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What makes you stuck? You sound like you've accepted your fate. If you want to change things, just do it. If your reality is so bad that you want to die, then
by aaron-lebo 9y ago
What makes you stuck? You sound like you've accepted your fate. If you want to change things, just do it.
If your reality is so bad that you want to die, then how is taking action to potentially change things worse? A big part of this discussion is people want meaningful work and a meaningful life, but they want other people to give it to them. Why is that expected?
- aalleavitch 9y agoSome people get caught in situations where furthering their career and eating next week are mutually exclusive propositions.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoIf actual slaves were able to escape and make their way to freedom and satisfying lives, then surely office workers can do the same.
- aalleavitch 9y agoAh yes "if your life sucks, just be one of the small percentage of people who succeed in overcoming the massive challenges stacked against you, there's nothing unreasonable about expecting that out of every individual". Unless, of course, you're saying we need to start a civil war to free all the office workers...
- aaron-lebo 9y agoIf your life sucks so bad that you're sitting on Friday morning posting to a place called Hacker News, then your life really doesn't suck that much. You've already got more than most ever had, so leverage that. Not a fan of learned helplessness or woe is me. If you want to change, you can. It might not be easy but if you feel like waiting until you die, there's not much to lose, anyway. What does saying "my life sucks" solve? The world isn't kind to most people, you have to make the most out of it.
- aalleavitch 9y agoThey're sharing their situation. Indicating to others that there's a problem is a part of getting it solved, and if that problem is systemic it's probably one we're all going to need to work together on. The world isn't kind. But there's no reason we can't work to make it less so.
- carlmr 9y agoWhile the chances were always slim for survival in this case, if you have accepted death as equally good to life, you can risk everything.
- adrianN 9y agoMeaningful work doesn't grow on trees.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoAnything can be meaningful. You might not think making sushi for 60 years is meaningful, but a guy named Jiro does. Even if you have to have an "interesting" job, most people aren't but a few years of schooling out. Hell, we're in tech where you're a few years of study and practice from being world class and/or making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, you've got to work at it, but that's really meaningful work.
- sincerely 9y agoHonestly, retail or food services is probably more meaningful than the sort of "bullshit jobs" [1] that people are complaining about here. [1]:https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs
- JulianMorrison 9y agoIt actually kind of does. It just tends to come with starvation in the present society.
- badpun 9y agoOn the contrary, there's plenty of meaningful work - cleaning is one for example. It is just not very appealing.
- gkya 9y ago> If you want to change things, just do it. If only that was as easy as saying it. People have responsibilites and stomachs that don't like (naturally) staying empty. Sometimes you just can't do it.
- xj9 9y agoeasy who said easy? change is difficult. life is hard and then you die, so you might as well go down fighting.