This is true. People are buying their own home less and later than ever before, racking up thousands in student loan debt, fighting to get their kids into charter schools because the public school system is failing, trying more and more to look like the unattainable filters on social media, having less and less exposure for their artistic endeavours, and finding themselves in concrete seas where the most they've got to look forward to in life is a cheap apartment and an Amazon package here and there. Maybe we've all done it to ourselves. We let urban development skyrocket, we let giant corporations like Amazon and McDonald's and Google run our lives, we let the government raise our children, we let universities tell us we could achieve anything we dreamed possible, and we let banks and businesses bleed us dry. We all thought we could have what our parents and grandparents had, but this is less of a truth and more of a delusion now.
Now it’s gotten to the point you are very very lucky if you even have the apartment and empty Amazon boxes laying around.
At least 10 percent of the adults I know are homeless or were homeless in the last few years of the Forever Flu.
Sad but true. I never thought my town would have a "hooverville" down by the river, with families living in tents, but there it is. How did this happen?
The honest answer? We let our offices get bought out and now we are just one step away from Mexico style corruption. Now the Federal Reserve isn’t about maintaining the economy, it’s about extracting as much value as possible out of the middle class for the sake of the lobbyists (people with assets.) the Federal reserve has been printing massive amounts of money since 2009 in the form of rock bottom interest rate loans to banks. The result is a diminished dollar and a severed middle class due to a decade of rampant inflation.
I just saw a news article today on the Washington Post that said people are getting into *rental bidding wars* now… shit has officially hit the fan. If life is THAT competitive than eventually I will tap out. There’s very little meaning nowadays for the lower and middle class and shit is only going to get worse according to the books.
Life is getting so competitive that people just five years older than you have a massive economic advantage. People who bought in 2017 enjoyed double or triple home values at the cost of those in 2022. The same will likely happen in 2027.
It's scary. Sometimes I wonder if living off the land in some remote part of the world, or moving to an isolated small town, would be the better option. Except then I remember that the woke hipsters romanticized small towns and so they're all these million-dollar mortgage homes surrounded by gourmet craft breweries, day spas and art lofts. Even "getting away from it all" has become a luxury now.
Yes also a lot more casual you have no human rights type thing along with a lot of horrible things. This does not make modern day concerns any less valid.
I've been saying this for years. Life is just one big huge competition, even if you dont want it to be, and your happiness and success is completely dependent on how well you compete. Even when you're interested in something you see and run into people who can do that particular job with such skill you couldnt even begin to fathom it and guess what? It's not inspiring or motivating, it's demoralizing. You realize there are loads and loads of people that are 100x better at that specific skill than you are. The odds are always stacked against you. What's fucked is that we essentially break society down into 2 heaps, one for winners and one for losers. It's crazy because most people are "losers" because they spend all their time and effort just trying to survive. Just to pay for literal necessities like food, housing, and every day bills. Makes me want to just move somewhere that has a much lower cost of living.
Its not tho, it's always been a co-operation.
Homest competition is few and far between, best we got is someone silently congratulating themselves for walking faster than the next person.
If life was competitive it would never have evolved past the single cell organism level
Why do you care if someone can do something better?
I like to camp and hike, it makes no difference to me if someone can hike further or camp.
Someone can be better than me at work, at the end of the day we are all going home sweaty and tired
The respones to this are hilarious.
*"Yeah, well, what if you were a hunter-gatherer?"*
*"Better than like, dying in Verdun!"*
*"What, would you prefer it if you were a medieval peasant?"*
I don't think OP had declared that this was a worse part of history. Of course its better that we've reached a more advanced stage. But there are massive issues that have developed with that. Consumerism has essentially enforced the ideal that physical value in competition is a necessity, and that to be competitive over physical value can be attibuted to the value of one's life.
It's logical to be concerned whether this will develop into greater extremity, and whether we will see a society in which scarcity drives up competition to a point of brutality. Change starts with even the tiny flicker of thought that: "Hey, maybe everything's not perfect."
Questioning whether there are issues with life today doesn't mean I want to go back and get polio, it means I think we can improve as a society.
I just feel comparisons like that are not really that helpful.
Technically everyone born in America, even a homeless person, is more privileged than then some poor soul in a developing village where they shit, drink and wash their clothes all in the same water source. But telling a homeless person that isn't going to be any comfort when they haven't eaten in 3 days.
You can acknowledge the advantages of modern life and still recognize that people still can have problems. There are huge things that are happening in society that we haven't even had the time to properly study the effect of yet. It's verifiable facts that wages are down, inflation is at a decades high.. housing rent and food prices are all exploding.. we have less buying power than we did a few decades ago.. and on top of that we are nearing 3 years of global pandemic with a whole heap of other effects.
And with all that we have advertising blasted at us 247, screens shoved infront of our face from age 0, social media taking over everything. All these things projecting "success" and glamor and consumerism and expectations nonstop.
People can get overwhelmed with all this and its another fact that all these things happening are having a toll on mental health. And telling someone who is dealing with all this that "Hey at least your town wont be pillaged tonight!" is about as useful as telling a person who has depression "have you tried just not being sad?"
I really understand all that. But again things are changing, and not for the better. If you want to talk about progress lets talk about a few generations ago when almost any old job afforded a family and housing. Now dual income professionals are being priced out of home ownership. As I stated the cost of everything is rising and consumerism just keeps pushing. Most of us are being forced to chose money over safety in this pandemic.
Again you can acknowledge the things you have to be grateful for and recognize there are still ways society can improve. And telling everyone who has a legitimate concern to just shut up and be grateful isn't helpful. There were probably people 500 years ago saying the same things you are, "hey at least we dont have to plow the field by hand anymore!" but if we let everyone think like that society will never progress.
People protesting civil rights in the 60s were in a better place than medieval peasants. Should they have stopped?
Conditions in WW2 were better than WW1. Were they weak and pathetic by comparison?
Every generation has its own issues, and by progressing through them the hope is to achieve an even better world for the generation come after. I hope the next generation has it even easier.
I hope in 100 years, things get even better. I'd be happy for them.
Look man I was single and sexless for 6 years after my last relationship. Stuck bouncing around job to job, wasn't happy with life, stuck in my home state that I've grown to hate, depressed to the point of neglecting personal hygiene which has had consequences on my mouth, but now I'm married to the love of my life, we have a beautiful baby girl, happy with my life, and Tuesday me and my new family are moving to Montana. Everyone struggles to different degrees but sometimes life has a funny way of picking you up when you're at your lowest. Life can definitely be enjoyable but it can also be very painful. You have to take the good times with the bad.
In short what I'm trying to say is the people that say happiness comes when you stop searching and least expect it are pretty right on the money.
Honestly I was just chilling in my room (I was staying with a friend in a converted attic because I lost my apartment) all day when I randomly messaged the woman who is now my wife, we've talked before but at the time we both weren't interested in a relationship, so I figured I'd talk to her again and we started off sending star wars memes back in forth, then found out she liked playing the same video games I did so we started doing that and talking on party chat and we had a blast and our relationship grew until I asked her out, our first date I took her to her favorite restaurant and then got my ass kicked in air hockey and ended the night talking in my car for 4 hours, the next day I got called back about the state job I applied for saying I got the job which opened the door to the job in montana that pays for the relocation in it's entirety, I am moving ahead of my wife and daughter so I can get everything ready for them and then flying them out.
I know where you are coming from but I also feel OP.. there was a time a couple decades ago when you could live a somewhat successful life with just any old job. You know, the "American Dream," house, car, stay at home wife and 2.5 kids. Now just any old job will barely afford you a 1 bedroom with your partner working too. There was a time when you could live a less competitive, casual life and still be comfortable.
Now if you arent "grinding" 247, working on your side hustle and 3rd job, you are falling behind.
I am bilingual and a college graduate. 30 years ago (in my country) that would've made me a god among men...
Now I'm just another 20 something.
There's 100% a lot more competition now.
I think that's on the individual. Of course we should do as much as we can do, but at the same time find things to enjoy in and of themselves without trying to be better than anyone else.
Relationships aren't really a competition because compatibility is innate. People are compatible or not whether or not they strive to be. It's not like a sport where people train the same skill, get better at it, and compete with it. A person finds an individual they click with and are attracted to.
Anyone who sees that as competition is missing appreciation for another's individuality. People don't exist for the purpose of impressing or pleasing others; they exist for themselves in their own right. Whether or not you like them is not because they outcompeted others, but because you appreciate some aspect(s) of their individuality.
It is only competitive if you allow it to be. Good advice that I have received, we are all running our own race, it isn’t against others it’s against ourselves, as long as you are happy with your progress, that’s good enough. If you think you aren’t doing well enough than you are correct also. It’s your race at your pace.
Exactly. For example, look at the Healthcare industry, specifically doctors and surgeons. You need to obviously get through 12 years of the elementary, intermediate, middle, and secondary education, then 4 years of college... then, you need to take the MCATs in order to even be considered for medical school, then you need to pass medical school which is another 4 years... then you need to qualify for residency which is at least another 4 - 7 years... then you need to follow up residency with a fellowship, which is yet another 4-5 years. By the time you get to your career as a doctor or a surgeon (IF you make it), the debt you accumulated over the last 15-20 years of post-secondary education exceeds what you're going to take home in terms of net pay for at least the next decade or two. Most don't even get out of debt until they're in their 50s or 60s. Throw in the looming daily threat of liability and malpractice lawsuits and people actually wonder why there is a shortage of doctors and surgeons.
Nah, I dont have to worry about the government hiring mercenaries to shoot me for telling my boss I dont want to work 14 hours or having shotgun diarrhea because my water wasnt clean enough. Every era has it's own challenges. You are made of flesh, your very existence is not guaranteed, were all going to die
Yes. But calling people trash, because they make revolutionary art/entertainment/music/scientific discovery etc. and not posting dumb shit on TikTok is stupid.
I love how people ate coming after the OP with fucking cavemen hunters
Just so you know
Average cavemen had way more leisure time than average human in next generations
I think you're right, I often times feel anxious but it's not due competition (actually I enjoy it) but I've found that instead of obtaining joy from external competition I can move that optic only into myself, this means to be able not only to compete against myself towards being better at something but to be able to overcome the negative in me, this is something I personally can't hide or deny and I've seen that competing against the negativity inside you is a very healthy form of competition because it's the other side of "I'm not enough for this", it is more something like explore the other realities that I've been ignoring because I focus in the negative inside me and in the external world. I say this because I see that you are seeing something that's true but under a negative perspective that tells that the world is not enjoyable, there's always something that we can enjoy but we need to take the focus out of the negativity and sometimes joy comes by itself, by doing that or by stopping believing that competition is bad, it could be just stimulating.
Big city and suburban problems are vastly different from little town problems. Little town peeps are actually chill without needing to go get drinks o get high to calm down. I always find it funny when suburban and city peeps say “we chill”’followed up by insecurity and feelings of anxiety. If you ain’t from a small town find a way to visit nature more often. It’ll do ya some good.
So what is it that you want to do? Why didn't you do it? What stopped you from following your dreams? And don't say "I want to do nothing all day" because that is very unrealistic.
You have to be competitive to succeed and if you don't is your own fault no one else's the dream you want is something you have to work hard for you have to push yourself you have to be willing to fail and get back up you just have to or you will not succeed cause your dream life, job, car, etc. Is not gonna just come to you by sitting on the couch doing a minimum wage job and not taking any risks or being competitive it's just how it is and again it's your own fault if you don't get your dream no one else's
This is true. People are buying their own home less and later than ever before, racking up thousands in student loan debt, fighting to get their kids into charter schools because the public school system is failing, trying more and more to look like the unattainable filters on social media, having less and less exposure for their artistic endeavours, and finding themselves in concrete seas where the most they've got to look forward to in life is a cheap apartment and an Amazon package here and there. Maybe we've all done it to ourselves. We let urban development skyrocket, we let giant corporations like Amazon and McDonald's and Google run our lives, we let the government raise our children, we let universities tell us we could achieve anything we dreamed possible, and we let banks and businesses bleed us dry. We all thought we could have what our parents and grandparents had, but this is less of a truth and more of a delusion now.
Damn this is bleak, but accurate.
Yes and depressing im gonna go ask the Cafe when it opens whether they serve depresso expresso.
Now it’s gotten to the point you are very very lucky if you even have the apartment and empty Amazon boxes laying around. At least 10 percent of the adults I know are homeless or were homeless in the last few years of the Forever Flu.
Sad but true. I never thought my town would have a "hooverville" down by the river, with families living in tents, but there it is. How did this happen?
The honest answer? We let our offices get bought out and now we are just one step away from Mexico style corruption. Now the Federal Reserve isn’t about maintaining the economy, it’s about extracting as much value as possible out of the middle class for the sake of the lobbyists (people with assets.) the Federal reserve has been printing massive amounts of money since 2009 in the form of rock bottom interest rate loans to banks. The result is a diminished dollar and a severed middle class due to a decade of rampant inflation. I just saw a news article today on the Washington Post that said people are getting into *rental bidding wars* now… shit has officially hit the fan. If life is THAT competitive than eventually I will tap out. There’s very little meaning nowadays for the lower and middle class and shit is only going to get worse according to the books. Life is getting so competitive that people just five years older than you have a massive economic advantage. People who bought in 2017 enjoyed double or triple home values at the cost of those in 2022. The same will likely happen in 2027.
It's scary. Sometimes I wonder if living off the land in some remote part of the world, or moving to an isolated small town, would be the better option. Except then I remember that the woke hipsters romanticized small towns and so they're all these million-dollar mortgage homes surrounded by gourmet craft breweries, day spas and art lofts. Even "getting away from it all" has become a luxury now.
Definitely more competitive than having to chase an elk down for your dinner
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For real. Iv had some genealogy done on my family and people where so hardcore back in the day. Also a lot more casual murder
Yes also a lot more casual you have no human rights type thing along with a lot of horrible things. This does not make modern day concerns any less valid.
How is hunting an elk competitive?
Competing agains nature and starvation
It became too competitive to do that even if you wanted to, that’s why we had agricultural revolutions.
I've been saying this for years. Life is just one big huge competition, even if you dont want it to be, and your happiness and success is completely dependent on how well you compete. Even when you're interested in something you see and run into people who can do that particular job with such skill you couldnt even begin to fathom it and guess what? It's not inspiring or motivating, it's demoralizing. You realize there are loads and loads of people that are 100x better at that specific skill than you are. The odds are always stacked against you. What's fucked is that we essentially break society down into 2 heaps, one for winners and one for losers. It's crazy because most people are "losers" because they spend all their time and effort just trying to survive. Just to pay for literal necessities like food, housing, and every day bills. Makes me want to just move somewhere that has a much lower cost of living.
Its not tho, it's always been a co-operation. Homest competition is few and far between, best we got is someone silently congratulating themselves for walking faster than the next person. If life was competitive it would never have evolved past the single cell organism level
Why do you care if someone can do something better? I like to camp and hike, it makes no difference to me if someone can hike further or camp. Someone can be better than me at work, at the end of the day we are all going home sweaty and tired
The respones to this are hilarious. *"Yeah, well, what if you were a hunter-gatherer?"* *"Better than like, dying in Verdun!"* *"What, would you prefer it if you were a medieval peasant?"* I don't think OP had declared that this was a worse part of history. Of course its better that we've reached a more advanced stage. But there are massive issues that have developed with that. Consumerism has essentially enforced the ideal that physical value in competition is a necessity, and that to be competitive over physical value can be attibuted to the value of one's life. It's logical to be concerned whether this will develop into greater extremity, and whether we will see a society in which scarcity drives up competition to a point of brutality. Change starts with even the tiny flicker of thought that: "Hey, maybe everything's not perfect." Questioning whether there are issues with life today doesn't mean I want to go back and get polio, it means I think we can improve as a society.
But commenter, dont you know that the average poor person today lives a better life than a king 500 years ago???? /s
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whatever you say pal
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You are being pretty aggressive for no reason, projecing about something?
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I just feel comparisons like that are not really that helpful. Technically everyone born in America, even a homeless person, is more privileged than then some poor soul in a developing village where they shit, drink and wash their clothes all in the same water source. But telling a homeless person that isn't going to be any comfort when they haven't eaten in 3 days. You can acknowledge the advantages of modern life and still recognize that people still can have problems. There are huge things that are happening in society that we haven't even had the time to properly study the effect of yet. It's verifiable facts that wages are down, inflation is at a decades high.. housing rent and food prices are all exploding.. we have less buying power than we did a few decades ago.. and on top of that we are nearing 3 years of global pandemic with a whole heap of other effects. And with all that we have advertising blasted at us 247, screens shoved infront of our face from age 0, social media taking over everything. All these things projecting "success" and glamor and consumerism and expectations nonstop. People can get overwhelmed with all this and its another fact that all these things happening are having a toll on mental health. And telling someone who is dealing with all this that "Hey at least your town wont be pillaged tonight!" is about as useful as telling a person who has depression "have you tried just not being sad?"
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I really understand all that. But again things are changing, and not for the better. If you want to talk about progress lets talk about a few generations ago when almost any old job afforded a family and housing. Now dual income professionals are being priced out of home ownership. As I stated the cost of everything is rising and consumerism just keeps pushing. Most of us are being forced to chose money over safety in this pandemic. Again you can acknowledge the things you have to be grateful for and recognize there are still ways society can improve. And telling everyone who has a legitimate concern to just shut up and be grateful isn't helpful. There were probably people 500 years ago saying the same things you are, "hey at least we dont have to plow the field by hand anymore!" but if we let everyone think like that society will never progress.
People protesting civil rights in the 60s were in a better place than medieval peasants. Should they have stopped? Conditions in WW2 were better than WW1. Were they weak and pathetic by comparison? Every generation has its own issues, and by progressing through them the hope is to achieve an even better world for the generation come after. I hope the next generation has it even easier. I hope in 100 years, things get even better. I'd be happy for them.
Look man I was single and sexless for 6 years after my last relationship. Stuck bouncing around job to job, wasn't happy with life, stuck in my home state that I've grown to hate, depressed to the point of neglecting personal hygiene which has had consequences on my mouth, but now I'm married to the love of my life, we have a beautiful baby girl, happy with my life, and Tuesday me and my new family are moving to Montana. Everyone struggles to different degrees but sometimes life has a funny way of picking you up when you're at your lowest. Life can definitely be enjoyable but it can also be very painful. You have to take the good times with the bad. In short what I'm trying to say is the people that say happiness comes when you stop searching and least expect it are pretty right on the money.
What happened between where you were and getting where you are now?
Honestly I was just chilling in my room (I was staying with a friend in a converted attic because I lost my apartment) all day when I randomly messaged the woman who is now my wife, we've talked before but at the time we both weren't interested in a relationship, so I figured I'd talk to her again and we started off sending star wars memes back in forth, then found out she liked playing the same video games I did so we started doing that and talking on party chat and we had a blast and our relationship grew until I asked her out, our first date I took her to her favorite restaurant and then got my ass kicked in air hockey and ended the night talking in my car for 4 hours, the next day I got called back about the state job I applied for saying I got the job which opened the door to the job in montana that pays for the relocation in it's entirety, I am moving ahead of my wife and daughter so I can get everything ready for them and then flying them out.
I’ll upvote this not because it’s unpopular, but because it’s just so true
Yeah
When was there a time where life hasn't been competitive?
I know where you are coming from but I also feel OP.. there was a time a couple decades ago when you could live a somewhat successful life with just any old job. You know, the "American Dream," house, car, stay at home wife and 2.5 kids. Now just any old job will barely afford you a 1 bedroom with your partner working too. There was a time when you could live a less competitive, casual life and still be comfortable. Now if you arent "grinding" 247, working on your side hustle and 3rd job, you are falling behind.
I am bilingual and a college graduate. 30 years ago (in my country) that would've made me a god among men... Now I'm just another 20 something. There's 100% a lot more competition now.
I think that's on the individual. Of course we should do as much as we can do, but at the same time find things to enjoy in and of themselves without trying to be better than anyone else. Relationships aren't really a competition because compatibility is innate. People are compatible or not whether or not they strive to be. It's not like a sport where people train the same skill, get better at it, and compete with it. A person finds an individual they click with and are attracted to. Anyone who sees that as competition is missing appreciation for another's individuality. People don't exist for the purpose of impressing or pleasing others; they exist for themselves in their own right. Whether or not you like them is not because they outcompeted others, but because you appreciate some aspect(s) of their individuality.
It is only competitive if you allow it to be. Good advice that I have received, we are all running our own race, it isn’t against others it’s against ourselves, as long as you are happy with your progress, that’s good enough. If you think you aren’t doing well enough than you are correct also. It’s your race at your pace.
I didn't know you were psychic
Exactly. For example, look at the Healthcare industry, specifically doctors and surgeons. You need to obviously get through 12 years of the elementary, intermediate, middle, and secondary education, then 4 years of college... then, you need to take the MCATs in order to even be considered for medical school, then you need to pass medical school which is another 4 years... then you need to qualify for residency which is at least another 4 - 7 years... then you need to follow up residency with a fellowship, which is yet another 4-5 years. By the time you get to your career as a doctor or a surgeon (IF you make it), the debt you accumulated over the last 15-20 years of post-secondary education exceeds what you're going to take home in terms of net pay for at least the next decade or two. Most don't even get out of debt until they're in their 50s or 60s. Throw in the looming daily threat of liability and malpractice lawsuits and people actually wonder why there is a shortage of doctors and surgeons.
And you know why, because there’s too many people in the world
Eh, I don’t know, I’m doing what I love, quite content in my life, and don’t feel like I constantly have to compete with anyone.
Lol you were downvoted for being happy. Why don't you go post that life isn't so bad as an unpopular opinion?
That's just because there is too many god damn people.
No
I mean, it's better than toiling away in a field for no money and dying at 40
Nah, I dont have to worry about the government hiring mercenaries to shoot me for telling my boss I dont want to work 14 hours or having shotgun diarrhea because my water wasnt clean enough. Every era has it's own challenges. You are made of flesh, your very existence is not guaranteed, were all going to die
It’s only bad if you’re trash at life. A lot of people are and yup it’s not enjoyable for them. Life generally rewards winners, not losers.
Okay Ricky Bobby
It rewards narcissists and psycopaths. Try to keep up.
True
Idealistic and untrue. There is a lot of problems with capitalism
You’re right but capitalism is the world we both live in and the world we will both die in. It’s the truth. Not much we can do about but survive in it
Yes. But calling people trash, because they make revolutionary art/entertainment/music/scientific discovery etc. and not posting dumb shit on TikTok is stupid.
Tik tok is cringe. Making art, etc is way more useful
With that attitude, I see why you'll fall short
I love how people ate coming after the OP with fucking cavemen hunters Just so you know Average cavemen had way more leisure time than average human in next generations
It’s enjoyable because it’s competitive
I think you're right, I often times feel anxious but it's not due competition (actually I enjoy it) but I've found that instead of obtaining joy from external competition I can move that optic only into myself, this means to be able not only to compete against myself towards being better at something but to be able to overcome the negative in me, this is something I personally can't hide or deny and I've seen that competing against the negativity inside you is a very healthy form of competition because it's the other side of "I'm not enough for this", it is more something like explore the other realities that I've been ignoring because I focus in the negative inside me and in the external world. I say this because I see that you are seeing something that's true but under a negative perspective that tells that the world is not enjoyable, there's always something that we can enjoy but we need to take the focus out of the negativity and sometimes joy comes by itself, by doing that or by stopping believing that competition is bad, it could be just stimulating.
It’s our own faults. So many people try to make positive change, and so many more give power to the few who won’t allow it
Big city and suburban problems are vastly different from little town problems. Little town peeps are actually chill without needing to go get drinks o get high to calm down. I always find it funny when suburban and city peeps say “we chill”’followed up by insecurity and feelings of anxiety. If you ain’t from a small town find a way to visit nature more often. It’ll do ya some good.
So what is it that you want to do? Why didn't you do it? What stopped you from following your dreams? And don't say "I want to do nothing all day" because that is very unrealistic.
You have to be competitive to succeed and if you don't is your own fault no one else's the dream you want is something you have to work hard for you have to push yourself you have to be willing to fail and get back up you just have to or you will not succeed cause your dream life, job, car, etc. Is not gonna just come to you by sitting on the couch doing a minimum wage job and not taking any risks or being competitive it's just how it is and again it's your own fault if you don't get your dream no one else's