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.
Canon event
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 !
Hm, it’s hard to say without knowing the full picture, but I can see where your friend is coming from with this. Trying to think in those employers’ shoes, hiring you from part-time to full-time long-term would be a massive risk for them (particularly in France where we all know that breaking a C.D.I. if you start messing up would be insanely difficult). So, they’re limiting it in time to mitigate that new risk. But I can see how, in their mind, it’s a move forward in their trust for you, and it would be unreasonable in their mind not to mitigate the risk towards that extra trust.
My gut feel is: if you’re not planning to start messing up, then yeah there is additional risk for you for in a year, but it feels like a rather small risk for the reward opportunity if it works out. Also, the opportunity cost seems to be low, maybe even negative: if you stay in your current situation, then I’m guessing the next move forward to look forward to is… well, not much, right? If the alternative plan is to stay forever in this current situation, it doesn’t seem like much of a growth path forward.
I hope I’m not giving you bad advice with this, considering I don’t have the full picture.
One thing that worked out fantastically for me with uncomfortable risk over time is working on fallbacks. So, if I put a lot into plan A working, you can bet that there is a plan B I’m working on with equal fervor. And then nothing feel better than destroying all the work done towards plan B, if plan A ends up working out! But if it doesn’t… then at least you’re not out on your butt about it. So, if it fails in a year, what would you do? You may want to start making steps towards that, while staying hyper optimistic about plan A.
(Also, sometimes both plans work, and plan B ends up being surprisingly better than plan A once they both materialize. It’s rare so don’t count on it, but my point is plan B is never wasted work, and sometimes even less than it appears.)
When we started wearing masks at work, I started to get called ma’am a lot.
I started hormones the next year.
Talk about a ripple effect :) Even though I suppose you were already considering this at that time, no ? Anyway, that’s very nice, thanks for sharing !
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.
As a regular victim to this feeling, that’s something I needed to read. Thank you :)
Yes! For me that has happened a few major times i can remember. I used to be a huge apple fanboy, until i learned i prefer android and linux way more. i know that’s kind of a lame example but it was the first time i became aware of what you’re talking about and opened the door to me thinking critically about other things - namely religion and ethics. The other two major times i’ve had this feeling was with religion, realizing it’s not true and leaving the church, and then after that having to think about ethics for myself and realizing there’s no good reason to exclude nonhuman animals from moral consideration. That exploiting and abusing them for taste pleasure and fashion and tools was totally unjustifiable.
It’s definitely a bizarre feeling, but it’s very important to be open to it and stay on the lookout for other things one could be wrong about
I used to be a huge apple fanboy, until i learned i prefer android and linux way more. i know that’s kind of a lame example but it was the first time i became aware of what you’re talking about and opened the door to me thinking critically about other things
That is perfectly fitting. Thank you for understanding what I meant and expanding with details. I can totally relate to everything you wrote.
I find the example about taste or preference particularly interesting, since there is no objective answer. Still, the mechanics are similar. It is easy to commit to one particular idea, to one specific self-image. But maybe ‘you’ aren’t exactly what you thought you’d be? Being more humble and open can be a liberating experience.
On a related note, I strongly recommend playing theater, especially for everyone who believes they cannot do it.
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Living in different countries made me realize how little people usually know about others. I like to remind people that calling things “strange”, “weird” or saying “Nobody would do xyz” is often wrong and people just a flight away actually find this normal
Still in that country I worked for a company made of 100% foreigners. When I joined the boss took me under his wing and try teaching me the ways in this country and how to get sh*t done. It took a disagreement on product roadmap for me to realize that he was not technically good, he was actually racist and I definitely didn’t want him as a role model. Now I’m extra careful on seeing the signs early
When I was a kid my dad was a contractor. He worked hard, always doing the most possible to make sure my mom and siblings were taken care of.
When I got older, I started going to work with him. I realized how hard it was, how everything he did was extremely physically taxing. It was after moving his ladder for the 12th time I realized this is why he’s so tired all the time. He’s working his ASS off for us, trading his physical health for us to have a good childhood.
It was my time with him that A) opened my eyes and respect to the thousands of trades folks on the market and B) without them, this whole operation we call modern society falls apart.
So the “little” thing that changed my life was seeing my dad provide the way he did. I chose to continue in the same field as my dad, but now I’m the designer that makes the plans, instead of installs them. He would always tell me “Use your brain if your have one. Otherwise, you can use your body”.
For me, it was the combination of two Linguistic tidbits of info, from uni classes:
- verb modality being split between epistemic and deontic
- Linguistics itself being descriptive, while normative grammar being prescriptive.
I won’t go further on what those posh words mean because they were just the “trigger”. What changed the way that I perceive things was that, by their powers combined, I realised that there’s a deep distinction between
- what we know, what we don’t know, what’s true or false
- what we want, what we don’t want, what we consider good or bad
and that we should never mix both things inside our heads.
I love this ! I sont exactly know the meaning of these words, but the idea itself is crystal clear !
I sont exactly know the meaning of these words,
The posh words? They aren’t too important, but:
Modality is how a language allows you to talk about either reality or your attitude towards something (all languages do it). It’s split into a bunch of categories, but the biggest ones are
- epistemic - you’re talking about reality, things that are either true or false. For example, “the bar doesn’t sell you lemonade”. And
- deontic - you’re talking about your attitude towards something; either “this is good/allowed/should be done” or “this is bad/disapproved/shouldn’t be done”. For example, “the bar should sell you lemonade.”
In the meantime, a grammar for any given language can be either
- descriptive - it informs the reader how speakers of that language speak it; this is what Linguistics does. For example, “a lot of English speakers use «[noun] and me» as the subject.” is a descriptive statement.
- prescriptive - it tells you how the author believes that you should be using that language. For example, “people shouldn’t say «[noun] and me», they should say «[noun] and I»” would be a prescriptive statement.
You probably noticed that the underlying distinction between epistemic vs. deontic is the same as the one between descriptive and prescriptive. That was what “clicked” me years ago, that made me realise that this distinction is everywhere. And that, if we want clarity of reasoning, we should keep this distinction in mind.
I used to mix them up. Once I learned the difference and started making effort to communicate clearly then I began being seen as promotion material in my industry
It has also a big impact in our personal lives. For example, it’s damn easier to avoid wishful thinking and doomerism if you keep them distinct, because then you start asking yourself “is this what I really see? Or am I letting my wishes and fears cloud my mind?”.
Mushrooms. First time I took shrooms they were offered to me while drinking and I said sure why not, never tried em before and I was always interested. It was a low dose so I didn’t hallucinate or anything, but I was the most comfortable I’ve been in my life for hours. The next day I felt like I just took a 2 week vacation and something just clicked for me. Existential dread and stress I had been focused on disappeared overnight and I just felt generally secure and comfortable for the first time in ages.
This was a while ago in my early 20s, so I think they were mindset changes that I would’ve made over time anyways, and I’m sure I’ve made much more since, but it was wild how much of a mindset change I made over night.
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.
Taking anthropology courses in college made a significant change to the way I view the world. I don’t necessarily know or understand anyone else’s way of thinking about things, but I am always aware that alternatives exist. It made me more accepting of differences and more open to new ideas. There are an infinite number of “right ways” to do things. (Although there are still wrong ways too.)
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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.
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?
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.
Don’t worry about being only 22. Lots of famous people in history did stuff at your age, and they probably also had no idea what they are doing, but did it anyways. When you’re 44, you’ll realise most people still have no clue, but they know how to act like they do. So just go for it! You’ll figure it out on your way.
Hey, I can fondly recommend “How to be a stoic” by Massimo Pigliucci.
Give non-alcoholic bars a try if you have one in your area. Virgin beers and cocktails of course, but also incredibly creative drinks that taste fantastic.
I was doing two master’s degrees and I was active in student union. It was impossible to be in three places at the same time. After the first week, I realised people don’t really care if you are late or not and if you come or not. Before this I was always minimum 5 minutes early before the starting time. After that I’ve been late almost always. And not just by few minutes…
People do care if you are late though. Friends and co-workers wait for you to arrive before starting a meeting or activity, but you are now always the very late one. You are tolerated, but will be kept at arm’s-length because they know you are inconsiderate. You can be 5 minutes late to some meetings in order to feign that you are really important and your previous meetings went over because people wanted more of your time, but if you go much more than that frequently, you are just unreliable.
