Idk if “little experience” means something in English, but what I meant is non-life changing/threatening. Things that would otherwise go unnoticed.
For me, it was when I stopped drinking acoholic beverages because… I ended up finding it boring, I guess.
I started noticing how low key hostile my environment is towards people who dont drink. People started thinking I was sick, depressed, converted to islam, being snob, etc.
Bartenders started to openly mock me when I asked for a lemonade (they still do) : “We dont do that here”, “Go to a physician if you need that”, “you’re in a bar you know ?”.
I started realizing how hostile my country/region/groups can be to people who dont drink. Never realized that before.
Edit : typo
20-something years ago, I was a struggling student with a shit side-job and a so-so relationship with my family. Life felt like being a hamster running in a wheel, it felt like there was nowhere to go.
I had dinner with a friend of mine, who announced that he was leaving for a study-abroad year for our last year of masters degree. I was glad for him, but definitely envious, and he told me: “well, do it too then”.
I spent the next 30 minutes trying to explain the myriad of things that were keeping me down in my life, but he dismantled them one by one.
Like:
• “But packing my studio apartment will be tedious…” - “So you’ll live the rest of your life in that apartment?”
• “But money…” - “You know you can take a reasonable loan for this and that it will pay off in opportunities.”
• “But I’m the one keeping everything together at work.” - “And they know it, it’s not in their interest for you to be find a job in your degree’s career. They’ll ask you for favors forever. You should look out for yourself there. It’s probably a good thing to make it stop now and have you be unreachable a while so they can figure it out.” (This was before smartphones.)
• “But my family will hate it.” - “Because they also don’t want to let you go, you should look out for yourself there too.”
He was spot on about everything, and eventually, I had run out of excuses. That night I ended it with a non-committal “I’ll think about it”, but that small conversation started a big train of thoughts that changed everything about how I made decisions. Basically, it turned me from being someone quite risk-averse and shying away from things, to becoming someone unusually risk-seeking and ready to take on opportunities that would present to me as much as I could without letting anything keep me down.
I wasn’t able to join the program he joined because the deadline had passed, so I had to carve out my own study-abroad opportunity, so I did. It was scary and tedious, but it paid off. Interestingly, I now live halfway across the world from where I grew up, and he is back in our hometown. We lost touch over time, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize how this small conversation that day changed everything of the path I was on.
Oh. That’s such a great story. Thanks for sharing it…
… and it’s most disturbing because I had a kind of similar discussion with a friend two days ago. I was in your position. And ive been thinking about it ever since. Not about traveling but about job hopping/leaving my job/avoiding risk v.s. taking a leap.
Oh, interesting timing! Let me know if I can help you think through things. Based on other comments on this post, it seems like we have a couple more things in common.
(It’s 3am here, I gotta go to bed, but I’ll come back around here tomorrow.)
Good night !
Well, to tell you an abbreviated version of the story, I’m working two jobs, half time underpaid teacher and half time underpaid whatever-the-hell-I’m-doing (researcher on a health-related public org). Currently long term contracts.
Long weeks, barely hitting minimum wage, sometimes less than mw.
Ive been expecting one if these jobs to offer me a full time job… Which they recently did. Both. But both did it in the form of 1 year contract with no guarantee for… after.
I planned to refuse them both. Income stability and the ability to make plans, even when broke, are too important to me.
My friend told me (gently) it was a mistake. That I’m sending the message that will stay even if they dont pay me well, that my unwillingness to take risks explains that i’m stuck on this position, that I could rely on unelployment payements for a year if nothing comes after one if those contacts. That it gives a bad signal to potential new employers.
I think my friend may be right but… I dont know. It was kinda traumatic, a few years ago. I was working on 1 year contracts, one after the other. I fell sick and had quite heavy surgery. But it was 2 months before the term of my contract. I was so afraid of losing my job, getting evicted from my flat, going back to my family… I ended up taking Ubers to go to work because I could barely walk, teaching under the effect to heavy painkillers, etc. Basically making the renewal of my contract a priority over my very health.
At that time I became very risk adverse, stability became my priority to never go through that again. But after this discussion, I’m a bit lost in thoughts, constantly wondering what I should do.
I think that episode is still too close and I’ll stay in my current situation to avoid taking this kind of risks, but… I’m still thinking. Maybe it still needs time to make it’s way through my thoughts.
Sorry for the wall of text !
I recently quit my managers position so I could have more time to work on growing an audience on YouTube! I know that sounds stupid but the job was kinda toxic and this has been a big dream of mine for a while now. Wish me luck!
This was amazing to read! Thank you for sharing!
Finding online communities like reddit and discovering most people aren’t major POS and that I am/was one
And before someone says no surely you just exaggarate I have objective evidence from the past which if I said aloud I would get lynched.
It was suprising to discover online that people aren’t that bad as the people in my ‘hood’ and you don’t usually need all those complex defenses to appear a hunter and not prey. It really changed a lot
Ouch. That one has to hurt. But I hope it was for the best.
It is very tempting to gather pity points or look at me how I changed points tbh which I just done didn’t I ? I guess being simulatenously a victim and slight? abuser isn’t easy to separate these events
Reading about stoicism. It’s like an ethical anchor in my life now, a guide to be happy. It’s like the upgraded version of religious belief, perfectly fitting in the 21st century (even though it’s thousands of years old).
Hello, I’m only 22 years old but I want to learn more about this. Will I be able to grasp the depth of the concept at my age or is it inherently for people who have already gained experience in life?
I’m 23 and took an interest in stoicism a few years back. I have to admit I didn’t fully grasp the depth of it at the time, a lot of my understanding was more surface level. However having knowledge of the concepts and ideas of the rational mind from stoicism, and the idea of the differences between thoughts and feelings and our connections to them from mindfulness have both been things that I notice when I’m going about my daily life.
For instance there have been times where my mind has run away with thoughts and feelings and I’ve noticed that and just been able to let it go. Each time something like that has happened I’ve often had a feeling of ‘Oh, that’s what that meant.’, having an awareness of the concepts of philosophy and the knowledge of people who have thought about these things before us can allow us to notice the same things within ourselves a lot easier.
I think it’s worth learning about quite a lot of different forms of philosophy at a younger age, it’ll allow you to be more conscious of what goes on in your head and generally understand yourself better. One thing I will say is don’t try to convince yourself that you understand, only time can cement that understanding.
This is very insightful! Thanks alot!
Everyone can understand the basic concepts of stoicism. Most of them are easy to understand, but hard to apply.
Unfortunately I can not recommend any English literature, but I see Deren Browns “Happy” getting recommended a lot. The books I read all had a practical focus, trying to apply stoic ideas to day-to-day life. Most stoics will recommend to also read historical literature, like Marcus Aurelius “Meditations” - this might be a bit too much for beginners.
For me personally, the most helpful stoic idea is the “dichotomy of control”. It basically says that you shouldn’t worry about things or facts you can’t change (“externalities”) and instead focus on the things that actually are under your control. And those are VERY few things.
A trivial example: Why should I worry about the “bad” weather during my holidays? I certainly can not control the weather and by nature, the weather is neither good or bad. It’s my brain that gives a sunny day more value than a thunderstorm. So instead of complaining about the weather, I should try to make the best out of it and maybe even appreciate it.
Which country is that?
Bartenders started to openly mock
Lol, I’d take my business somewhere else. It’s not like I hang out in bars anyway…
France (north). I’m now deserting bars too, yes. There’s just some times I can’t avoid them, i.e. meeting people during a train stop, at the bar near the train station. If it’s not too late, I’m ordering coffee now.
I’m from France too and always disliked the taste of alcohol. Being young in France, it was frustrating the amount of time I had to fend off people who were trying to make me drink. And like you, sometimes they’d make stupid guesses about why, sometimes getting intentionally insulting.
Eventually, I got used to telling people that I was “trying to stop drinking”, implying that I was struggling to, because that people were actually respectful of and they’d leave me alone.
Eventually I went to live a year abroad (see my other comment), and realized people never reacted even once when I’d tell them I didn’t drink. French culture is great in a lot of ways, but there’s really something wrong with this.
I still live abroad today, and no one bothers me about it. Obviously it’s not the reason I live where I live, but damn I don’t miss the snarky booze-related remarks.
The peer pressure is pretty similar here in germany: “You can have a beer and still drive” - Yeah, but I don’t want to “Beer is not even ‘real’ alcohol”, “You can have a Radler it only has 2% alcohol”, “real germans don’t drink non-alcoholic beer”.
I have to say that I did not always dislike alcohol. It was actually the other way around and I consumed far too much. Not that I needed it to survive throughout the day, but I had hangovers pretty much every weekend. So, by now I only drink 2-3 times a year, because also it does interfere with my sports activity a lot. But it hate it if peole are pulling up answers and excuses like the above.
But what I also noticed when I was in france is, that for many people wine is also like a normal drink and it’s perfectly fine to have 1-2 glasses of red wine for lunch. Also something, thats the same in germany, especially bavaria, but with another drink. If you have a glass of wine for lunch you’re considered an alcoholic, if you have a beer it’s normal since you’re in germany.
head shaking
Yeah, I heard those replies too.
I was especially shocked it took my closest friends a long time to understand it didn’t mean I was distancing from them. Even 4 years later, from time to time, I still hear those.
I dont get this at all. There are plenty of people not drinking during a night out for the simple reason that theyre driving.
Interesting. You’re right. I realize that maybe because of the hours I’m hitting bars. I never go to one at night. It’s always right after work, at 6pm-7pm.
Might be the reason.
Worked with someone senior to me in my org, who would always complain about how people don’t know how to work well or get too distracted by new technology etc. It was often compelling and made you feel guilty about not being better.
Then I realised they were unconsciously talking about themselves. They were always distracted by their emails and computer and hardly ever getting good work done.
You hear about people projecting. But to see it in person and realise that a whole person’s seemingly insightful or valuable position on what’s “good” was just self-centred abuse is quite another thing.
I was never one to take authority seriously, quite the opposite really, but this really removed what little ability I had to perceive someone with respect without massive amounts of evidence and proof.
There are few hero’s amongst us. We’re all pretty flawed and broken.
I forgot the details, but I remember vividly the strong feeling of being right about something. And then I learned I was wrong.
This was when I started to distrust that feeling. It is comforting, but not a trustworthy guide to truth.
