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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You're spot on. Last time I wrote about my situation, I was desperate and just wanted to pour my thoughts out, and I couldn't do it in real life because I hid my situation under the guise of just being very introverted. And it was helpful, it kind of motivated me to start working on myself because I knew that others have read the post. I'm hoping this time I get the same motivation to keep pushing, especially now because now my life doesn't seem that terrible anymore and I know it's very easy to get comfortable. I realize I could just relax, blink and boom I'm 35 living the same life I've been living and that would be horrible. I know I need to continue progressing.
I think my beliefs around having a job, status and so on are distorted by me never having one. My imaginary job that could've brought me status and purpose is not the code monkey, office slop, cog in the machine type, it's the agentic one, the one where I'd get to solve interesting problems, the one that would teach me new interesting skills or bring me around powerful and interesting people. Literally what I imagine an impressionable 18 year old's idea of a job he/she is going to have once out of college. Me never going through this cycle of actually getting a real job and getting your dreams and aspirations crushed leaves me with this idealized view and having people around me base like 80% of their personality around their work keeps me coming back to this idea of what could've been, although I fully realize I definitely would've been another code monkey that would've gotten smoked the moment ChatGPT came out because I was always a mediocre programmer (that's what I went to college for).
It's cliche, but after missing out on most of my 20s due to my condition, I just want to live a fulfilling life.. I remember when I was 13, my parents wanted to send me to a summer camp. Naturally, me being fucking terrified of socializing, I rejected the idea. Then, at 15, my parents pretty much just forced me to go to this summer camp because it was the last time I could go (16 is the cutoff), and so I did. Despite my first few days being hell, I found new friends and my social anxiety calmed down and I had an absolute blast. So, so, so many opportunities like this completely lost out on... I just don't want to have any more regrets like this. Now I don't have an excuse anymore - my condition is under control. And I'm also recognizing that now that I'm much older, I don't just get 'free' opportunities any more like I did as a teenager or while in college. Very few people around me have opportunities, curiosity and willingness to live interesting and fulfilling lives, so I can't just be a +1 to someone else's interesting life, I have to be the one that makes my life interesting and fulfilling all on my own.
I agree. But I also recognize that to find these people, I must have indiscriminate curiosity and willingness to connect with as many people as I can and that's what I hope to do.
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