The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Been feeling very behind in life recently . This latest round of dissatisfaction/anxiety was brought on by my mom having foot surgery last week (to fuse the bones in her foot because there isn’t any cartilage there any more). My parents are getting old and won’t be with me for that much longer. And I guess that has made me feel that I haven’t really used the time I’ve been alive well, especially the last ten years.
I’ll be 28 in November, and I don’t think I’m where I thought I would be when I was 18, at all. I’m not married, haven’t had sex in two years, and haven’t kicked my porn/masturbation addiction that I’ve been trying to quit since I was 21. I’m slower at running (and biking and swimming) than I was senior year of highschool. I’m still finishing my PhD with no end in sight, and living like a college student. I still have many of insecurities about status and other people’s opinions that I did at 18.
Three bright spots though have been learning Spanish, quitting gaming. And taking more leadership both at work and with things like my philosophy book club, running club, and just my own personal hygiene/cleanliness of the house. These things are proof that change can happen with patience and willpower. It’s just not hard to think that I’ve messed up somewhere, and am still messing up.
Anyway, sorry for the self-indulgent rant. Just wanted to get this off my chest. If anyone has any advice I’d appreciate it.
While I had gotten a good deal further than you had at the same age, i still had insecurities in similar ways and my impression was that a it was true for a lot of my (successful) friends as well, so i don't really think success solves this issue, at least not normal levels of success, even if it might lessen it.
My only real advice is to keep your head down and work on the material goals so that you secure your financial future. This will allow you to solve your other problems (but not solve them by itself) and for me almost all of my anxieties went away with becoming a father. I feel like society really understates just how meaningful parenthood is and how it ties you together with your family, community and the future in general.
Thank you for this! It’s what I’ve been thinking as well. I really need to earn more money so I can provide for a family (which would also help me escape from the college student lifestyle).
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