4 ms·

"Listen kid, just be glad you aren't a peasant."

danieltillett 8y ago
Having worked as a farmworker in the past every day I am thankful that I have a cushy office job. I live better than the kings of 200 years ago lived let alone my poor ancestors.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Exactly. Spend a summer nailing shingles to roofs in 100F weather all day, and then complain to me about how awful an open office is (with air conditioning and a comfortable chair to sit on). I’m grateful every day that my old man pressured me to get a technology education so I didn’t have to destroy my body daily doing construction like he did.
  - gerbilly 8y ago
    >Exactly. Spend a summer nailing shingles to roofs in 100F weather all day, and then complain to me about how awful an open office is Both can be awful. Just because physical labour is physically tiring, it does not follow that mental labour might not be even more stressful. I worked farm labour in my 20s and those were some of the best jobs I ever had. Every meal was a banquet and I slept like a log. Potatoes tasted so good, it was as if I was eating ambrosia. I also believe that the body and the mind need to be worked together. The disembodied work typically done in offices is unbalanced, and can be very taxing.
- kentrado 8y ago
  Kings 200 years ago didn't have to spend most of their lives working.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    statecraft is a job. It's a popular fiction that historical monarchs spent all their time indulging their hedonistic impulses, but it is fictional.
  - falcor84 8y ago
    Are you sure about that? From the but of history I know, monarchs had extremely busy schedules and high demands on their "free" time, and I don't expect that all of that was particularly fun.
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      Especially having to go around "curing" scrofula by the laying on of hands [0]. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch
jlawson 8y ago
It is healthy to have a proportional sense of gratefulness for the good things you have. Even if someone else has more. When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for. Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness. It's a memeplex thing, though. Constant rage at injustice is a great way for a memeplex to turn people into highly-motivated ideological soldiers. It's a technique used by demagogues from Stalin to Hitler to Castro and Kim, and which you see today as well. But the need to always emphasize that rage and injustice and resentment can definitely push some people over the edge. Gratefulness is a good antidote, in proportion with a balanced and contextualized understanding of the problems of the world.
- projektir 8y ago
  I'd be more sympathetic to this view if injustice wasn't so glaringly common, and often the things you're grateful for only started to exist because of said injustice being fixed, so it seems backwards to complain about people bringing it to light.
  - lobotryas 8y ago
    I dunno. I'm grateful for simple things like sunlight and a good sandwich. None of these are related to "injustice". I even stopped intentionally following the news because the whole concept of worrying about injustice seems so draining and almost pointless.
- gaius 8y ago
  Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness. Absolutely, and social media only amplifies these “oppression Olympics”.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  > When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for. There is nothing "easier" in feeling unhappy or angry. Mental illness is widespread across billionaires despite their wealth. It's also well known that mental illness is less common in traditional, less developed societies. > ... I think the attitude of always needing to be angry ... can itself tip some people into mental illness. No. People cannot artificially create mental illness in themselves by simply thinking "negatively". There is no simple self-destruct button in our mind: people need to go through (untreated) trauma, pressure, abuse from external sources or diseases or serious genetic conditions.
Infernal 8y ago
There's a big difference between "be glad you aren't a peasant" and "be glad you have the luxury of not working for 5 months". One of those things is a luxury 99%+ (WAG) of folks in the US cannot afford.

Having worked as a farmworker in the past every day I am thankful that I have a cushy office job. I live better than the kings of 200 years ago lived let alone my poor ancestors.

ryandrake 8y ago
Exactly. Spend a summer nailing shingles to roofs in 100F weather all day, and then complain to me about how awful an open office is (with air conditioning and a comfortable chair to sit on). I’m grateful every day that my old man pressured me to get a technology education so I didn’t have to destroy my body daily doing construction like he did.
- gerbilly 8y ago
  >Exactly. Spend a summer nailing shingles to roofs in 100F weather all day, and then complain to me about how awful an open office is Both can be awful. Just because physical labour is physically tiring, it does not follow that mental labour might not be even more stressful. I worked farm labour in my 20s and those were some of the best jobs I ever had. Every meal was a banquet and I slept like a log. Potatoes tasted so good, it was as if I was eating ambrosia. I also believe that the body and the mind need to be worked together. The disembodied work typically done in offices is unbalanced, and can be very taxing.
kentrado 8y ago
Kings 200 years ago didn't have to spend most of their lives working.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  statecraft is a job. It's a popular fiction that historical monarchs spent all their time indulging their hedonistic impulses, but it is fictional.
- falcor84 8y ago
  Are you sure about that? From the but of history I know, monarchs had extremely busy schedules and high demands on their "free" time, and I don't expect that all of that was particularly fun.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Especially having to go around "curing" scrofula by the laying on of hands [0]. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch

jlawson 8y ago

It is healthy to have a proportional sense of gratefulness for the good things you have. Even if someone else has more. When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for. Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness. It's a memeplex thing, though. Constant rage at injustice is a great way for a memeplex to turn people into highly-motivated ideological soldiers. It's a technique used by demagogues from Stalin to Hitler to Castro and Kim, and which you see today as well. But the need to always emphasize that rage and injustice and resentment can definitely push some people over the edge. Gratefulness is a good antidote, in proportion with a balanced and contextualized understanding of the problems of the world.

projektir 8y ago
I'd be more sympathetic to this view if injustice wasn't so glaringly common, and often the things you're grateful for only started to exist because of said injustice being fixed, so it seems backwards to complain about people bringing it to light.
- lobotryas 8y ago
  I dunno. I'm grateful for simple things like sunlight and a good sandwich. None of these are related to "injustice". I even stopped intentionally following the news because the whole concept of worrying about injustice seems so draining and almost pointless.
gaius 8y ago
Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness. Absolutely, and social media only amplifies these “oppression Olympics”.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
> When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for. There is nothing "easier" in feeling unhappy or angry. Mental illness is widespread across billionaires despite their wealth. It's also well known that mental illness is less common in traditional, less developed societies. > ... I think the attitude of always needing to be angry ... can itself tip some people into mental illness. No. People cannot artificially create mental illness in themselves by simply thinking "negatively". There is no simple self-destruct button in our mind: people need to go through (untreated) trauma, pressure, abuse from external sources or diseases or serious genetic conditions.

Infernal 8y ago

There's a big difference between "be glad you aren't a peasant" and "be glad you have the luxury of not working for 5 months". One of those things is a luxury 99%+ (WAG) of folks in the US cannot afford.