it, you'll eventually realize what that is, and the steps you can take to reach it.
I share your frustrations and have four wisdoms to share:
1. Early 20s is still very young.
2. You have an infinite inward world in your own mind. Clean your room there before trying to sort out the universe.
3. There are ways out of the work-apartment-sleep-work cycle, but you'll have to be creative.
4. As trite and cliché as it is, hope is indispensible.
Your feelings are valid, a lot of people experience this because humans did not evolve to live like this. Humans are adapted for hunting and gathering, which takes up significantly less time and can be enjoyable. Our brains are not hardwired for filling out spreadsheets all day, it is incompatible with humanity.