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Do you have a problem? Yes, I don’t have enough money for bills + food.
Can you do something about it? No, I’m on a fixed income.
Then don’t worry. Uh…
I mean if a meteor is coming, I'm not worrying.
Yeah the usual mental worrying part is if you're just not sure enough if the problem is actually in your reach or not.
Recontextualizing helps me a lot in these situations. So if I'm in your shoes I'd think: The new problem is that I don't know if I can solve the original problem. Can I do something about that? Yes. Set aside time to focus on it, brainstorm, research, etc. If that comes up fruitful, I'll do what I found, don't worry. If it doesn't, then there's nothing to do, don't worry.
You can set a point in the future to revisit and see if anything's changed, based on how persistent this problem is in your life.
In practice this is easier said than done, of course. I fail to do it sometimes. But it's a solid strategy that has helped me find a lot of peace. Give it a go!
I agree. Not sure that necessarily means we’re mentally stable.
Well, worrying about it certainly won't do anything to improve the situation
You CAN do something: change you job, study something to improve your skills, change country if you must.
The important point is not to do something, but rather to solve the problem. And some people simply can't, and it sucks.
Humans are incredible at filtering, therefore a solution can float right on by if it isn't the "right one". Also solutions to most problems come by as a result of completely unrelated activity. Therefore it is incredibly important to be doing something, anything that isn't directly destructive to your goals.
I don't think that's true. Humans are incredibly good at solving problems, so I really don't think "can't" is really ever applicable. The tighter the spot, the more ingenuity it takes to solve the problem. But a solution can always be found or created.
You may not be able to solve the program now, but you can probably do something to help you solve it later.
This is reductive to the point of absurdity, if this were true no one would ever die from any problem (i.e. drowning, falling, etc.) They'd simply activate ingenuity.
Some problems do not have a solution in a given circumstance.
E.g. I'm locked in a prison on a sinking ship that's already 1km underwater, and my cell is completely full of water and I've held my breath for 2 minutes now.
I should've added "given enough time" to that statement.
My take is that if you accept that there's nothing you can do, then that's it. If you don't accept that, you have a chance of improving the outcome, even if it's small. Giving up never improves your outcomes, there's always something you can try that both won't make things worse and might make things better.
In your scenario, you have two options: accept death or try something. Since you aren't going to make it worse, you might as well try something. Some options:
- pick the lock
- break the lock
- squeeze through the bars
- try to use magic to grow gills or something
Literally any of those has a higher chance of success than doing nothing, and if you had more time, one of the first three might even work. If by some miracle you get out, the next step is to look for a pocket oh air. And so on. Take it one step at a time.
Ok, I can agree with this logic "it's better to try than to give in" much more than "there's always a solution".
That to me still leaves some people starving of hunger due to a lack of money and an excess of bills. But I agree that even in that horrible situation it's better to keep trying than give in.
I was worried the argument here was closer to "you're in this terrible situation because you didn't try enough" which I wholeheartedly disagree with.
I feel now that we're in agreement though?
If there's no solution, there's no point in trying, so you need to believe there's always a solution. Maybe there's no apparent solution, but with some effort one can be discovered.
some people starving
And if they do nothing, they will continue to starve. If they try something, maybe they won't. Some options:
- apply for government assistance, if available
- apply for additional jobs
- scavenge
- sell things to buy food
- change other spending habits
- steal
- commit a crime bad enough to go to jail (prisoners get fed)
Each of those has difference costs, chances of success, and chances of making your situation worse. You know what you'll get if you do nothing, so it's probably better to try something.
in agreement
IDK, my goal in online discussions isn't to reach agreement, but to fully explain my side and understand the other person's side. Maybe I'll convince them, maybe they'll convince me, but either way, the discussion should provide value for the next person who comes along and reads it.
Of course there are unsolvable problems. This is true in both theory and practice. If your family member has late-stage cancer, let's suppose.
sure let me just walk to a better country
hey wait why are there people with guns around me
Man the US are not the world, in the civilized world you don’t get shot for migrating…
I wish I was in the us lol
Not always. For example, I’m 100% disabled with a neurodegenerative disease for which there’s no treatment or cure.
This is good advice if you’re not locked in a situation entirely out of your control, but for plenty of people it’s not that simple.
I’m sorry, but all civilized countries in the word offer some social assistance to people in your situation. Put together all disabled people and their families and fight for your rights.
People have been fighting for those rights for decades. That doesn’t change the fact some people are destitute because of health issues with no way to improve their personal situation. And if I had the physical ability to organise people and fight for things, I’d have the ability to work. I’m not sure you know what ‘100% disabled’ actually means.
There are a lot of disabilities, so I don’t know… in my country you could have a 100% physical disability but be in your mind (quadriplegic for example), and in fact there was a person in this condition that fought the government in court and won forcing the government to legislate in his favor and others in similar conditions.
There are a lot of disabilities, so I don’t know.
Look, you should have stopped there.
I don’t think you’re trying to be insensitive, but you are. Do you think I’ve been sitting on my hands saying ‘well this sucks, but I’m not doing anything about it until some random person on the internet tells me to?’
Telling disabled people they should just try harder, and pointing out other people who you think have tried hard enough without knowing any of their personal situations is very callous. You know nothing about me, and even less about those you’re using as an example I should strive towards.
In an effort to help you understand, in an effort towards fostering empathy, I’ll give you a quick synopsis: I fought hard for my career. My upbringing set me up for failure, but I overcame all that and built a fantastic career in software starting in 1998, despite having an 8th grade education and recovering from being kidnapped for sexual purposes.
Within a few years of that, I was designing some of the most popular software on the planet, and was a finalist for the Apple design awards. I never thought I was a victim. Quite the opposite: everything I did was in defiance of what happened to me.
I’ve had a severe genetic issue since birth that made everything hard that whole time. I mostly tried to ignore it, because I wasn’t going to be defined by that. I’m now in my mid 50s, and my condition has become worse steadily over the last 20 years. Nevertheless, I was married for 30 years and raised a wonderful son who is now 25. I worked my ass off, ignoring my condition, for which I said, there’s no treatment or cure. I just lived my life and got very good at being as normal as possible.
The sicker I got (that’s how this works; the older you get, the worse it becomes), the more angry my husband got. It’s hard to deal with something that can’t be fixed. I totally understand how that’s frustrating. I didn’t want to have sex much anymore, because as my intestinal system came under attack, I felt like I had the stomach flu constantly. How horny are you when you’re having constant vomiting and diarrhoea? Every single day for years. I couldn’t eat fruit or vegetables anymore, because my body couldn’t digest it. If I eat a regular hamburger, I shit intact lettuce for days. It took me years to figure out what I could eat, and it’s not much. And eating the wrong thing leads to fainting and seizures. But I was getting flak for not eating around people, like I was trying to make them feel bad.
So after 30 years of doing my absolute best, we divorced. I was the one who asked for it, because I felt he was miserable and I didn’t want to make him suffer for my health issues anymore (he’d made it very clear I was a drag on his life), and I didn’t ask for anything, no alimony, nothing. My life was reset as though I was the 17 year old with no history again. That’s nobody’s fault but my own. Everything had been in his name the whole time, and that’s on me for assuming our relationship would never end.
In the five years since the divorce, while I’ve been getting progressively sicker, I’ve also lost my entire family and all my closest friends to death, and all my pets have died, too. I’ve been completely alone this whole time. But I’ve managed to deal with all these deaths and my deteriorating health, which involves constant diarrhoea and vomiting that’s like having the stomach flu every day for seven years, my mother, aunts, uncles, two best friends, and other friends, three cats, my rabbit, and my dog all dying, and my beloved son moving away.
And during all that, I wrote a novel in an attempt to make money.
And now I’m supposed to deal with not being able to afford food and housing when I have to spend literally five hours every day on the toilet, just wishing it would end. (eta: the next time you have a stomach flu for a couple of days or get food poisoning, think about that lasting for fucking years. That’s my life.) I’m just so very fucking tired.
So please, tell me how I’m supposed to have a stiff upper lip and once again pick myself up by my bootstraps. I’ve already done that multiple times and I’m just done.