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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2031 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 28, 2023

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

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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.

  • 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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I don't know what options prisoners have but it seems what they have in common with kids is a genuine lack of options and both may lack enough of an introduction to books to make them seem interesting (which I see wasn't true in your case). As an adult I can't really count all the other things I could be doing with my time, exploring the woods nearby will take a bit of effort but will probably be something I look back on as more rewarding than the same time spent gaming.

I think back to the endless boredoms of my childhood, my brother occupying our shared Game Boy Advance, my books finished, nothing on TV, sitting in a hotel room on vacation bored out of my mind. What did I do? Fucking nothing lmao

Hotels can be very boring places for kids to be fair, you're pretty dependent on your parents' schedule to leave and do something.

I had similar experiences arguing with my brother about who got to play the Xbox this time. Even having a strong stimulus like a Game Boy nearby can be disruptive as instead of finding something new to do you can just wait or argue for your turn, your sibling isn't going to put his mind to the same problem because he's occupied. Things were much more relaxed when we visited my grandparents' house and there was genuinely nothing to do but go out in the garden and look at bugs.

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