Including your age is appreciated but not required
- Half would be 19.5.
So, second year of college. I would be surprised about my salary vs what that’s worth in today’s economy. I would have been ecstatic with this back then. Would have thought I was living the dream. Inflation is a bitch.
Also, I probably would be shocked at how cool retro handhelds are now. I just got a Retroid Pocket Nova, and it can play every console I’ve ever had (I stopped console gaming at the PS2). And, it can run some Windows games. At 19, I was rocking a Windows Mobile 6 PDA, with a 624 MHz processor.
I always used to say I don’t wanna be rich. Just 30k a year and I’ll be set, I could buy anything I want with that.
30k is poverty now in america.
I keep on thinking about how many eggs I was making per hour at minimum wage way back when.
How badly everything has gone.
The hair loss would be news, but I wouldn’t really be surprised. It knew it happens.
At 21 years old, I would never have thought I’d be living in [REDACTED] with 4 kids, a GF and awell paying job I actually like.
Alternatively, 21 year old me would probably have his mind blown if I’d shown him all the places in the world I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
My boyfriend cares about me. Like, deeply. Like he will go out of his way to do things to support me. I was raised being told over and over that men are selfish and generally more concerned for themselves than their wives. That I need to be prepared to shoulder more of the burden. This is weird. He’s super nice. I can’t get over it.
My wife is like that for a lot of valid reasons. If I may give you a useless piece of advice, enjoy it instead of fighting it because he may be serious about what he is doing.
parents project their shit onto their kids, it sucks.
a lot of unhappy people, refuse to let anyone around them ever be happy. you’re allowed to be happy. don’t let other folks unhappiness ruin yours, because they will try very hard to ruin it for you.
I see this depiction of men all the time, and it just baffles me.
At the end of the day, most men are so happy when they are able to provide, protect, and support their wives / families / friends. Doing so is how most men measure their success in life. As Eddie Murphy said, all we really ask in return is the big piece of chicken.
because it’s a projection. the women who complain about men being like that… are mostly talking about themselves.
i’ve dated many women who thought that way… and they are talking about themselves. they see the world through an adversarial lens and everything is about them having power over others and being terrified of anyone having power over them.
and if you explain to them you don’t want any power over them they simple don’t believe you. they think it’s a lie or a manipulation tactic… because that’s how they treat everyone, through lies and manipulation. and no matter how honest you are with them… doesn’t matter because they don’t believe honesty exists.
I’m 44. The fact I’m still living. Nothing is wrong with me health wise. It’s just that past 40 is such a long time to live.
What really made it hit was when I gave more thought to how much trash the human race has created, even in 20 years, let alone since the wave of products in the 50s.
Like, I think it can just end any time. We had a good run.
How much of working is emotional prostitution.
50 years old.
- That I am as “successful” as I currently am. Measured by typical achievement of “The American Dream”.
- Why the fuck do I live on a cul-de-sac in some boring-ass suburban neighborhood with literally zero charm or culture. I should be living on the top floor of some mixed-use urban building with a subway or light rail station across the street.
- Most importantly, younger me would be so disappointed in my Christmas lights. Where are all the Christmas lights? I have a house. I can afford plenty of Christmas lights. Why are my house and yard and trees and bushes not absolutely doused in Christmas lights. Like Clark W. Griswold levels…you see younger me, it turns out that having a house is already a lot of stupid, unnecessary work, and then putting up Christmas lights and taking them down is even more work and I’m tired.
The amount of weed I smoke. Teenage-me was still in the process of deprogramming from D.A.R.E. propaganda. She wouldn’t have expected to become a full-blown stoner in her 30s.
I’ve always had a strong memory, and unfortunately it feeds into my anxiety and depression. Weed definitely impacts my memory, but it’s a benefit - normally, all the stupid little things of the day would torture me. I’d be overanalyzing every word I said, worrying over social mistakes that nobody else even remembers happening. It’s a mental process that only serves to hurt me, and that I raw-dogged sober for most of my life. Weed lets me break that cycle, change my focus, and not remember all the dumb little details that don’t actually matter, but that would otherwise keep me awake at night.
As a teen, I would’ve struggled to understand that there could be benefits to marijuana. She would’ve just thought the self-torture was normal. Life’s weird like that sometimes.
I still cannot belive I am married to my wife. She is amazing. She can basically solve any problem. She is a great mom. She helps me talk through my problems, she helps me make decisions, she can hold up her end of a conversation, and she is beautiful. I’ve always been fascinated by women in their late 30’s or 40’s that were still beautiful, and now I have one living in my house.
Jackpot! Treat her well and never take her for granted
I used to have a little comic I kept at my desk. There was a couple in it, the woman asks the man “where are yoy taking me?” To which he replied “for granted!”
I kept it there as a reminder to myself, to never take my wife for granted, to always work at improving myself and always let her know she is the center of my universe.
I also choose this person’s wife
How much I’ve started to hate technology. It’s like I had smart phones before my peers had flip phones. Same with computers; let me go to the computer graveyard room and put one together for myself. My family was very into tech so I had a computer since I was 5.
I think at this point I’m just not into it. Same with cars; I like my almost thirty year old cars.
I think that would be hating new technology, unless I’m misunderstanding you. I’m right there with you on that. trying to tone down my use of smartphones, not that hard since I don’t like them that much, but i don’t have much of a foundation to go off since I was born in the early 2000s, so it was pretty much filled with tech and i want to go back, like late 2010s. sorry for the ramble this turned into.
Nope you’re all good, spot on. I don’t mind a smart phone but they haven’t been very smart in the last decade. They really kind of piss me off with all the added garbage now. And the whole cameras in cars thing that’s going to be required next year is probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Consoles without physical media is ridiculous as well add in you can’t transfer your account to people is asinine. Same with operating systems, doing everything no one asked for. It’s like every step is not innovation but okay what did you fuck up this time.
the cameras in cars thing in addition to all the other stuff that can be collected freaks me out and is one reason why I tell my parents to try to hold on to our old cars (2014 and 2007), even though I know it’s inevitable that they will need to be replaced. I also don’t like that AI is being shoved into almost every corner that the companies can get away with. I gave them a chance, but they were not very useful and the permissions required were creepy af to me (notifications and message access?!)
what do you think of Car And Driver? it’s an amazing magazine that makes me wanna get into cars (i am politically urbanist)
You know, I never read it so I can’t say. It looks like it would be a good read. Personally, I research the engines and transmissions as well as what advanced features cars have. I would rather have a car with a cool suspension and a limit slip differential like my Infiniti (Nissan) than all the electronic bells and whistles modern cars have. I used to have a Volvo, I crashed it twice because I was fighting against all of the “safety” features… I’m not sure why they would put in a system to brake one caliper, but then again this was when Ford bought the company. It was fun to momentum drift in the rain even though it was FWD.
I am surprised that I made it out of my 20s and 30s alive. I also didn’t expect to have a job that aligns with my ethics. I am a caregiver for high functioning adults with special needs and pretty good at it.
That if I told you, I’d have to kill you.
I’m 45 now. If you would have told me at half my age how angry and sad I am in general, I probably would’ve been very confused and broken hearted. I guess the time is important for the desensitization.
Sorry for how trite and predictable this is, but even though I was pretty cynical half my life ago, I couldn’t have imagined so vile and corrupt a personage occupying the White House as what is there now, nor how easily and with how much cooperation they’ve been able to destroy the Constitution and government that was based on it.
yeah felt like nixon was an anomaly and reagan and um man bush jr. seems pretty typical for these guys, but surely it could not get worse…
40 now. At 20 I was a know-it-all crusader against having kids and now my two children are the absolute center of my universe.
I can’t even begin to explain the kind of joy these two kids create out of thin air. It’s simply beyond my ability to describe how much I love them and how grateful that I am to have met a woman I loved so much that it seemed wrong to not want to bring more of her into the world.
I am so fucking overwhelmed that my life turned out the way it has that I suffer from hidden imposter syndrome because I just don’t feel like I deserve to be this happy.
All I can do is try to be a worthy father and husband.
