I’m sorry that you find yourself in an environment where you struggle to freely be yourself. I can strongly relate to this. I feel like I have to be constantly on guard and protect myself from people and it’s a shitty way to live.

Standing up for yourself often feels uncomfortable in the moment, but you are very likely to regret not doing it. Whichever of the various tricks in the comments you feel comfortable trying or have hope will help, go for it.

Yes.

Yes, but “GIF” is not etymologically Germanic. 😉

The people already with the money have orders of magnitude more freedom on average to decide and pursue opportunities.

Free market inventions do not guarantee persistent and open access.

Espresso in the morning. Cappuccino after meal. It’s been at least ten years.

But I also feel like a loser, because even those ranting doctors earn more than twice what I do… and they get to sit for longer than I do.

Regretting my life choices.

What kind of “I also feel like a loser” is this feeling?

Maybe the sane choice here would be to study or to get a certification that means a higher salary?

What in particular would that get you? I mean beyond the obvious “More money would make my life easier” thought.

Peace.

I think MIT Open Courseware would be worth exploring.

I’ve never done this and would never do it, for all the reasons people have already described.

I would, however, choose a 6-hour train over a 2-hour flight, as long as I traveled in (European) first/business class with a seat reservation.

There is almost no amount of money that could convince me to travel 36 hours by bus if I could instead spend 5-6 hours going through airports and only one flight. If I literally didn’t have the money to fly, I would spend all my energy figuring out how not to go at all.

Some people learn about the limits of their control over events by meditating. Even when you stop trying to do anything, your body tries to do things and things change around you and you have the impulse to control things. Repeated exposure to this impulse eventually caused me to start laughing at how silly I was to assume that I was in control.

Maybe something like that could help you. Peace.

Yes.

Also a machine on fire tends to run a bit more slowly. 🔥😉

Very specifically for me, two parts of Getting Things Done:

• get things out of your head
• always set reminders

I have felt so much lighter for over 15 years because I can safely forget all these things I used to struggle to remember so that they wouldn’t sneak up on me.

Getting things out of my head was easier to build as a habit at the dawn of having a computer in my pocket all day. Even back then, I simply chose to be an asshole for a few months, stopping everything to write things down or to do them on the spot if they truly took only 2 minutes. Especially taking photos of receipts and labeling them when traveling for business.

Setting reminders was similar, but rockier, since calendar apps sometimes have defects. I gradually learned which alarms to trust and learned to use those more often. Even so, Samsung Clock has at least once surprised me by setting my alarm volume to 0, causing me to miss one alarm in the last 10 years.

In both cases, I did nothing special except decide to build the habit and spend the effort to ingrain the habit through repetition over the span of a few months.

Yes. Of course. I fail to see where I suggested not softening the rejection. 🤷‍♂️

I write “You can’t make them take your no for an answer, they have to choose to do that. It’s not a matter of politeness and it’s not your responsibility.” and people draw conclusions based on facts not in evidence. That. Is. My. Point. Whatever you try to do, they’ll find a way to find you rude, so don’t take responsibility for that.

Moreover, let’s also remember that a less-polite “no” is still a “no”, and people need to learn to respect those, too. A sharper “no” is very often the result of 100 attempts to be polite and still be considered rude.

You failed just now, so why would someone take your opinion about this seriously? (If this bothers you, then try reading it again in a cheerier tone. Oh! That didn’t help? Strange.)

I don’t think extra politeness is going to help you much here. If you don’t do what they ask you to do and they don’t understand why, they’ll probably assume you’re being rude, no matter which words or tone you choose.

You don’t need to explain yourself. Others need to learn to respect your choices about yourself. Yes, it’s tiring. It’s their fault, but partly your problem.

Your responsibility ends with “Thank you, but no.” Unfortunately, some people will feel hurt by this, no matter how cheerily you say it, because they simply don’t expect it. They will tell themselves that you are not being genuine by trying to both remain friendly and deny their request. You can’t change this; only they can choose to interpret your response differently. And most people never try this. Instead they merely expect you to be agreeable and do what they want you to do.

If you want to establish your boundaries, then you need to practise letting them feel hurt and not feeling responsible for it. This is one reason I meditate.

Peace.

2010

A group of people who are tired of your unjust bullshit, who are not going to let you shrug it off or get away with it, and who are not going to stop confronting you with it.

Yes. I find it helpful.

Space Invaders.

I believe that if you faced the judgment and self-hatred, the rest might fall into place. I have two general strategies to suggest, which you could use together.

1. Practise looking at the thoughts like “I’m lazy” and “I hate myself of for being so lazy” and seeing them for the empty things they are. They’re just thoughts. They’re not even yours. They mean nothing. They consist of nothing.
2. Look into the reasons for judging yourself lazy and hating yourself for it. Is there a voice you hear in your head saying these things? Whose voice is it? (Is it a person from your past or a part of yourself you can identify?) Maybe you’re reacting to something you were told or taught very young, which was helpful at the time, but not helpful any more.

Your body wants to conserve energy or it’s afraid of overinvesting energy in practising the piano. If you saw that more clearly, you might more easily identify what to do next.

I stopped studying piano when I realized that I wasn’t prepared to put in the practice needed to develop the raw finger strength and dexterity to play even medium difficulty Bach fugues. I saw what it took and the effort didn’t interest me enough to stick with it. I have invested that practice energy into something else instead and I feel much happier for it. I have a facility for music, but I’m just not that into it as a technician. I have enough to appreciate virtuosity in others and that’s enough for me. Maybe you can find something similar.

Peace.