Funny cat image as a reward for opening the post
So I’ve had two things that kinda go hand in hand that have really made a big improvement in my quality of life:
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I started working out. During the pandemic lockdowns I picked up a basic fitness routine called Hybrid Calisthenics (they no longer list the basic 5 day routine I was doing but still brilliant explainers on that site for starting a new routine!), and went from struggling to lift 50lbs to being able to perform my first pullups ever. I changed jobs and lost my time for workouts but then I went and took my old bike for a tuneup to start riding it again with the goal of biking my kids to/from school and immediately realized how out of shape I was, so that became my new goal (and I rapidly fell in love with cycling) then I saw an ad for a 4th of July 5k and went “oh that’s like a quarter of how far I ride my bike I should totally do that!” And now I run 5ks too! The old me could never do that and would never have dreamed of doing any of these things but now I have races to look forwards to!
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I’ve started a long term process of reducing my screen time. I’ve noticed how no matter what I’m doing with screens it just isn’t making me happy and everything off screen gets neglected. So I’ve started focusing more on trying to pick up more hobbies to do with my hands. I’ve started building a model railroad, I’ve been reading a ton of books (I think about a couple dozen books or more in just the last 12 months) and not spending as much time soaking in news and doomer takes on the internet has greatly helped me be a much happier and more realistic person. This one’s an ongoing struggle though. The screens are right there and offer so much momentary entertainment (such is why I’m typing this right now) and doing stuff like drawing is really hard as my hands struggle to draw what I have in my head since I haven’t really drawn in a long time. My ultimate goal is a healthy balance of screen and non-screen time during my free time
Oh and a bonus item that I didn’t even think of initially: going back to college. A few years ago I decided to go back to college at the worst possible time. I had a baby on the way and was working full time, but I made it work. Even when my wife had to quit her job and I was the sole income while going to school full time, I threw all of my irons into the fire, pumped the bellows as hard as they’d go and worked myself to the brink of burnout and got a degree, immediately landed a job paying twice what I was making before with way better benefits and coworkers, a super chill work environment and through an insane series of events I now only work about 30 hours a week fully remotely and make enough money that not only can my wife be a stay at home mom but I could afford to go on my first international trip last month and have 2 more (much smaller in scope!) trips planned for this year still. I seriously never thought I’d be able to realistically afford intercontinental travel before, and now it might well be a thing we do every year or two!
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joined an “adult band program” at a music school.
after being vaguely musically inclined since early childhood, 24 years of playing bass, 20 years guitar, six years seriously on keyboards, I’ve only ever really played by myself along to music that I like.
after a few months rehearsing with the group weekly and taking weekly keyboard lessons, I played four songs on keyboard on stage at a bar with the group. Feels like a monumental leap forward for me. I’m still basically just covering other peoples’ music, but now with others and having a blast doing it. This next round I’m also doing a few songs on bass on top of doing some songs on keys.
And now one of the folks from that group invited me to join his band outside of the music school.
Lines up so well with losing my job and having a lot more free time. Keeps me feeling good about myself, gives me stuff to look forward to. And helps me not just wallow in grief and avoidance after our beloved dog of 12 years died late last year (been almost six months and I still cry almost every night thinking about him).
Can’t recommend this “adult band program” sorta thing enough if you got some ability with a guitar, bass, synth, drums, or vocals! I’m doing it through a local School Of Rock franchise but there’s other places that do the same sorta thing
Applied to a college I never heard of across the country because they let me apply for free. Went to that college.
I started drinking and the rest is history.
Sorting my socks based on color. White socks are short socks. Black socks are long socks.
Now when I grab socks, I just have to do a quick glance to find the right length socks.
Also, any sock with random prints designs are always long socks, so I don’t have to worry about that
Taking my car instead of a Uber as I should have that night. It sure changed my life!
I just realized OP did not specify whether he wants to hear about small decisions that changed our life in a good way, or a BAD way.
At some point my struggle with the bible culminated in me making my own conclusion away from anyone else: I am done with this god.
The following years I reclaimed my life.
I was raised Hindu and it was a physiological terror. Karma can fuck a little kid up. I was scared that any little thing i did wrong would lead to disastrous consequences for me or someone close to me. I eventually left the religion after learning more about human rights violations around the world. My whole construct of karma fell apart. Nothing made sense except the fact that man made religion to control people. That became very evident when I revisited my old faith in a college class
As an agnostic, the bible is a great guide. It’s not a rule book. So much in there has been so misinterpreted by religion that it completely guts the actual words themselves.
Problem is that even in their original context/translations/… it’s still pretty messed up and unnecessarily evil. Or just flat out pointless.
Once you look at it for what it is besides it’s supposed “divine nature” you’re left with an amalgamation of borrowed stories, propaganda and a whole bunch of “I will now declare a thing of great importance, it’s exactly the opposite of what you thought it was…jazzhands “ kind of malarkey.
Love thy neighbour, don’t kill, don’t steal. <= you don’t need that much mystical convoluted text to convey that message. Mister Rogers will do that just fine.
I spent decades taking it seriously. The occasional bit with ‘‘yeah don’t be an asshole’’ isn’t worth anything next to the pro slavery, pro genocide, hateful parts. Even Jesus called Samaritans dogs compared to so called pure blooded Jews, none of this is morally OK when you hold it accountable to itself as a text.
Shot my shot with two women at the same time. Wound up married to the one who took the bait
6 years ago: messaging a person on reddit. Tomorrow is our wedding
Congratulations!
I love that! I met someone on Tinder while my ex-fiance and I were breaking up just as someone to fuck while I got over our breakup. Ended up marrying them 8 months later, and been together for over 9 years now.
Haha sameee i was just bored and low key horny and they looked hot. I saved them from homelessness in 2022 due to their dad kicking them out. Helped them integrate and get used to in a new country and now they have a very well paying job :3 I love them so much!!
Congratulations!
Went sober.
For me it was a small change. I was having a drink here and there, maximum 3 beers a night. I just found that it made me feel like shit the next morning even after having one, and I no longer enjoyed the feeling of even a mild buzz. There was also a huge relief at not having to figure out which situation to drink in or not. Do I have a drink at this birthday party? After a hard day? While barbecuing? If I am just sober the answer is always no, so it eliminates one choice.
I started doing a tiny little injection of estrogen once a week and it totally changed my life. My productivity is through the roof, my confidence has skyrocketed, I’m grinding like there’s no tomorrow and I’ve never felt better. All the techbros should try it if they want to level up their game. Just 5mg/week, it’s basically nothing bro. Try it bro you’ll never regret taking estrogen once a week. Took me from 0.5x to 10x overnight.
Is this a joke?
The effects match my results, and yeah it’s just that dysphoria manifests as pretty bad depression for a lot of people.
Well yeah I didn’t think estrogen was used except for dysphoria or other HRT, but applebusch is sayign all techbros should take it
Ah yes, that part is the joke
Maybe he grew breasts and became a sex worker & got really wealthy with it
Of course not. What would be the punchline?
I’ve blocked any YouTube video recommendations (after a video is done, the sidebar, etc), and switched to RSS (RSS Guard is my go-to, after testing about 6 RSS readers). I used Enhancer for YouTube™ to block the bullshit.
Now, I only have 319 videos left to view, in order, from all the channels that I follow. It is now me that has a tight grip on what I watch, and not YT. No more doomscrolling on YT Shorts! No more watching the newest thing (old videos are still solid, but won’t be likely recommended)! Use Youtube-shorts block to turn any short into a normal video, in case someone sends you a shorts link.
I can now have a sense of being done watching videos, instead of YT feeding me unending garbage.
RSS feed locations for YT are hidden:
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_idThe channel id you can find on a channel, under
...morenear the top, thenShare Channel->Get Channel ID.Awesome. I might consider this myself
I made the conscious decision to mask my autism less in private and stand up for my needs more openly.
6 months later my wife left me, telling me she can’t take it anymore.After she had moved out and I realized this was final, a great wave of relief washed over me.
Now I have to pay the rent alone, pay her $1k/month in alimony on top, and somehow still have more money left over than during the marriage, lol.
And I got to keep the cats!She thought she could “fix” you and then it didn’t work?
I’d say we had opposing neurodivergencies and our masks met in the middle.
Why do you have to pay her?
She called in sick for weeks at her new job after the separation, got fired, and now has no income.
The state doesn’t pay her any unemployment support because we’re still married.
(Divorce is only possible after 1 year of separation.)
As her husband, I’m legally forced to give her 3/7 of the difference between our net incomes.
And since she doesn’t have any income, that’s 3/7 of my total net income.That’s fascinating. Hope she’s doing okay and grows from the experience, and I’m glad you can live without masking now
Out of interest (because I’m neurodivergent) what kind of things bothered her when you unmasked? Or was the seperation just not related to unmasking?
It was related, but that wasn’t the main reason.
Divorce is only possible after 1 year of separation.
Oof. If I may ask, in what kind of backwards country do you live in?
Germany.
That rule prevents a lot of abuse of marriage laws (like “marrying” before a large windfall income to save taxes, then immediately “divorcing” again).
It gives couples time to fix their marriage if possible, before all of the legal ramifications take effect.
Or to separate their goods, get legal council, plan moving out, etc. if it isn’t fixable.
And the mandatory alimony payments allow the partner who cared for the household to leave their (possibly abusive) spouse without becoming destitute.
I wonder what makes you think it’s backwards?I stand corrected and must admit that is has its uses
Just wait until the divorce finally finalizes. New wave of relief and freedom incoming. Been there. Good luck, hang in there, and congrats!
You did the right thing.
I started some kind of anime themed browser game one day with the intent of wanting to see what kind of people would play such weeb trash.
Turns out the kind of people to play that were loyal friends to stay in touch with for over a decade and my future wife, too!
Posted a personal ad on Cragslist; ended up married.
Seriously? What year!?
Literally like 3 months or so before Craigslist removed the personal ads section entirely.
I thought they removed the personal section years ago
This was years ago.
They did.
