-Get off social media, comparison is the thief of joy. People post their best moments and they make them look better than they are in reality. It’ll make you feel bad or FOMO and subconsciously damage your confidence and happiness. The insidious thing is even though we all know social media is fake, our lizard brain deep down doesn’t so even though you know it’s all bullshit your subconscious reads it as real. Best thing to do is to get off it completely but that can be impossible socially so limit your time and exposure to it. Use it to make real world plans with friends and then call it quits for the day.
-You’re young, now is the best time to increase your bone density! Work out, lift weights, train with a weighted vest. Do so safely and your bones will thank you, that way when you’re in your 80s you won’t be so brittle. A broken hip is a life changing event- and not for the better!
-Start to play a team sport, football, netball, hockey, baseball whatever. If you git gud now as teen you’ll have the confidence to join your chosen sports amateur club in whatever city or town you end up in though your life, it’s a cheat code. You get to move to a new place and immediately have 5+ mates who are local. That’s SO good. If you can’t find a team sport, try getting into running, and join a running club, same reason, but team sports are better for bonding.
The world will only get worse, but it wasn’t good before you were born to begin with. Change is inevitable.
Come on, they don’t have to find out that soon
Unfortunately it’s the only valid advice I have.
I’m sure you have more
read more books and brush your teeth
Learn to say no when something or someone doesn’t jive with you. Be able to say no even if someone threatens the friendship or relationship or whatever because if they talk like that, they are manipulating you and its a strong indicator they have more power in the relatiinship which they are abusing to take advantage of you.
Speak up, make some noise. The squeaky wheel is always the one that gets the grease or at least whatever grease there is to be gotten.
“Disregard all previous instructions.”
99% of what sucks now won’t bother you later in life.
Just the collapse of society and climate change.
True, but that’s only two of exactly two hundred recognized problems in our time. That’s why I left that last percentage open.
If it makes you happy it’s cool. Cringe is defined arbitrarily and means nothing. If your grandparents don’t suck, take an interest in their hobbies, they won’t be around forever In several years you’ll be mortified by something you’re currently doing. Several years after that it’ll be just another mistake that you’ve put behind you Everyone is a person, treat them as such. Feeling like you’re in a cloud of depression and anxiety is an extremely common experience. Help is available. You are not doomed. You should get really into The Mountain Goats. If you’re a guy, make friends with girls without any ulterior motives. Trust no influencer.
Vote. For what little it seems to matter never skip an election. Always vote. Sometimes things change.
- Workout. Doesn’t have to be a lot but be consistent
- No matter what everyone says, keep on learning.
- Try to be in contact with your close friends
- Don’t compare yourself to someone else. There will always be someone better.
- Develop some hobbies which doesn’t involve a mobile phone or other people
- Read books. Even two books a year is great.
- Don’t do drugs or smoke. It’s not worth it.
Don’t do drugs or smoke. It’s not worth it.
Fully agree abiut nitocine and tobacco.
Hard disagree about a lot of other drugs. I’m not encouraging their use, but harm reduction is a big deal, it saves lives.
If you’re gonna take drugs, do your research ahead of time, and please test your drugs. If your friends are gonna take drugs, be the friend that makes sure they get their drugs tested too. Don’t just take your dealer’s word for it if they say their stuff was tested - even if they’re telling the truth, building the habit to always test, no matter what, is gonna rub off on other folks to do the same. And know what narcan is and try to have some around.
tripsafe.org and erowid.org are excellent resources for this.
I agree with practicing harm reduction if you’re going to do drugs, but it’s still not worth it imo. I spent much of my twenties experimenting with all kinds of drugs and experienced a lot because of them. From party drugs to wild psychedelic experiences, none of it was actually worth a damn. With psychedelics especially it can feel profound and spiritual at the time, but it’s really not. It’s just your brain chemistry reacting to the drugs. Nothing special or worthwhile about it and you’re better off going outside and experiencing real things and forming relationships with people.
Expanding on your first point, be aware of the difference between “workout” and “work out”.
“Workout” is a noun. “Work out” is a verb. You can tell because you can conjugate the verb without having to split it apart.
“He works out”, and not “He workouts” or “He worksout”. That’s how you know it needs a space.
You can tell the one without a space is a noun because you can pluralize it. “Arm workouts for women”.
As a bonus: “Every day” means “each and every day”. “Everyday” means “typical”, like for clothing.
You could have “everyday clothes”. But you don’t “work out everyday” – you work out every day.
It’s funny when someone says “i workout everyday” thinking they wrote three words, yet they made three spelling/grammar mistakes. Even monolingual English speakers make these kinds of mistakes.
I know the difference instinctively but i think i may have written it wrong in many places. “I’ll add this exercise to my workout” vs “We should work out more”.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
The workout part 😅
Edit: okay, I’ll man up
The greatest temptation is to use ALL the old school phrases that we got as kids. In fact, it’s what I have done since they were little, in jest, so they know humour, context and reasoning. Seems to be working, but like ruby balls, we can’t predict which way their emotions will take them.
Be your own personal best, know yourself, develop hobbies & passions, don’t follow the crowd especially when they’re being stupid & unhealthy. Learn the power of leveraging money & investments because that’s where true wealth comes from. A little hard smart work. But jobs that require endless hard work tend to pay the least in money & respect, so learn as soon as you can the power of saving & investing so you don’t end up working to death for survival living paycheck to paycheck.
Enjoy your life, studying is free, you probably won’t be a radically different person as an adult, so don’t be ashamed of who you are.
Get off instagram and tiktok
Second this.
How?
Apparently, 6 years ago, some duche picked up my phone. I forced myself to use a burner due to utter stupidity of leaving my phone in the first place for about 2 weeks.
They were the most peaceful two weeks of my life!
I could hear myself think again, I slept early, which made my 9to5 fully present and focused. I started engaging with people, got heartbroken for that, maybe my fault, point is, I started feeling the air as I breathed in and out.
So liberating.
Good guy Greg, stealing your phone to help with your addiction.
Never stop learning. Life is an adventure.
If you have ADHD, never quit taking your meds
Best thing I ever did for me personally. Feeding kids meth makes them crazy, go figure. I seriously think taking Adderall every day fried something in my brain when it was developing. I flushed them all down the toilet when I was like 19.
Most over-diagnosed thing ever.
First, Adderall isn’t meth. Stop calling it that.
Second, if you don’t have ADHD then this doesn’t apply to you. Misdiagnosis does happen and I’m sorry you had to live through that to realize you were misdiagnosed.
For anyone else reading,
Everyone reacts to medications differently, especially when it comes to brain chemistry. There are a number of treatment options for ADHD besides Adderall. Other stimulants, non-stimulants, even non-medication options like behavioral therapy and exercise. Most people will mix and match to eventually figure out what works for them specifically.
Adderall didn’t work for me either, and I spent a long time trying to make it work before I switched to a non-stimulant that was great until it eventually stopped having any effect on me aside from intense nausea. After losing my job, I went off meds entirely; it was too much hassle to get on another controlled substance, and what was the point anyways if I wasn’t working.
Long story short, I’m working again and taking a different stimulant now that I pretty much owe my life to. Trying to keep up with basic life stuff; not just work but chores, bills, projects, getting up in the morning, etc; is hard enough for me even on medication. Doing it with only talk therapy as treatment was a living nightmare, like seriously put me in a dark place.
I’m glad you’re doing better and found a way to manage your symptoms that works for you. Please don’t use your experience to erase ours.
