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'Secrets' Of Life That Come With Adulting


Spacescifi

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Here is where I or anyone can post tips, or things they learned doing things as an adult that they did not know earlier.

Here is my list of adulting 'secrets'

 

1. You can find  informatijon for help with virtually ANYTHING off the internet.... useful in practical ways like working on the house, car, etc. Whatever it is... you bet a solution usually exists, just make sure the site is legitimate and the information is correct first. If parents failed to teach you something, no need to fear, you really can teach yourself so long you have the power of the internet and a reasonable job.

2.  Going to the same restaurant over and over seems to result in diminishing returns for most restaurants as the staff may begin to take your patronage for granted. On the other hand, if quality has not diminished despite this... you have found a rare but good thing. Still... murphy's law means that by virtue of regular visits you are more likely to find a decline in quality on occasion. As long as it has not become routine for you it should not be a problem for future visits.

 

3. A reasonable job as an adult is usually full-time and makes wages that will provide for all normal expenses of living (rent, food, utilities, car repair etc). If your job does not provide this then it will be wasting your time until you can acquire a job that does. Part-time jobs that pay a reasonable wage usually require you to pay back student loans, and work less than reasonable jobs while training. 

4. What you want is less important than what you absolutely KNOW you do not want when it comes to life choices I think. Since what you want can and will change, but your feelings about what you absolutely cannot stand seldom does.

 Take my opinions with a grain of salt if you like because they are just that... but I have lived through the experiences which formed them.

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life is a scam. give them nothing. 
create entropy, everyone else does. 
never turn down a good thing, they are vanishingly rare. 
don't sweat the small stuff, or the big stuff either. 
don't try to change the world, someone will inevitably try to change it back. 
don't try to save the world. according to the laws of physics, its already damned. 
people are liars, especially when they think they are speaking the truth.
don't work too hard. 10% of the people do 90% of the work, don't be one of those fools in the 10%. 
don't waste your youth, it disappears faster than you think. 
the chase is better than the catch. 
get a cat. if you already have a cat, get another cat. 
don't waste your time having virtues you can't live up to. 
always use a beer cozy, it keeps it that much colder. 
be wary of happy people, they tend to be a delusional lot. 
dont do a rich man's work for him.  instead do your own work. 


and a few others i cant say here. 

Edited by Nuke
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I do not know about any of the ones above, but here's what I've learned:

  • There's no such thing as luck. Things happen because you make them happen.
  • Not everyone you encounter is going to hate you. Not everyone you encounter is going to like you.
  • No matter how bad your day may be, someone out there has had a worse day than you.
  • It never hurts to be kind. Some day, when you need a hand, how you have treated others will be repaid.
  • Never become too busy to sit outside and enjoy a sunrise or sunset. Walk in the rain. Life is about the simple pleasures.
  • Never lose curiosity or the ability to dream. These things keep pushing us forward.
  • You're never too old to take a few steps back, reset your dreams, and start again.

Don't listen to all the naysayers here. Sure, life is tough. But it doesn't have to become something that breaks you.

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In no particular order.


Always read the small print.

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. See above.

90% of internet adverts are garbage and/or dangerous. The rest are just after your money.

Never be afraid to try something new just because it’s new. You may suck at it - but you might not.

Sucking at something is the first step to not sucking at it.

It’s okay to do something as a hobby and be happy with your level of competence at it. You don’t need to give it 110%, always push yourself to improve (insert your chosen trite self improvement slogan here).

All jobs will have good days and bad days. All jobs will have parts that you like and parts that are drudgery. If you’re fortunate enough to have a choice, the trick is to pick the drudgery you can live with.

Take pleasure in the simple things.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Not every decision is worth endlessly agonising over.


I personally disagree with the first item on @adsii1970’s list but the rest is golden.

Edited by KSK
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3 hours ago, Lisias said:

The only "Universal True" about Life is this one:

42


jokes apart:

“You see, there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth. Causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect.”
"We are all victims of causality."

The Merovingian

Edited by antipro
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15 hours ago, Gargamel said:

The best years of your life are age 20 +/- 5.    
 

The rest sucks. 
 

Time passes exponentially faster every year after those good years. 
 

Then you die.  

Yeah, but this comes with the caveat of knowing what you know now. Most people's brains don't stop developing until their mid 20's- I say late 20s through 30s is the prime spot.

As for advice I'd say avoid contact sports, blows to the head and injuries aren't worth it.

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1 minute ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

As for advice I'd say avoid contact sports, blows to the head and injuries aren't worth it.

As a matter of fact, I know some people where these would be an improvement….

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I stick by my previous

18 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

No matter how bad your day may be, someone out there has had a worse day than you.

Everybody you meet knows something you don't.   You often won't be the smartest person in the room, but even if you are, you can learn something from everybody there..

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20 hours ago, KSK said:

I personally disagree with the first item on @adsii1970’s list but the rest is golden.

Fair enough; I should realize you don't have access to the ground sloth that turns the wheels in my brain. :confused:

21 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

There's no such thing as luck. Things happen because you make them happen.

How I should have explained it is this - in your chosen profession, there is no such thing as luck...

Sure, we cannot control what life-changing diseases we will develop, the conduct of others that directly or indirectly impact us. But we do have a fair amount of control over the career path we follow. No, I do not have tenure and because of the no politics rule of the forum, I cannot go into details. But other than that, I control the rest of it and have been able to control everything else about where I'm at. Although I don't have tenure, I have a sweet deal:

  • No committee assignments unless I decide I want to volunteer for one (which I rarely do unless it appeals to me).
  • I am not required to do public speaking events (there is a 15-hour requirement per term) but I get to choose the ones I do and yes, I submit them as a way to jab a finger in the eye of those who make the minimum number of hours (last semester, Summer 2021, I had 37 hours of public speaking events where I presented within my fields).
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On 10/11/2021 at 2:46 AM, kerbiloid said:

Nobody cares about your school marks in the university.
Nobody cares about your diploma except the fact of its presence.
Everything useful you learn you learn yourself.

(May vary from country to country)

Oh boy, nobody cares about a lot of stuff. That realization takes a lot of weight out of one's shoulders, and it took me more than 30 years to get it. Sure, people care about lots of things they shouldn't care about, but they also... don't, really. They just want to complain.

So, be yourself, be happy, and don't worry about what people will think of you, because mostly they don't care.

(which does not mean be an idiot to others! It just means not to be afraid to be happy because you think you'll be judged. Still be excellent to each other, and party on dudes)

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1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

Fair enough; I should realize you don't have access to the ground sloth that turns the wheels in my brain. :confused:

How I should have explained it is this - in your chosen profession, there is no such thing as luck...

Sure, we cannot control what life-changing diseases we will develop, the conduct of others that directly or indirectly impact us. But we do have a fair amount of control over the career path we follow. No, I do not have tenure and because of the no politics rule of the forum, I cannot go into details. But other than that, I control the rest of it and have been able to control everything else about where I'm at. Although I don't have tenure, I have a sweet deal:

  • No committee assignments unless I decide I want to volunteer for one (which I rarely do unless it appeals to me).
  • I am not required to do public speaking events (there is a 15-hour requirement per term) but I get to choose the ones I do and yes, I submit them as a way to jab a finger in the eye of those who make the minimum number of hours (last semester, Summer 2021, I had 37 hours of public speaking events where I presented within my fields).

Ahhh,  that makes more sense to me. Thanks.

For some professions, I would contend that that inability to control the conduct of others does determine how far you can get in your profession  but I'd also agree that that inability is moot unless you're prepared to put in the work to begin with.

I'm thinking of most of the creative/entertainment industries.  For every JK Rowling out there, there are plenty of published writers (including well known ones whose work you'd find on sale in bookstores and the like) who still can't  make a decent living purely from their writing. And behind each those, there are dozens more writers who are struggling to even get that far. 

I'd imagine that works for most of the other creative industries. You can be working your tail off, doing all the right things and maybe even doing pretty well. Hitting  the big time though, depends on a large enough portion of a generally fickle public deciding that your stuff is da bomb and forking over their hard earned cash for it. 

But I'm nitpicking now or, at the least, cherry-picking. 

 

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56 minutes ago, monstah said:

Oh boy, nobody cares about a lot of stuff. That realization takes a lot of weight out of one's shoulders, and it took me more than 30 years to get it. Sure, people care about lots of things they shouldn't care about, but they also... don't, really. They just want to complain.

As I often tell students I advise, most employers don't care where you received your degree. All they care is that you have the required degree. And to be quite honest, and the name of the university you attend is not as important as what you do with the degree. A degree from Harvard or Princeton may open doors for you based on the reputation of the school. If you've got the degree and a complete idiot, your employer will soon discover your degree is worthless. A member of my dissertation committee had her Ph.D. from Ole Miss. She told me never to let anyone make me feel any less because of where I received my Ph.D. She then reminded me that nearly everyone I would encounter from Harvard and the "Ivy League" universities would be a "visiting professor" at best. And you know what - in nearly 20 years of teaching at the university level and teaching at five different universities and two community colleges, I have only seen ONE person from an Ivy League school (Yale) with a Ph.D. as a tenure track member of the faculty.

1 hour ago, monstah said:

So, be yourself, be happy, and don't worry about what people will think of you, because mostly they don't care.

(which does not mean be an idiot to others! It just means not to be afraid to be happy because you think you'll be judged. Still be excellent to each other, and party on dudes)

There's a song about this attitude. It's a personal favorite:

 

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If you don't like or do or use something that everybody else likes or does or uses, don't try to make yourself normal by partaking.

I've not had a dining room table for so long when I redid my kitchen I just made the dining room part of it. I realized one day that I never used this thing that seemingly everybody else in the world finds essential, so I sold it and never missed it.

If you and your chosen life partner fight over sheets in your sleep, get a few sets of twin sheets and blankets and then you don't have to share! That was life changing, that discovery.

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Life is chaos. Anything that is not a human being feels no malice towards you and is not out to get you.

The majority of humans are surprised the first time they get something right, then they just keep repeating what they did.

Even the most selfless person at some level does things for their own benefit, just be glad if it also benefits you.

Never be surprised when someone hurts you or lets you down. Just be glad for all the times they didn't.

Politicians have no long term goals or any idea what they are working towards (this applies to the majority of humans too) they are just keeping busy so that they get their pensions at the end.

Not everybody is as logical as you, or take the time to see the bigger picture. (E.g people who hold on to a specific statistic that suits their agenda while ignoring everything else that is happening around them because it would break their world view if they noticed.)

There is no "Meaning to Life", it just is, the trick is to feel happy about atleast 1 thing each week till it has passed.

There are tons of other basic bits of knowledge to make things easier but they have either already been covered since the first post on here, or will be by someone else who drops by.

 

Edited by ColdJ
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2 hours ago, ColdJ said:

Anything that is not a human being feels no malice towards you and is not out to get you.

But also realize that it isn't going to cut you any slack either. Gravity does not give do overs. Wild predators do not care about your PETA membership. Hurricanes will not press the pause button while you go back for your life jacket.

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And here even I will plumb the depths of profundity:

For every problem there is a solution.... and every problem is an opportunity to either rely on a tried and true solution or learn a new one you did not have to use before.

If real life was a video game, then this is like increasing your character powers/status from beginner to... wherever you wish to be. From competent to expert at whatever you are seeking to secure or do.

 

In all honesty though, what worked on level 1 seldom is enough to successfully pass through level 80. Life is no different, which is why research on finding solutions when what you have does not work or you have nothing at all is important.

EDIT:

Someone should make a game where each level is a year of life for the character, and their stats physically alter or decline in some ways based upon it. Key events and follow up till death would be good enough for entertaining a player. Would be fun!

 

If human life is too complex,  one could always make a cat simulator game... they surely get into enough shenanigans to make it entertaining. What's not to love? Social cat politics (everything from territory to mating rights to vying for owner affections) and plenty of adventure from outside adventures to standard mouse hunting.

Edited by Spacescifi
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37 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Man I wish this were true.

 

We cannot solve just any problem IRL... if we could then we would be gods fighting each other.... which is basically what we do in online MMO gaming anyway.

 

Yet for lesser problems in life that do not require god-level hacking there often is a solution.

Sometimes we have not found a solution we like so we may ignore the ones we do not want to use.

To use a video game analogy... grinding is a definite way to level up, but many prefer pay to win as it does not take nearly as long to level up that way.

Edited by Spacescifi
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6 hours ago, TheSaint said:

But also realize that it isn't going to cut you any slack either. Gravity does not give do overs. Wild predators do not care about your PETA membership. Hurricanes will not press the pause button while you go back for your life jacket.

So true. But those things aren't out to get you, you are just in their path, For things like gravity and hurricanes, They are forces of nature and they just do what they do while you realise that as an individual , by yourself, you don't get a say in the matter. As for wild predators, you are just walking meat, if you can run faster than the person next to you then it will take that person down and not care if it wasn't you who was lunch today.

Lesson as an adult. Be aware through learning and experience, what can seriously hurt or kill you and then do your best to stay out of those situations in the first place. Extreme sports look fun if you get them right, but make sure you a willing to spend a year in a full body cast as all your shattered bones try to heal again, before you try them.

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