Reveal Confessions, Secrets & Regrets...

[Ginger_Warrior]

Ok so... I actually have my own confession.

 

Just over a year ago, I came to university. I left behind a pretty stable, if slightly boring life which I was otherwise pretty happy with. I had a job, I did voluntary work in my community, I was very settled. I left all that plus friends and family to pursue a career I genuinely feel passionate about.

 

But I'm not settled. I've met so many new amazing and wonderful people here. Especially this one girl who's similar to me in every way except she's as extraverted as I am introverted. Our values match up and we're so close, but they've all taken me out of that comfort zone, forced me to experience a new range of things, and I've totally changed as a person.

 

And that terrifies me because I feel like I'm living in a totally new world full of possibilities which I didn't even know existed only a year ago, and I feel like I'm barely breathing let alone living in it.

 

tl; dr --I'm changing, and that scares me because those changes make me feel so uncomfortable and so uncertain about the future.

[Estonian dude]

Change is almost always a good thing. I know how you feel. The same changed to me this year at the start of the schoolyear now that I got to university. 

I already posted about it here aswell about how I realized that some people really are similar to me and try to do everything to make me more open about myself. And that I am not just a worthless freak.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I think the biggest change is the drop in self-esteem, which had been very high before going to university.

 

I've gone from having a wage, to being on student finance and only having about a third of the disposable income I previously had. I've gone from having a job in which I felt very competent and where my skills were valued, to going back to university and feeling like I only know about 9% of the stuff I'm actually supposed to know. I've gone from having a very close-knit group of friends in my hometown, to living in student accommodation in another city, where the connections you make to others tend to be thinner and more widespread. All of that has started to make my thinking a lot more negative and self-deprecating.

 

I know the dust will settle eventually, and some of the friends you make at uni you keep for life as well. I could name which friends I think would fit into that box now, to be honest. Change is a good thing, because it opens the door to new possibilities. And I wouldn't go back to my old job, simply because I felt more comfortable there. I just need to get out of this cycle of assuming negative experiences, and consequently experiencing them.

 

Thanks for your reply anyway, Saq. It makes a lot of sense.

[Duff]

My little sister (Sophomore in college) wanted me and my older sister to watch the One Direction movie with her, so we did.

 

My confession is that it wasn't too bad. The amount of girls who go bat shit crazy over them was hilarious to watch. But also, their music isn't too bad. Kinda picks me up, I guess.

[purpieman2]

I regret not asking a pretty T.A out for coffee at the end of the semester. That was a year ago

[Solemn]

I regret not being able to properly express my distaste in others words/actions, but by complete silence or rage.

[purpieman2]

That is supposedly a trait for males to internalize. Best to try and not to do it as much. I am trying too

[Duff]

A lot of people want to make a huge impact on the world and do fantastic things. I am completely fine with living an average life and just being a good person to those around me. I don't think my idea of being successful and happy depends on how big of things I do. I'm quite content with the idea of working an average job. I think that as long as I marry someone I love and have a few kids, that's the most excitement I'll need to be happy.

[muggiwhplar]

A lot of people want to make a huge impact on the world and do fantastic things. I am completely fine with living an average life and just being a good person to those around me. I don't think my idea of being successful and happy depends on how big of things I do. I'm quite content with the idea of working an average job. I think that as long as I marry someone I love and have a few kids, that's the most excitement I'll need to be happy.

If your only goal in life is to make it to your grave as safely as possible, you will probably succumb to the same fate as all the other people out there who chose to live a life of mediocrity: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/27/the-top-5-regrets-of-the-dying/

 

You are correct about happiness/success being measured by the things you do though

[Giordano]

It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.

 

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

 

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

 

 

 

The last line gets me every time. :wub:

[Duff]

 

A lot of people want to make a huge impact on the world and do fantastic things. I am completely fine with living an average life and just being a good person to those around me. I don't think my idea of being successful and happy depends on how big of things I do. I'm quite content with the idea of working an average job. I think that as long as I marry someone I love and have a few kids, that's the most excitement I'll need to be happy.

If your only goal in life is to make it to your grave as safely as possible, you will probably succumb to the same fate as all the other people out there who chose to live a life of mediocrity: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/27/the-top-5-regrets-of-the-dying/

 

You are correct about happiness/success being measured by the things you do though

 

I was mainly talking about my whole family and the people around me who expect me to become some brilliant physicist or something. My life and my happiness aren't going to be determined by a super successful career. I'd rather work an average job and get to raise a family and experience that to the fullest.

[muggiwhplar]

I would argue that the reason you want a family is because of societal expectations too. Most of the studies done on parenthood and happiness show that having children damages marriages and happiness... At least until the kids have moved out :P

[Ginger_Warrior]

[citation needed]

[Duff]

I would argue that the reason you want a family is because of societal expectations too. 

Nah. I don't feel pressured by society to do that at all.

[muggiwhplar]

[citation needed]

 

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/351263?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103354754177

 

http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/7/2/131.short

 

http://opr.princeton.edu/seminars/KohlerF03.pdf

 

Just do a Google search if you want more. You could also ask your own parents if you want. :P

 

 

I'll never forget when I was in college, my roommate and I visited his aunt and uncle for some party. His aunt had a few drinks in her, and started crying when she lamented about how after she had kids, her life was no longer about her; it was about them. Not necessarily true, but it does reinforce the fact that blindly following societal programming makes you very unhappy.

[obfuscator]

If you think societal programming is all that makes people want kids you're out to lunch. The desire to reproduce is one of the strongest biological impulses we have.

[muggiwhplar]

when you say "desire to reproduce," if you're referring to the desire to have sex then yes I'd agree. but if you're referring to a desire to raise children after having sex, IDK about that. depends on the person, their age, their gender, etc

[obfuscator]

when you say "desire to reproduce," if you're referring to the desire to have sex then yes I'd agree. but if you're referring to a desire to raise children after having sex, IDK about that. depends on the person, their age, their gender, etc

Darn. I guess that overwhelming feeling of joy I experience whenever I hold a baby must just be because the media told me to have kids. In fact, they're doing such a good job that western civilization has the lowest birth rates in history!

[muggiwhplar]

that overwhelming feeling of joy is temporary

[obfuscator]

Never said it wasn't. But saying that isn't natural or that it's purely a societal construct is illogical.

 

also: http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/09/how-marriage-can-save-your-life/

[muggiwhplar]

I can't speak from any sort of experience when it comes to children (and neither can anyone in this thread AFAIK), but my point was, most people associate children with happiness:

-before having children

-immediately after having children

-after successfully raising children

 

But the point of those studies was that between having children and successfully raising them, they're probably going to make your life a living hell lol. When I mentioned societal programming, I was referring to the idea that the entire process will be sunshine and rainbows and you'll be a consistently happier person as a result of your children. This is not the case.

 

It's like when I go home to visit my family for the holidays and we all gather around and my cousins bring their new children. Me and all the other family members are entertained and amused by their children's antics. But the parents just look exhausted, miserable, and hopeless because they've gotten past the stage where everything their child does is new and exciting.

 

And just to be clear, I'm not telling people to not have kids because it'll make them unhappy, because that's not true. Of all the people I've spoken to whose children are now grown up, they all say that having kids was the best decision of their entire lives and that their children make them extremely happy and proud. But before reaching that point, their kids definitely made them unhappier.
 

Never said it wasn't. But saying that isn't natural or that it's purely a societal construct is illogical.

also: http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/09/how-marriage-can-save-your-life/

 
We've been through this before-- I've agreed with you that marriage can "work," but for 9 out of 10 people it won't. And when it does work, it's more of a case study than something that's consistently replicable and able to be taught to others.
 
"After controlling for variables like age, sex, race, household income and education, they found that single people were 17 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with metastatic cancer, which had spread to other parts of the body, and were 53 per cent less likely to get the best treatment." -- Also keep in mind that most "single people" (like the ones likely sampled in the study) are probably unhappy (and therefore more susceptible to illnesses) for various reasons. If there's one thing that the relationships thread here has taught us, it's that most people are afraid of being single and are miserable until they can find security within a relationship; even if that "security" only turns out to be temporary or one-sided. If it was normal to be single and genuinely happy and comfortable, I wonder if the results would be much different.
 
I've never doubted the effects of a "happy" marriage. The question is: how does one achieve a happy marriage in the first place? Is it possible for everybody? And if so, what steps can one take to practically guarantee eventual success? As far as I know, nobody has been able to develop a reliable system for others to follow. Whenever you read posts on the internet about "how to have a happy marriage," you wind up with airy fairy Disney BS that doesn't make any sense and doesn't actually work in reality... and they're often written by divorcees with zero credibility :\
 
And then there's the question of whether or not any of the partners in those studies have ever cheated, or if they still love and support each other but are no longer attracted to each other; which would further complicate things.

 

 

Nice to have you back BTW. I've missed arguing with you. No homo.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Isn't there a very high possibility of selection bias in your searching, there? I'm not criticising your search strategy; I'm just saying that people are far more likely to take to the Internet and pen about everything that's going wrong in a marriage and why it's breaking apart, than talk about everything that's right about it.

 

Furthermore, how many of those describing bad experiences take personal responsibility for those experiences and their own inability to resolve differences, and how many of them, rather uselessly, shift the responsibility elsewhere?

[Estonian dude]

I like to drive people to the edge. Observe their reactions then. Sometimes, actually most of the time I manage to get people over the edge.

 

I'm afraid I have alienated some people and caused myself some trouble because of that...

[Tesset]

You know, when you say that, it sounds a lot like you're saying you like to annoy people/be a dick to them. Which, if that's true, then it makes sense that you might alienate some people.

[RpgGamer]

Existence is pain. And we'd do anything to alleviate that pain.