It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire. All of the wealth is going straight to the top. All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled. All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet. We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.
Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.
I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job. The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.
Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it? If so, what snapped you out of it?
The amounts of copium in this thread are extinction-level.
Everything you just said is 100% valid and you are simply correct.
The thing is, it’s not a measure of a healthy mind to thrive in a profoundly sick society where the worst of the worst have won long ago.
There’s this thing called depressive realism which posits that depressed people, by and large, perceive reality much closer to how it really is than neurotypical people.
Essentially, “normal” people have an (innate or learned) positivity bias. Which is usuallly a good thing. People like us are the outliers.
But positivity bias in a world where it’s actually harmful is another thing. The majority of people are walking headlong into their own extinction while going “Ehh, it’s not so bad”, while we should ALL be positively irate and picketing the homes (not companies) of our owner class 24/7.
But it hasn’t happened yet and at this point I don’t know how bad things need to get before people realize what’s going on.
As long as people have something to entertain themselves and something to eat, nothing will change. Even the Ancient Romans knew that: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.”.
Don’t think too much, you get depressed. Do like everyone else, buy shit you don’t need and get likes on social media by bored strangers.
And watch Fight Club.
A mentor once gave me an exercise to identify my “core values” or goals or motivators. Out of a list of 60, the task was to narrow down over time and conversation to my top 5.
E.g., I value financial stability. Not to be confused with other values of earning high compensation or achieving lofty corporate positions and recognition.
It helped me frame for myself that I’m going to work to be comfortable and stable and beyond that, my motivations lie elsewhere, like spending time with friends and working on personal projects. There are people who put greater value on achieving a high salary or earning the c-suite title or having their names on patents; that’s perfectly valid and great for them, it’s not me and that is also ok.
There are tons of similar exercises online. If it sounds like something that might help you define your perspective on work differently, to narrow it down to you instead of getting overwhelmed with the whole world’s problems, please look into it and good luck.
I hated the idea for the longest time. Then I realized a few things. I changed my outlook of working a hopeless job to a job being a tool for me to get the money I need to live a better life. I also accepted that life isn’t fair and that not all the work I put in will equal the output. It feels like you have to do the work of 10 men to get anywhere. I accepted that and I put myself to work.
Sometimes you just have to get lucky and sometimes you have to grow. I worked many temp jobs and fast food restaurants until figured stuff out and landed a couple decent jobs. I started being able to hold a job for 1 year and then 2 years. I got lucky and found a temp job that decided to hire everyone perm. The catch was they waited to see who would sink or float. I floated. I wouldn’t have floated if I hadn’t had previous life experience.
Look at a job as an avenue or tool to achieve your goals. If you don’t have any goals then just pick something. It could be as simple as you want to save up for something nice. Start small and pick bigger goals as you achieve them. And going back to the job as a tool thing, if you don’t like the tool then get a new one. You wouldn’t use a broken tool to fix something. Sometimes you have a bucket of random tools and you have to pull out a couple before you find the right or that isn’t broken. Whatever to you pick, just try and keep trying. As long as you keep trying, you’ll figure it out.
I would also add to try to improve yourself along the way. Whether it be working on self esteem, how to write a resume, interviewing skills, how to cook, how to improve your finances, how to fix a car, work on a computer… Just work on something. You’ll only help yourself and learn transferable skills along the way.
Get a STEM degree and move to a country that respects its citizens.
Or other degree that’s also useful, including social work or the arts.
Supply and demand. There’s less people in STEM so they get paid more.
After telling a generation of kids to get stem degrees or they’ll be doomed to flip burgers, I feel I have the responsibility to say this is no longer the case. The jobs still pay well but; between ghost job listings, recent layoffs, and every entry level job wanting like 4 years of hyper specific experience; I have observed it being nearly impossible to enter the job market or move around it right now, and the whole thing feels very oversaturated.
Unless you’re willing to build bombs. Don’t know much about that end of it cause I’m not interested in developing things intended to kill people. but that’s where the money is if that’s what you’re about.
I know it’s easier said than done, but try to find work that actually helps your community, but that you also find fulfilling - child, elderly, and or disabled care, working for a charity doing anything from fundraising to cooking to IT, working in a community centre or library, coaching, teaching, handy-work, gardening, and on and on. The pay may not be as high as it is other places, but at least you’ll know that you’re contributing to your community in a positive way.
Bonus points if the place you work is a non-profit, unionised, a co-op, or generally outside of the existing establishment (E: so not part of the state or a large corporation) - building dual power is imperative to changing society, we need communal structures and networks to fall back on once this shit collapses. You can be part of that.
Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!
E: while we’re here, Mutual Aid
I don’t have any good advice for you. My company held an all-hands call today during which the CEO said “Now that the election is behind us we can look forward to political stability”, among other equally insane things. You could say I’m feeling pretty down about the whole situation as well.
My kids work because they want money.
It is hard to find a job, even harder to get by without one; I do have some friends who have never been employed exactly, only hustling, working for themselves, with varying results. It’s possible but not probable.
I’m really sorry you are hurting so bad but we can use every sane person, if we give up things just get worse.
lots of denial, nicotine, and THC
not a fix but will definitely smooth some of the rough edges out a tiny bit
if all else fails my grandfather says to run in circles screaming and shouting
I feel ya brother. I’m 41 and wondering why the hell im even saving for retirement. I’ll be dead before I’ll ever be able to
It is a scam, in the end it is pointless to try, but you gotta eat, clothe yourself, and it’s warmer indoors, which all necessitate to generate income._
^ This user support genocide.
If you’re still young and not too much in debt, try to work some fun jobs, like outdoor educator, youth hostels, ski mountain, or whatever floats your boat. Travel around. You don’t have to try to make it in the world right away
You got me, kid. I had a stroke at 42 after busting my ass forever, and it’s been the best thing to happen to me yet.
Basically just enjoy everything outside of work, politics, and religion. Family, friends, and yourself are the most important things in life.
Try to find a job you enjoy from 9-5. That means focusing on activities you enjoy that are the main activity of said job. I worked in a pet store because it afforded me 30% of my time playing with puppies, even though the remaining 70% was cleaning puppy shit and stocking goods. I now work as a therapist because I spend 70% of my time talking to people about their problems (which I enjoy), and 30% doing paperwork and correspondence. Make your job something you enjoy most of them time and it gets much easier. Then, you retire and collect Social Security. As long as you’ve worked for most of your life, that’ll be a decent retirement. You’ll have to live frugally, but it’ll be livable.
Also, if you can manage it, invest $10,000 as early as you can in a stock market index fund and pay for a fund manager. By the time you retire, that will provide you with a substantial cushion to rest on.
Move to a really poor country and meet real people there. Your life will get better, inevitably.
