7 ms·

You apparently "don't know what it's like" to have something in your life that causes their state of mind. We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle

You apparently "don't know what it's like" to have something in your life that causes their state of mind. We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle. Especially not when their alternative is likely minimum wage with no apparent escape. It does suck and they're expressing just how badly it sucks by choosing to be homeless. Good for them.

sanoli 11y ago
No, you're not getting it. Most of the people I knew could go to college if they wanted to. Their families would have supported them, or at least helped them out quite a bit. To give you an example, two guys I knew wanted out of it. They got a job making minimum wage while they attended welding school. They make enough to live very comfortably these days. Some, but only a minority, really had not much of a choice. Either their family was very fucked-up and had botched their upbringing pretty bad, or they had gone down too low on drugs/alcohol. And I'm not condemning them for choosing this lifestyle. Like I said, it does have its pros. It can be a good, exciting life, especially since you're in the US, where you can get a lot of society's excesses for free, when they are discarded.
- derefr 11y ago
  "Could have if they wanted to" is the core signature of ADHD. Imagine knowing that there are lots of things you could, theoretically do with the resources you have at your disposal—but having none of the "willpower" thing that lets people do things that are even slightly boring or unpleasant in the short term. Imagine wanting to learn skills that require practice, but being unable to invoke whatever mysterious forces cause this "practice" to happen. Imagine being amazing at stupid skills that you got because their training mechanisms involve short reward loops (for example, video games) and knowing your own potential, and hearing over and over everyone around you tell you about that potential and encouraging you to use it, but just feeling a stab of "ugh" whenever you even consider starting that is utterly insurmountable. Imagine, even, having skills that could get you a great, well-paying job (e.g. programming—something, as it turns out, that has a short-reward-loop method of learning) but then just not being able to work up the desire to apply for a job; to go to the interviews you applied for; to come to work on time each day; to do anything other than surf the Internet once you're there. This isn't abstract to me— I failed out of university. I was homeless on-and-off for a year and a half. I went back to live with my parents for a year. Then (at the age of 24) I got diagnosed with ADHD and put on a medication for it. Now, two years later, I'm making $250K/yr working as a CTO for a financial startup. Many people I met while homeless, looking back, also had all the signs of having had ADHD—or, if not that, then major depression, or a social anxiety disorder. None of them thought of themselves as having a condition; they just "didn't want to work." They didn't realize that what they "wanted" was in large part a function of what they would or would not flinch away from because of pain; and that their pain response to attempting certain things was not a matter of "character", not and not something they had failed to learn or needed to "work through", but a treatable handicap, like nearsightedness. I wish I could take every one of them to the same psychiatrist I went to, but it took me eight months on a waiting list to talk to them. There are far, far too few practicing psychiatrists to help all the people that need help. Something about this needs to change.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Man that hits home, only I'm still 24 with a complete lack of motivation. I keep telling myself that I'm using it as an excuse and that it's really laziness, but if I'm intellectually honest with myself I don't really believe that. It's like I miss some hormone that motivates me, similar to perhaps a gay person missing the sexual attraction to the opposite sex and not having any way to change that, in a world where nobody is gay and nobody gets why you don't have that genuine, inherent attraction. Feel free to elaborate a bit on how you eventually got out of this if you'd like, I'd love to hear more. Perhaps it'll help me, too. Thanks for sharing in any case :)
    - ams6110 11y ago
      A good book to read on this is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. While his experience was that of a writer overcoming difficulties with motivation and persistence, most of it applies very generally.
      - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
        Thanks!
    - AustinG08 11y ago
      I used to struggle with motivation. Especially at your age (I'm about to 30). Motivation is a byproduct of discipline. You need to integrate some kind of discipline in your life. Something huge that changed my work ethic was when I bought a whiteboard. I always have two lists on it. One of the lists is "Everything I need to do." This has things like 'pay my taxes by X date', 'call my insurance company and find y out', 'start this project', 'build that dream car i have always wanted to build'. Some of the stuff might always be on it, at which point I can start really looking at those things and figuring out whether I plan on doing them, how bad I want to do it, and if it's worth my time vs the other stuff I want to do. The second list is titled "Today", and always leads with today's date. Under that are things that I should really do today, or at least try to start. Some times the things on it roll over to the following day, sometimes they get dropped back into the larger 'everything' list. But when I do something, whether it's "Take out the trash", or "Call Person X", I get to cross that thing off the list. It stays crossed out for the whole day until that night when I reassess my everything list, erase crossed out items, change the current date, etc. It has helped me stay on task and get things done tremendously. The whiteboard has had a tremendous impact on my productivity.
- verbin217 11y ago
  > But also, our society makes this lifestyle possible, and it does have its pros. I assumed you were calling for the end of some form of social aid. The minimum wage portion of my comment could be extended to student loans or anything else. The point is that society has yet to provide decent options to every single person. Further, it's hard to work on something when you feel it's just garbage work you have to do because you're poor. The choices made by people with relatively unsavory options shouldn't determine their merit for aid.
- marincounty 11y ago
  The homeless I have known are not their by choice. Yes, out of clinging on to the little dignity they have left, many will call themselfs Outdoorsmen, or Drifters, but they all had a valid reason for being Homeless. Mental illness--yes. I have not seen drug abuse as the sole reason for homelessness in my area. I have seen Buddist monastery kick out 50 year old woman for not earning her keep.(yes, in liberal Marin this happened! She join the monastery when she was 17.) As to using the system--what system? The one's I know don't see a medi-cal doctor when sick, and when they do, they are stigmatized, "He will probally sell the medication". They all need dental work. Yes, they use the Catholic chow hall. That is the system. Section 8 is closed. The one's I know don't even apply for food stamps. The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to. Oh yea, I have seen family members do horrid things to brother/sister/mother/father. It usually involves manipulation of by a greedy member over Money. The greed in some of these stories is staggering. There is a complete lack of compassion in some families, and then there's the denial. "I had a bad childhood, I owe that women nothing!" "That kid has leached off of me too long!". "Let her sleep under the house, for now!" I have head all these quotes. I don't know what causing family members(who could help) appear so indifferent, and in some cases appear to want to make bad situation worse? I can't blame lack of spirituality. Some of the worst offenders show up in church, and synagogue?
  - EGreg 11y ago
    "The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to." This. I've spoken to many homeless people - mostly in NYC but in other cities too. Whenever I ask about their family they always tell me that their folks woudn't pick them up. I once called the son of a drunk middle aged man on Brighton Beach. He didn't seem too particularly concerned when I told him I knew where his dad was. I want to make a website where people can see profiles of homeless people, hear their story and sponsor them. I would have a very low cost operation: rooms in cities for homeless people, with a shower, computer, and food (soup etc). Homeless could use the room but would need to register their name, photo, biometrics (fingerprint etc) and progress through a program that would be a bit gamified. The steps would be somewhat personalized but essentially include the following tasks: Register Go make an appointment with a psychiatrist Go meet someone who will help buy clothes, shower etc. Get a cellphone and an address Talk to a career counselor Apply for government assistance, with help Get an education or a job They would receive cards and we'd see what they spend on. Their cards would be loaded with more money as they complete challenges. They'd be self motivated with 90% assistance from the program. I am a big believer in "smart tools" that make motivation easier and take care of 95% if all the research and logistics. The homeless person shouldn't have to figure out what they need in their backpack, what programs exist in their city and how to apply or take advantage of them. This hould be done by experts. And motivation should be optimized also, with human servie providers helping do evaluations and customizing. I also believe in metrics and reporting, which the public funding the website would receive as people get off the street get a job and their stories of success.
tsotha 11y ago
>We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle. Oh, I'll condemn the ones that choose it. If you're homeless because you have mental or physical problems that's one thing, but people who choose to be homeless because they're too lazy to work are parasites.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  Laziness is an indicator of mental disorder; there is usually some sort of depression, drug abuse, or other problem making the person drop out of society like that, rarely is it just "I don't want to work." Of course, in less prosperous societies, it mostly isn't a choice made willingly.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    >Laziness is an indicator of mental disorder... I don't agree at all. Some amount of laziness is normal, and the world is full of people without mental disorders that will do the minimum to get by. This is just the tail end of the curve. Everybody has problems, and most of us still get up and go to work. Since we're not going to deny services to the ones who don't we should require them to work if they're able.
    - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
      Some amounts of laziness are normal, but excessive amounts are not. Mental disorders are much more common than you think, and probably could have been easily solved with early intervention (but you know the education and mental health system in America isn't that great...). But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America.
      - tsotha 11y ago
        >But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America. They don't? Where I live they get money from the county and free medical care. They occasionally get free beds in a shelter (which some of them refuse). When they attack each other the cops are left to try and figure it out. And the rest of us are paying for it all. I'm not opposed to helping people who need it, but I think the idea people who behave antisocially ipso facto have some sort of mental illness and should therefor be supported by the rest of us is corrosive and wrong.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

sanoli 11y ago

No, you're not getting it. Most of the people I knew could go to college if they wanted to. Their families would have supported them, or at least helped them out quite a bit. To give you an example, two guys I knew wanted out of it. They got a job making minimum wage while they attended welding school. They make enough to live very comfortably these days. Some, but only a minority, really had not much of a choice. Either their family was very fucked-up and had botched their upbringing pretty bad, or they had gone down too low on drugs/alcohol. And I'm not condemning them for choosing this lifestyle. Like I said, it does have its pros. It can be a good, exciting life, especially since you're in the US, where you can get a lot of society's excesses for free, when they are discarded.

derefr 11y ago
"Could have if they wanted to" is the core signature of ADHD. Imagine knowing that there are lots of things you could, theoretically do with the resources you have at your disposal—but having none of the "willpower" thing that lets people do things that are even slightly boring or unpleasant in the short term. Imagine wanting to learn skills that require practice, but being unable to invoke whatever mysterious forces cause this "practice" to happen. Imagine being amazing at stupid skills that you got because their training mechanisms involve short reward loops (for example, video games) and knowing your own potential, and hearing over and over everyone around you tell you about that potential and encouraging you to use it, but just feeling a stab of "ugh" whenever you even consider starting that is utterly insurmountable. Imagine, even, having skills that could get you a great, well-paying job (e.g. programming—something, as it turns out, that has a short-reward-loop method of learning) but then just not being able to work up the desire to apply for a job; to go to the interviews you applied for; to come to work on time each day; to do anything other than surf the Internet once you're there. This isn't abstract to me— I failed out of university. I was homeless on-and-off for a year and a half. I went back to live with my parents for a year. Then (at the age of 24) I got diagnosed with ADHD and put on a medication for it. Now, two years later, I'm making $250K/yr working as a CTO for a financial startup. Many people I met while homeless, looking back, also had all the signs of having had ADHD—or, if not that, then major depression, or a social anxiety disorder. None of them thought of themselves as having a condition; they just "didn't want to work." They didn't realize that what they "wanted" was in large part a function of what they would or would not flinch away from because of pain; and that their pain response to attempting certain things was not a matter of "character", not and not something they had failed to learn or needed to "work through", but a treatable handicap, like nearsightedness. I wish I could take every one of them to the same psychiatrist I went to, but it took me eight months on a waiting list to talk to them. There are far, far too few practicing psychiatrists to help all the people that need help. Something about this needs to change.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Man that hits home, only I'm still 24 with a complete lack of motivation. I keep telling myself that I'm using it as an excuse and that it's really laziness, but if I'm intellectually honest with myself I don't really believe that. It's like I miss some hormone that motivates me, similar to perhaps a gay person missing the sexual attraction to the opposite sex and not having any way to change that, in a world where nobody is gay and nobody gets why you don't have that genuine, inherent attraction. Feel free to elaborate a bit on how you eventually got out of this if you'd like, I'd love to hear more. Perhaps it'll help me, too. Thanks for sharing in any case :)
  - ams6110 11y ago
    A good book to read on this is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. While his experience was that of a writer overcoming difficulties with motivation and persistence, most of it applies very generally.
    - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
      Thanks!
  - AustinG08 11y ago
    I used to struggle with motivation. Especially at your age (I'm about to 30). Motivation is a byproduct of discipline. You need to integrate some kind of discipline in your life. Something huge that changed my work ethic was when I bought a whiteboard. I always have two lists on it. One of the lists is "Everything I need to do." This has things like 'pay my taxes by X date', 'call my insurance company and find y out', 'start this project', 'build that dream car i have always wanted to build'. Some of the stuff might always be on it, at which point I can start really looking at those things and figuring out whether I plan on doing them, how bad I want to do it, and if it's worth my time vs the other stuff I want to do. The second list is titled "Today", and always leads with today's date. Under that are things that I should really do today, or at least try to start. Some times the things on it roll over to the following day, sometimes they get dropped back into the larger 'everything' list. But when I do something, whether it's "Take out the trash", or "Call Person X", I get to cross that thing off the list. It stays crossed out for the whole day until that night when I reassess my everything list, erase crossed out items, change the current date, etc. It has helped me stay on task and get things done tremendously. The whiteboard has had a tremendous impact on my productivity.
verbin217 11y ago
> But also, our society makes this lifestyle possible, and it does have its pros. I assumed you were calling for the end of some form of social aid. The minimum wage portion of my comment could be extended to student loans or anything else. The point is that society has yet to provide decent options to every single person. Further, it's hard to work on something when you feel it's just garbage work you have to do because you're poor. The choices made by people with relatively unsavory options shouldn't determine their merit for aid.
marincounty 11y ago
The homeless I have known are not their by choice. Yes, out of clinging on to the little dignity they have left, many will call themselfs Outdoorsmen, or Drifters, but they all had a valid reason for being Homeless. Mental illness--yes. I have not seen drug abuse as the sole reason for homelessness in my area. I have seen Buddist monastery kick out 50 year old woman for not earning her keep.(yes, in liberal Marin this happened! She join the monastery when she was 17.) As to using the system--what system? The one's I know don't see a medi-cal doctor when sick, and when they do, they are stigmatized, "He will probally sell the medication". They all need dental work. Yes, they use the Catholic chow hall. That is the system. Section 8 is closed. The one's I know don't even apply for food stamps. The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to. Oh yea, I have seen family members do horrid things to brother/sister/mother/father. It usually involves manipulation of by a greedy member over Money. The greed in some of these stories is staggering. There is a complete lack of compassion in some families, and then there's the denial. "I had a bad childhood, I owe that women nothing!" "That kid has leached off of me too long!". "Let her sleep under the house, for now!" I have head all these quotes. I don't know what causing family members(who could help) appear so indifferent, and in some cases appear to want to make bad situation worse? I can't blame lack of spirituality. Some of the worst offenders show up in church, and synagogue?
- EGreg 11y ago
  "The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to." This. I've spoken to many homeless people - mostly in NYC but in other cities too. Whenever I ask about their family they always tell me that their folks woudn't pick them up. I once called the son of a drunk middle aged man on Brighton Beach. He didn't seem too particularly concerned when I told him I knew where his dad was. I want to make a website where people can see profiles of homeless people, hear their story and sponsor them. I would have a very low cost operation: rooms in cities for homeless people, with a shower, computer, and food (soup etc). Homeless could use the room but would need to register their name, photo, biometrics (fingerprint etc) and progress through a program that would be a bit gamified. The steps would be somewhat personalized but essentially include the following tasks: Register Go make an appointment with a psychiatrist Go meet someone who will help buy clothes, shower etc. Get a cellphone and an address Talk to a career counselor Apply for government assistance, with help Get an education or a job They would receive cards and we'd see what they spend on. Their cards would be loaded with more money as they complete challenges. They'd be self motivated with 90% assistance from the program. I am a big believer in "smart tools" that make motivation easier and take care of 95% if all the research and logistics. The homeless person shouldn't have to figure out what they need in their backpack, what programs exist in their city and how to apply or take advantage of them. This hould be done by experts. And motivation should be optimized also, with human servie providers helping do evaluations and customizing. I also believe in metrics and reporting, which the public funding the website would receive as people get off the street get a job and their stories of success.

tsotha 11y ago

>We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle. Oh, I'll condemn the ones that choose it. If you're homeless because you have mental or physical problems that's one thing, but people who choose to be homeless because they're too lazy to work are parasites.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
Laziness is an indicator of mental disorder; there is usually some sort of depression, drug abuse, or other problem making the person drop out of society like that, rarely is it just "I don't want to work." Of course, in less prosperous societies, it mostly isn't a choice made willingly.
- tsotha 11y ago
  >Laziness is an indicator of mental disorder... I don't agree at all. Some amount of laziness is normal, and the world is full of people without mental disorders that will do the minimum to get by. This is just the tail end of the curve. Everybody has problems, and most of us still get up and go to work. Since we're not going to deny services to the ones who don't we should require them to work if they're able.
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    Some amounts of laziness are normal, but excessive amounts are not. Mental disorders are much more common than you think, and probably could have been easily solved with early intervention (but you know the education and mental health system in America isn't that great...). But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America.
    - tsotha 11y ago
      >But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America. They don't? Where I live they get money from the county and free medical care. They occasionally get free beds in a shelter (which some of them refuse). When they attack each other the cops are left to try and figure it out. And the rest of us are paying for it all. I'm not opposed to helping people who need it, but I think the idea people who behave antisocially ipso facto have some sort of mental illness and should therefor be supported by the rest of us is corrosive and wrong.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]