I’ve never been and likely never will be “happy” and think it is a dumb unsustainable standard that people chase. Being content is the right way to go. I’m extremely content.
Living with lifelong depression, I think this is the best I can really achieve. Maybe some people are actually happy, idk, but I’ve certainly never met one.
Is “content” different than “at peace?” And how do you see all that as different from “happy?” … I’m curious about people’s experiences. What does it feel like to be content?
I wouldn’t call myself at peace because I have a lot of internal noise and frustrations I deal with constantly.
For being content, I don’t really want much more than what I have. I don’t feel I am really “missing” anything other than perhaps a partner but I enjoy being alone anyway.
I wouldn’t call it happy because it doesn’t come with the typical euphoria most people I think associate with being happy. Maybe I am actually happy, idk.
Maybe. What you describe sounds a lot like it. … as a few folks have said, I think lots of people mix up different pleasurable states and what I consider “happiness.”
I think another definitional thing that people struggle with is characterizing happiness as an absence of “bad” stuff. Everybody has ups and downs and challenging times and easy times. A broadly happy life has much to do with being able to value and enjoy the good times and be resilient and hopeful in the tough times. I think that’s a much richer concept of wellness than just trying to establish a care free life with no challenges.
Simply refusing to mask is VERY good for your mental health. I waste exactly zero mental energy on worrying about how I’m perceived and just focus single mindedly on executing whatever it is I’m trying to do as well as I can. If that makes me unpopular because I stepped on some toes that’s a price I pay with a smile.
Honestly I wasted so much energy code switching when I was younger that it significantly degraded my results on basically everything.
And of course you’re absolutely right. I stopped trying to be everything for everyone and pretty much immediately society started paying me out like a slot machine.
Hope you can get good help and feel safe soon.
Wishing you love and the best. Hope things work out well.
Chads, I’m really happy and relieved to see you’re doing okay and back here posting. I was worried and thinking about you all weekend.
ETA: I hope this isn’t embarrassing, if so, I can edit/delete.
Ditto. I was thinking about you too PC.
I work in a field where there is a culture of working long hours, but I am don’t really feel that I can concentrate on work in any meaningful sense for more than 3-4 hours per day. Thus I end up in a constant cycle of thinking:
Honestly the same cycle of resetting/perfectionism manifests itself throughout my entire life. I have a bunch of goals/things that I want to do but I feel like I need to start all of them at the same time and often they are too ambitious. And then if I fail at one of them instead of just continuing I will give up on all of them and then later I will decide to start it all over like the next day or on some specific date (beginnings of months are good, or weeks, or whatever). It makes it difficult to start some things at all because I am waiting for the next reset day or something.
I feel this might be some kind of OCD / OCPD (maybe both ?) but I’ve never been diagnosed with these things.
If you’re able to concentrate for 3-4 hours a day and can arrange your day to knock off your most important work during that time you’d be a top performer in most fields. Do you have a particular time of day where you feel productive?
I’m with @mosdef here. I strongly believe that in most fields where long hours are fetishized most people are at most doing 3-4 hours of real thinking work a day. More than that and your productivity starts to suck.
The solution is putting some energy into figuring out how to look busy while actually relaxing and doing everything you get every resource you need (time, assistance, etc) to be maximally productive during your productive time of the day. No one will notice because your output will be substantially above average.
Telling yourself that you should be working 10 hours a day is lying to yourself. You shouldn’t and you can’t. You can fake it though.
As a recent real job person who is already a third party logistics supervisor I’m working 58 hours a week and most of it is real work. I was supposed to get a forklift driver but they’ve lagged a month so I’ve had to do that and the computer shit, as in I had to learn how to drive it then do all his work and computer shit. It’s like it’s own lil department where we sell the people who own the companies stuff ( power tools etc ) So I have to do planning, receiving, shipping, inventory ( where I came from ) picking, packing, everything.
Mind you some of our shipments will get you 1-2 days notice and if your shit isn’t ready for pick up when they get there it’s a fine of $500 per pallet, so I have to get this shit done.
Receiving supervisor quit right as I got my job so my trainer who was supposed to help had to fill in that role so I like barely ever see him and am left going all over the place for help on shit lol.
Place is run so badly. Luckily I’m pretty charismatic so I get tons of help, still bullshit though.
I still take about 5 minutes between every 2 hour break to sit in the bathroom and play on my phone lol.
Once I get my driver shit should be cool because we don’t process a TON of orders but its been a fucked up situation going alone. Pretty sure my trainer is trying to blame me for shit not running smoothly, he will spend like 5 minutes going over something super fast and be like yeah thats how you do that and be gone lol.
Like we had an order switch to Fed Ex Ground and he didn’t tell me and he said he did, I’m sure he blamed that on me, but like you’re the one in management shouldn’t you sent me a fucking email if shipments change?
I make sure to send email for anything on my end. Can’t really control what he does.
You just need a new job. There are definitely people who our system abuses the shit out of, and some of the people I feel the worst for are people like shipping supervisors and nurses.
The good news is that if you’re good at that role there are tons of better paying options out there that are like half the work.
When I think of people who are getting absolutely fucked over in our economic system presently the first people I think of are minimum wage employees… and the second group I immediately think of are the horrifically overworked and underpaid people who are one-two levels above those minimum wage workers. The amount of productivity the shift leader at a fast food place, a third party logistics supervisor at a warehouse, or a Licensed Practical Nurse (lower class nursing because of course that’s a thing) in a nursing home generate for the amount they get paid is seriously fucked.
Man, get a job working in the public sector.
I just had a one on one with my boss yesterday and asked her how I was doing (I’m new the job, about 4 weeks in). She said I was doing excellent and all of the feedback she has received from my peers has been positive.
I figure I’ve done about a total of 30 hours of actual work in those 3 to 4 weeks.
I think it’s the same for everybody, at least on my team. Every now and then somebody will slip (or be honest) when I’m chatting with them and divulge how much they’re actually working.
It’s crazy, especially coming from the private sector where I was working 50 hour weeks and expected to be on-call 24/7 365.
The awsomest part of the whole thing is I got a pay RAISE when I took this job. So I make more money, work less, and have a much better work-life balance.
Very much the same here. I’ve got a docket of cases I manage along with a lot of responding to stuff from community members and local politicians, but in reality I’ve got like 15 hours of actual honest to goodness work to do each week, and as long as I’m on top of those things nobody really cares what you do all day. Also came with a pay raise (and union negotiated CoL raises each year) and super generous benefits coming from a shitty small firm job.
I imagine that a lot of local and state governments are going to be lifting hiring freezes over the next year and have positions to fill, now is probably a good time to explore public sector opportunities if anyone is interested in that path.
Yeah, I knew things were over in my private sector job when I got called for jury duty and the bosses told me that I would be using my vacation time if I had to serve. I couldn’t fathom using 2 weeks of vacation for Jury duty if I ended up on a long case.
Before I left my old job I tried to explain to them that I was supposed to get paid more in the private sector due to shitty benefits, but I couldn’t convince them. When I told them I could make more working for the state they said maybe I should pursue that, so I did.
I’m not really sure how they maintain their staff since the firm is located in the state capital and they have to compete against the state to hire staff.
Lots of anti-government propaganda, I imagine.