Ask Lemmy

Honestly, it sounds like you've been spending too much time in some online communities that are doom posting about everything. Do things suck right now? Yes, but they've literally sucked for as long as human society has existed. Things can always be better, or always be worse. However you can't just sit around passively waiting for the times to change, or your life will suck.

The single biggest factor in whether your life is good or not is you and your actions. Don't let things outside of your control convince you to give up. Do the best with what you have, and I promise you that you can find fulfillment and happiness in the life available to you.

Log out of social media, go outside, interact with real people. Life is not remotely as bad as all that, it just seems that way because social media has told you to be scared. Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.

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 usually 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.

It still gets cold outside. If you don’t work you’ll live there

I agree with others that this reads as a person who's chronically online. Perhaps bluntly saying "go outside" is insensitive, but it would not hurt to organically expose yourself to real people in real life instead of mentally ill people on the internet these days.

You mentioned getting a job - working is a great option, but truthfully nobody likes work, everyone who says so is coping.

However, putting yourself through challenges is what builds your character. You seem lost to me, so I think you should do these mundane boring little detours in life, because that's where you'll find what you actually want to do.

Work is a fuck, but you gotta eat.
And the shared suffering builds camaraderie with your coworkers and some may develop into friends, which can provide meaning and excitement.

People who glorify hustle culture are fucked up. Don't listen to them.

TL;DR: The following is going to be dark and harsh but it all comes down to one thing. Life doesn't get better, you get better at dealing with shit. Hang in there.

You need to disconnect and find a way to focus on you.

It feels like the entire system is a scam and it's pointless to even try.

It has always been a game where the only way to win is to cheat. Always.

It feels all but certain that I won't be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire.

The system is not setup with rest (retirement) as its main goal. The system is setup for you to play until you die. Even if you hoard more money than you and your descendants could possibly spend in a hundred years, you would likely still want to play, because you are winning. If your end goal is mere prosperity and retirement, then you should prepare to be under the boot and a slave until you die.

All of the wealth is going straight to the top.

Always has been the case. It hasn't stopped people from finding a way.

All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled.

This has always been the case. You have to make your own opportunities and expect others to drag you down. We are all crabs in a bucket.

All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet.

Fantasy. These things has never existed in this country. At best, FDR gave us a yoga mat to land on when we fall off a cliff, where before it was a bed of nails. Fall hard enough in this country and you will get wrecked no matter what. It has always been that way.

We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.

Same as it ever was.

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.

Take a breath. Here is a truth that will sound harsh but it is meant as a kindness. You do not matter. Just about nobody knows you exist. Nobody is coming to get you. This fact applies to almost everyone.

Since all we can do is live the life we perceive with the meat in our skull, we tend to see ourselves as the main character in the story of life. We're not. We barely qualify for NPC status.

I myself have disabilities (which I don't think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job.

That's a problem, I am sorry. All problems have a solution, but one unlikely to be found here, with Internet strangers.

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.

Again. Breathe homie. That's not going to happen.

Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it?

100%...often. I have lived with chronic, sometimes crippling, depression and fairly severe PTSD since 1989. Long story short, a lot of trauma broke my brain. Combo that with ADHD, borderline personality disorder, heart disease and cancer, and we are living the life baby! Still, I have been able survive and rise from poverty to wealth without hurting too many people...I hope.

If so, what snapped you out of it?

Nothing did. I just kept getting up out of spite and contempt for this life. As time went on, i got used to it. The bullshit bothered me less until it just became background noise. A nuisance from time to time.

you unironically just have to cope with it in whatever way makes sense to you

I personally think of my career as: "some things I do are interesting and keep me from blowing my brains out, the rest I don't care about"

when it comes to the company I work for: I treat everyone I meet well, no corporate bs, no yes sir yes ma'am. I do whatever I'm assigned and meet deadlines

but I never go above and beyond (because of burnout)

everything you've thought about hard work = reward or better pay is a scam

put everything into work-life balance and when you go home focus on things you really want to do, such as hobbies or hang outs

don't do unpaid overtime, don't bend over for anyone, don't offer yourself up when shit goes down

you want to be as invisible as possible while not burning out AND not working your ass off (everyone has different standards for what this means)

tldr: just find some way to cope because there isn't really anything else you can do

I enjoy eating and air conditioning. Gotta work for it.

Guillotine Party!

Universal healthcare, securities tax, punitive top-tier income tax. We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons, or we can do it like the French got rid of their first and second estate.

Don't do a ~~blue~~ white collar job. Go into a trade school and do that instead. Drive a truck, be an electrician, plumber, whatever. These are still good jobs and you actually might be happier doing something like this when compared to working in an office. At least you feel like you are doing something and you can see what you accomplish right away.

I'm much older than you and have been working in an office since I can remember. I have been really thinking about doing or at least learning a trade even though that would mean a huge pay cut for me.

MVW... Minimal Viable Work. Companies think only they can deliver shit? Just deliver the bare minimum.... as they ~~don't~~ do with their customers.

I feel you, but you need to remember that the world is generally a pretty chaotic place and predicting the future when complex systems pass tipping points and transition to new equilibria (as they are at the moment) is pretty difficult.

Invest in yourself, your ability to cope with new and unfamiliar things, and build resilience. Resilience being the ability to bounce forward when you hit rocky patches. Don't expect to bounce back and end up where you left off, but learn to adjust to the chaos where you need to.

Develop your capabilities until you have a sense of being a competent, worthwhile and dependable person outside of the circus going on around us. Someone that isn't quite so dependent on the big bad system we are often forced to be part of.

You've gotten a lot of good suggestions, and this comment might get buried but I wanted to let you know that I was there 20 years ago. The future looked bleak, I had a shitty job that was sucking my life force away... one day as I was walking into work through an alley I saw someone had left a shopping cart there. I had the thought that I could just grab that cart and keep walking... turn my back on my former life and just live my way. I passed that cart for 3 weeks... then I realized that I either need to grab the cart or find a different plan for my life. I then looked at my options, found a career path, and then started working toward that plan. It was about 3 years of very hard work, with very little social life. But I stuck with my plan, got a better job and stayed on that career path. There have been setbacks, but looking back those were just blips.

"toss me into a torture facility"

What? Step away from the internet for a while.

I don’t know what the true answer is but if you are indeed an American, and vote, never vote for a republican candidate, EVER. I am not saying democratic candidates are always better but Republicans are 100% of the time out to fuck over the young, the old, the different and poor. Unless you’re a deranged scumbag hell bent on making the world a worse place for the dispossessed, you have nothing to gain by electing a republican candidate. Also, unless it’s a local election, do not vote for 3rd party candidates in federal elections until their political machines show they are capable of fielding a coherent campaign and message.

As for working—find something with your local state government. It pays less but it is steady most of the time and the basic jobs do not require much of an education or knowledge-base.

But to the main point—keep going. Keep living your life as best you can. These ghouls who have all the wealth will die at some point, and fun fact… money really isn’t anything but an agreed upon hallucination so we could just kill and eat all those fuckers.

I continue to live because the goal of the system you described is to kill us. As long as we still breathe, they haven't yet won completely, and we still have an opportunity to chuck spanners into the gears to try and slow the enshittification. The bastards in power are the smuggest, shittiest, most vile excuses for human life on this planet, and any drop of satisfaction we can deny them is a victory.

you can work to live or you can become dependent on others to support you, but somehow you're gonna need to eat.

So, as someone that was homeless 3 times already and went from that to doing ok for myself enough to at least have some vacation and self autonomy.

Find something that only you, can do.

That was the advice that worked for me. Don't try for the specific jobs that make money or even make you happy doing it but something that you knew if people thought about it, they think of your name to get it done.

It's stressful and a shitty life sometimes but I know people rely on me. And it's ok to take time to figure it out and make bold decisions to get there. Stuff you wouldn't expect to do can be a great starting place.

I couldn't afford my existence in America ( got bullied out of my STEM field because it made other stressed people feel better) so I looked for jobs that would pay for it for me. That's how I discovered the circus and cruise lines. Food and lodging and people trying to get by. From there I found something they needed fixed and learned how to do it.

You need to be willing to change. And probably willing to go your own path in a way that will mean a life different than you ever knew. Nothing that worked for anyone else will absolutely work for you, we are all too individual and different.

But that's why you can do something. Maybe you can work with leather and make aprons that no one else can. Maybe you can operate a remote station alone better than others cause you like the quiet. Maybe you can land planes in Boise Idaho cause you don't mind living there and like planes. Maybe you can run a cult of personality where people think you are their mother God...

I dunno it's worked for others but it's up to find what you can do and how far from the norm you are willing to go.

Normal is a myth of America anyways. Go do you.

Get offline, and simplify. Start doing things that are good for you. There is yet joy to come.

I have personal goals in life I want to reach and I'm going to do whatever it takes to do so. Try laying out your life goals.. What do I want to do 5, 10, 20 years in the future? Then you make a plan to achieve those goals, keeping in mind employment with inevitably be on that path. It can be seen as a means to an end or more depending on how you shape your view.

Do you want to do a minimum wage job where you feel like you're a worthless drone, or do you want a more meaningful career that could maybe even turn in to something more? You have the option to pave your own path. If you look at a job as nothing more than wage slavery, then those are the only jobs you are going to find. The companies that pay well and/or offer good benefits are definitely out there and they want people with skills who are motivated and reliable. Everyone has the chance for their big break, but it will never come if you don't work for it. Also not every place to work is a faceless corporation, there's a lot of small businesses out there needing talented people too, and those are often the sweetest deals as long as the business owner(s) care to keep their people happy. There's such a thing as working for a company that you believe in and want to see succeed for a greater reason than bumping up your own paycheck.

There's also such a thing as working a job and doing what you like doing at the same time. I work with computers. Do it at work, do it at home too. I enjoy all of it, I lean new stuff every day and I make a good living doing what I consider to be fairly mentally stimulating but also rewarding work. Sure, it is pretty stressful at times, but there's always a light around the corner.

I've found that things have a way of working out, no matter how shitty things might look. Live your life for you and the ones you love, if you have to grease some corporate palms along the way or do some jobs you don't necessarily love to get by, that's just the way of things. The system is just kinda designed to work like that. Are you going to let that stop you? I personally say hell fucking no.

I see one of the most powerful and defining traits of human beings to be our adaptability. You have the power to handle just about anything the world has to throw at you, whether you realize it or not.

I'm not sure if you have any kind of faith, but it honestly helps. I'm not a religious person but I've found that having faith in myself and in the ones I love the most to be a very rewarding/fulfilling part of my life. I've found you have to find your own light in life, no one else will necessarily do that for you. Building a plan for your future and executing it is daunting and there will be adversity, but you can handle it. Balance out the hard/mentally taxing stuff with whatever it is that makes you truly happy.

The system has failed, but we still have to live within it. There's a positive though, if we play our cards right and use the system to our advantage to the best of our ability, we will have enough smart and skilled like-minded people down the road and we can band together to beat the system. The next revolution, whatever form it takes, will require all kinds of different talent from many different walks of life.

Get a STEM degree and move to a country that respects its citizens.

Maybe try to find a small business you care about or interests you? I own a small business. It's me, my wife, my sister-in-law and two friends I made in the industry. We all get paid $16/hr. We got to create the environment we wanted to work in. Its a lot of work but we're happy and feel more free than we would elsewhere.

I know I'm coming from a point of privilege writing this but I like to think we're all on equal footing at my place and we're doing our best to grow together rather than making me rich. I've worked for a lot of small businesses as well and they often have more respect for skills and individuals - not all - but a lot. If you find a place you like or even love it can become like a second home.

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.

TL; DR Get in on the scam.

Pick something you like to do, or have a talent for, and plan a path to make money from it. You may still have to work for someone else initially, to develop skills and get experience, but it will be better than doing a shit job only for money.

Research what resources there are to support your startup. Even in places where there is no help from government or anything else for individuals, you will find they want to support business.

Especially if you have extra challenges, if you get good, they will make a narrative around your success and promote you as an example.

If I want things, I need money and the only way to get money without practically committing any financial crime that there is, it's to work for it. Quite frankly, it's unhealthy to be bathing yourself with this mentality of dreading the reality of the matter. I won't disagree that it sucks, but there has to be other directions out there for you than just that.

But I do suspect the reason you're feeling this way is because of you mentioning disabilities and I can't imagine the kind of world you're in where, it seems like there's a layer of disrespect towards the disabled when it comes to work.

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.

Editing to add: Two things can be true at once - the system is designed to funnel money to people who don't need it and keep most of us struggling. It's baked in, yes. But it's also true that your own life is yours to live, and your own actions and thoughts what you have the most control of, and that you can make changes that improve your life.