tygerprints

Well you shouldn’t base your posts on whether or not people will “downvote” it. If they do it’s usually because you’ve told the truth or said something they’d rather not hear. And after all, this isn’t supposed to be a popularity contest. Online forums are the last place you should be seeking validation or a sense of self-worth, because you usually won’t get it.

You should be willing to post honestly and openly about anything. If it gets downvoted, so be it. I see it as almost a way of measuring how much of what I said really affected people.

Very true and glaringly apparent. RFK jr thinks he’s pulling the wool over people’s eyes but he’s a dyed-in-the-wool right winger all the way. And a nut, which seems to go hand in hand.

You’re going to find that true almost anywhere online nowadays. I got sick on my birthday last year, and i posted on facebook that I hated being sick on my birthday. So facebook banned me for posting “hate speech.” (I’m not even kidding).

And I got banned from Reddit for suggesting that younger generations are more progressive in their views. THAT was apparently the wrong thing to say. I’m not sure why it was so controversial - but it sure pressed someone’s button.

These are all bad ideas. The more you change yourself to “please” everyone else, the less happy you will ever be. One of the hardest lessons of life is to learn that, you can’t ever please everyone, and when you change to please someone, they’ll soon change what they want and you’ll never stop having to change to please them.

The real secret to happiness is not to change yourself at all. It’s to learn how to like who you are, the way you are. Yes the world is cruel and cold - and it’s awlays going to be that way. You aren’t the problem here. You are fine just the way you are, and it’s a secret that could save many lives and keep many people from self-harm if they only realized it at a younger age.

The truth is, nobody wants someone around them who is trying to please them all the time. They want to be around someone who is self-confident and radiates a healthy well-adjusted persona that says “this is who I am, love it or leave it.”

Becoming rich to attract people may work to attract people, but they’ll only be attracted by the money, not by you. As soon as that runs out, so will they. And usually they will run out anyway, even if the money doesn’t.

You need to get some help with your attitude about yourself, and start deciding that you’re OK as you are. Do not do the surgery option - it’s wrong. Women who get surgery to “look more like so and so” are never happy. Surgery isn’t the answer to your problems in life, at all.

Yeah I think it’s inevitable sometimes. I’m also working to try and catch myself before it gets to that point, but sometimes it just happens. I try to remember that causing damage will only makes thing much worse than they are already, and I can use that energy for something I really want to be doing instead.

Antivaxxers tend to be uneducated people with agendas. They are actually wanting to see more people get sick and die, because they think it “eliminates” undesirable (ie, educated liberal good people) from the world. When it fact, it only eliminates their own ignorant breed. That’s why I don’t argue with them, I let them go ahead and exhaust themselves on their cross of ignorance.

Oh Dr. Satan. I wouldn’t call it insanity so much as willful ignorance. People only want to hear what they want to hear. So they tend to reject anything that’s a new idea or that challenges their world view and it’s easier just to repeat the things they’ve been brainwashed to believe.

As an LGBTQ plus a bunch of other letters person, trust me when I say I’ve come against this wall many times. People who are relatively young with little world experience trying to tackle huge issues without much wisdom to back it up. The result IS a kind of mass insanity, where people are more willing to trust misinformation and silliness. That truly is a horrible consequence of not being open minded and willing to be educated.

That’s very true, smaller frusts are easier to deal with. I usually have to step away from the situation and let myself breathe and try to talk myself out of “catastrophizing” every situation.

Dr. Satan! WHAT are you implying!! Actually no I’d never do that anyway because I have so many of my own opinions, it isn’t hard for me to dish out something from my endless supply of unasked-for commentary.

I don’t think depression is quite like catching a cold, for one thing a cold is a virus and it usually goes away in about seven days. And OTC meds can help relieve the pain and nasal drip. With depression, it’s a mental state and condition usually having to do with imbalances in brain chemistry and other “mechanisms” in the brain.

And, it’s also in many ways even more common than the common cold. Almost everyone has some depression at some point, and it’s almost like it’s hard-wired into our neurons to sometimes feel that way. So I almost think of it less as a disease and more of a condition of being human.

There’s so much stigma about it and people are afraid to admit to it, but really depression is almost as normal as hunger or thirst.

I dunno. Yet I’ve gone deep sea fishing in Oregon, getting up at 4:00 am to go out in dark foggy weather and spending all day heaving and ho-ing (!) on the high seas. And getting up before dawn to go “clamming,” i.e, breaking all your fingernails digging through rock and sand in wet cold water.

And crabbing also, which I prefer because at least you get to sit in a boat and cruise around most of the time, waiting to pull up the traps. I enjoyed it all, but I was a lot younger then. I just like being out on the water - it’s not so much the fishing, although I had a grand time deep sea fishing.

I dunno, it’s not such a dumb reason, it seems like a perfectly teenage kind of reaction. I think most guys have been there.

Usually with regard to the 3rd step, I realize it’s a series of smaller frustrations that have led up to the huge angry outburst. One or two things go wrong, OK I can usually handle it. But after that, get outta the way because I’m like an exploding nuclear warhead. I’ve driven off more than one friend and roommate with my 0 to suddenly 100 rage.

Ouch, that sounds painful!!! I broke the mirror in the apartment I was renting because one day I was furious and punched it. What a dumb thing to do – I needed that mirror!! :/ So yeah, going around punching stuff is not a great solution, I’ve bruised my knuckles more than once.

I get that completely, as someone who could use an anger management session or two myself. I just couldn’t encapsulate everything into one brief (and it wasn’t brief) posting. I like your suggestion of a rage room, what I do is I usually punch a wall or something, which ends up hurting me more than the wall.

These “isms and phobias” are used as excuses to rationalize violence, but really they are just excuses based on irrationality and on hurtful stereotypes.

So if you’re angry about someone or some group of people, the way you handle it positively is to use that energy to lift up people.

Instead of being negative and downward, trying to stomp on other people like they are bugs, what about trying to get to where you can help someone who is struggling. Doesn’t have to be a person of the group you hate, but anyone who needs a helping hand.

Think of it this way, the person you’re really mostly hurting when you’re out of control angry, is yourself. All that energy expended on bitterness and stress - why not instead use it to go out and be proactive with people. The world is a stupid place, so - go flip it the bird by helping someone out.

It sounds weird I know. I’m usually a pretty angry reactive person. At the store yesterday, a lady was buying like eight cartons of soda, so I asked her if I could help her with loading them into her car. She was a little unsure at first but then was really grateful for the help.

It’s a tiny thing. But I felt good, in a way. Sure it’s not going to change the world, but it’s better than putting more dents and dings in it.

Well he must have some knowledge of a world outside of his shoebox, because obviously he’s getting food from somewhere and healthcare needs are being met. So I’d imagine he’d feel very resentful and confined and wondering what he’d done to deserve such a fate.

He’d be full of imaginative ideas, to be sure, and maybe even develop a sense of intuition beyond what people who are fed information all the time ever are able to develop. And I’m sure he’d be unable to form any real sense of belonging or empathy. Other than that - who knows what could happen.

They’re just called tax preparers, like H & R block, but there’s also FreeTaxUSA which is not really totally free, but it’s what I usually use, and it keeps your financial records online so next year most of your info is already filled out for you. Also, any financial advisor can help you with more complex tax advice.

I hope that’s helpful.

I think one reason people believe that and I heard a lot of people talking about the day it happened is, the twin towers would not ordinarily have imploded the way they did just because of an airplane impact. A lot of fuel leaked from the burning planes, but many speculated there had to already be explosives planted along many of the building’s inner seams for them to explode and collapse the way they did.

I don’t know if we’ll ever know for sure, but there COULD be some plausibility to inside homegrown terrorists having aided this atrocity.

Wow I went bit over the top didn’t I. I shouldn’t have said we need to wipe the whole state off the face of the earth. Just the bloodthirsty ones.

I’m not sure Israeli people are to blame, but the government certainly is. And it seems there is no way to get better people into office there.