Angery people.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

That might be a little more blunt than I would've put it, but yeah, I guess so. Having it all in your hands, and you reaping what you sow is kind of the definition of freedom isn't it? Being able to shape your existence, and play the hand you're dealt however you see fit is freedom. It's not going to work out for everybody, and it's not going to work out for anybody all the time. But it should be up to you to determine the course of your life as well as you can.

Every generation has unique challenges. Some more than others. You can choose to complain about them, and use them as an excuse for your unhappiness, or you can do better for yourself. That's a choice that you make. You can't always control the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you react to them. Personally, I don't see anything positive that comes from complaining about situation that are out of my control, so I try to avoid it. To me, energy spent complaining is wasted energy that could've been used to make my life better or my family's lives better.

Yes, education costs are insane. Medical costs are insane. Real estate costs are insane. Yes, wages are lower on average than they were 40 years ago. These are real challenges that are new to society. But we're also living in unprecedented times of world peace. Everybody here has access to food, water, plumbing, etc. Many of the old challenges of basic survival aren't major concerns for most of us. The devices we carry in our pockets can share the collective knowledge of civilization, but we mostly use them for sharing cat videos or posting pictures of food we're about to eat.

Adopting a victim's mentality is a choice. Blaming others for your situation is a choice. It might make you feel a little better, but it's not going to actually make your life any better. Failure is just as possible as success (or perhaps moreso) in a truly free society, and the result you live has a lot to do with choices that you make.

yupididit said:

I for one would hate to go back to how the 50's were. Those "good ole days" weren't the same for all of us! LoL

 

 

 

Seriously though.

The current young folks ("Millennials" I think is what they call us in a derogative way lol) have to deal with astronomical education cost, high home prices, low home availability in areas where the decent paying jobs are (which causes the home prices to go up), and media that bombards us with negative energy 24/7. All with the burden of fixing the social issues created by the generations before us as well as being told we suck and don't do anything right. It can cause a lot of problems mentally. Not living up to expectations, or gaining everything (go to college buy a house) we were told to do in order to be successful and have money and to find out those things bring us massive debt but not so great income instead. I can see how people can become depressed or angry by such things. 

This wealth disparity truly effects people on a systematic and generational scale. We have equal right but not equal opportunity. You can raise a kid well while poor but the school the child goes to might be E36 M3ty and have little resources which will lower his opportunities vs well funded schools with great teachers zoned in high middle class/upper class neighborhoods. That was how I was raised. Poor, went to E36 M3 schools, but my mom raised me well. I joined the Air Force and got the hell out of dodge. But, most of the people I grew up with got stuck in that perpetual cycle because they didn't know or wasn't able to stay straight in the pursuit of getting out or moving up in social class. Again, those situations breed anger and depression. 

What do I do to stay healthy mentally and physically: I don't watch TV and when I do it isn't the news. My internet time is spent on hobbies and education not news or social media. I eat well. I work out. I rent in a nice neighborhood, until I can afford to buy a home that can place me in a neighborhood with good schools for my son. I surround myself with positive people as well as people who have obtained the goals I am seeking and use them as mentors. I treat people well.

“Treat people well” I honestly believe that’s the real secret to success.  I believe in Karma. That is a Christian version of Karma. Treat others well and good things seem to happen.  Not on a Quid pro Quo basis rather a good things happen to good people basis.

As far as Millennials go, relax. No new generation does things right according to the previous 

AngryCorvair said:

what makes me angry:  everything except getting a beejer.

what makes me not angry:  getting a beejer.

 

right now, i'm angry.

I think I'm glad to hear you're angry right now.

In reply to frenchyd :

"“Treat people well” I honestly believe that’s the real secret to success.  I believe in Karma. That is a Christian version of Karma. Treat others well and good things seem to happen.  Not on a Quid pro Quo basis rather a good things happen to good people basis."

Agree with you.  And, I'll add, it's important to be kind to everybody.  From the guy who empties your waste baskets to the guy who signs your paycheck.  

Anecdote: Admin lady at work.  I always tell her good morning, engage her in meaningful conversation, and be friendly towards her.  Last week she tells me her boss told her to clean out this cubicle for a new employee.  She can't lift some of the boxes (She's in her 60's) and she asked me if I could help.  Not in any way, shape, or form my job description, but I helped her out- cleaned out the whole cube for her, in fact, right then.  She was so grateful, and told me so.  No real problem for me.  

Fast forward to this week.  My access badge expires soon.  I was dreading going around to the various offices and people and all that I had to deal with to get it taken care of.  I went over to ask the admin lady if she had the form I needed to take care of it.  She smiles and says, "I got you!".  Prints out everything I need, tells me what I need to do, and told me she'd call the badge office ahead of time and make me an appt. so I don't have to wait.  

Kindness.  It's contagious.  

Just be a good person? I have been. Go out of my way to be helpful, even to total strangers. Be nice. I've been called the nicest person they'very ever met, in a group awash in nice people. Work hard. I bust my ass every day. Get an education. 4 years of college. 

I'm angry because I'm repeatedly berkeleyed over. People mistaking my kindness for weakness. I'm work twice as hard for half the pay I made 10 years ago. My healthcare is nonexistent and my health is in steady decline. My education has produce zero jobs in the field I studied. Nothing has panned out, no one lives up to expectations, everything feels broken. 

You're goddamn right I'm angry.

volvoclearinghouse said:

In the 1960's, the median age was 68.  Retirement happened at 65.  So, on average, folks lived 3 years after they finished working before they kicked off. 

Good afternoon Mr. Volvoclearinghouse, do you know why I pulled you over?

I’m afraid you failed to recognize a conditional probability but don’t worry, I’m going to let you off with a math lesson rather than issuing a citation.

You see, median life expectancy is based on the entire population whereas median years of retirement is based on the subset of individuals that have already survived 65 years.

Essentially, since you have already survived 65 years (condition), you have eliminated the possibility of dying young (it's no longer possible for you to die at 35 for example) which pushes your likely number of years up relative to that of the entire population.

Have a nice day sir.

In reply to Appleseed :

Thanks for trying....seriously.  Hard working nice people are just nice to have around.

I can only go by what I see. I work in Entertainment/Threater. I do a lot of my work running the lights for comedy at the Borgata where I work. This venue usually has three comedians sunday through thursday with friday and saturday devoted to headline acts. We have been doing this for 15 years and have a good following. In the past year, we have had to station security in the venue due to people being disruptive, this is an issue we never ever had before. If we threw somebody out once every couple of months, it was a lot. Now it is a weekly occurrence. not only are people angry, they are emboldened to be angry

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Is it easy?  Not always.   Will you always get through to people?  No.  But it sure wouldn't hurt.  Sometimes a helpful word or deed can really make a different for someone.  Be excellent to each other dude's!

STM317 said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

That might be a little more blunt than I would've put it, but yeah, I guess so. Having it all in your hands, and you reaping what you sow is kind of the definition of freedom isn't it? Being able to shape your existence, and play the hand you're dealt however you see fit is freedom. It's not going to work out for everybody, and it's not going to work out for anybody all the time. But it should be up to you to determine the course of your life as well as you can.

Every generation has unique challenges. Some more than others. You can choose to complain about them, and use them as an excuse for your unhappiness, or you can do better for yourself. That's a choice that you make. You can't always control the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you react to them. Personally, I don't see anything positive that comes from complaining about situation that are out of my control, so I try to avoid it. To me, energy spent complaining is wasted energy that could've been used to make my life better or my family's lives better.

The situation isn't entirely out of your control though. You can nudge it microscropically over long periods of time. Your nudging combined with other people's nudging can make a difference. Complaining is part of that nudging. In fact at some point that nudging becomes the only practical route to improvement - that's when people revolt.

It makes no sense to me to both acknowledge that the system is unfair and say that you reap what you sow and your fate is in your own hands, so it's up to you to do better for yourself. They're two ideas in a zero-sum balance. Your advice would be technically correct for someone born into a North Korean death camp.

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to frenchyd :

"“Treat people well” I honestly believe that’s the real secret to success.  I believe in Karma. That is a Christian version of Karma. Treat others well and good things seem to happen.  Not on a Quid pro Quo basis rather a good things happen to good people basis."

Agree with you.  And, I'll add, it's important to be kind to everybody.  From the guy who empties your waste baskets to the guy who signs your paycheck.  

Anecdote: Admin lady at work.  I always tell her good morning, engage her in meaningful conversation, and be friendly towards her.  Last week she tells me her boss told her to clean out this cubicle for a new employee.  She can't lift some of the boxes (She's in her 60's) and she asked me if I could help.  Not in any way, shape, or form my job description, but I helped her out- cleaned out the whole cube for her, in fact, right then.  She was so grateful, and told me so.  No real problem for me.  

Fast forward to this week.  My access badge expires soon.  I was dreading going around to the various offices and people and all that I had to deal with to get it taken care of.  I went over to ask the admin lady if she had the form I needed to take care of it.  She smiles and says, "I got you!".  Prints out everything I need, tells me what I need to do, and told me she'd call the badge office ahead of time and make me an appt. so I don't have to wait.  

Kindness.  It's contagious.  

Depends on your definition of success. Most of the wealthy/people in power that I work for are certainly NOT nice people. They take advantage of every situation, show no loyalty, are cheapskates and are constantly looking for ways to get ahead at the expense of others.

Their bank accounts certainly must appear to be successful but deep down I believe they are not happy with their lives.

Another take on the 50's, 60's, 70's, today is that the repressed 50's gave us the freewheeling sexual revolution (yay!) so that folks could have a good time and not feel bad about it.  But due to the law of unintended consequences it also took us from the clap which could be cleared up by an embarrassing trip to the doc and a shot of penicillin to herpes and aids (boo).  

In the 50's I'm sure there were plenty of unhappy marriages but there was a social pressure to "make things work" so folks mostly stayed married and continued to build family wealth.  Today people get divorced at the drop of a hat which wrecks peoples' finances for a decade or more (I figure that between direct and indirect costs my solidly middle class divorce cost me around $600,000). 

Happy or angry usually boils down to some pretty basic things.  Do you have a full belly, bank account, gotten some "action" recently?  Odds are good you'll be reasonably happy.  Take one of those things out of the equation and see how quickly your attitude towards the world at large changes.

GameboyRMH said:

STM317 said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

That might be a little more blunt than I would've put it, but yeah, I guess so. Having it all in your hands, and you reaping what you sow is kind of the definition of freedom isn't it? Being able to shape your existence, and play the hand you're dealt however you see fit is freedom. It's not going to work out for everybody, and it's not going to work out for anybody all the time. But it should be up to you to determine the course of your life as well as you can.

Every generation has unique challenges. Some more than others. You can choose to complain about them, and use them as an excuse for your unhappiness, or you can do better for yourself. That's a choice that you make. You can't always control the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you react to them. Personally, I don't see anything positive that comes from complaining about situation that are out of my control, so I try to avoid it. To me, energy spent complaining is wasted energy that could've been used to make my life better or my family's lives better.

The situation isn't entirely out of your control though. You can nudge it microscropically over long periods of time. Your nudging combined with other people's nudging can make a difference. Complaining is part of that nudging. In fact at some point that nudging becomes the only practical route to improvement - that's when people revolt.

It makes no sense to me to both acknowledge that the system is unfair and say that you reap what you sow and your fate is in your own hands, so it's up to you to do better for yourself. They're two ideas in a zero-sum balance. Your advice would be technically correct for someone born into a North Korean death camp.

That's a totally valid point. Anger can spur change in positive directions. I guess I'd ask you which option gives a better return on the investment of your time? Complaining, and hoping that it changes society incrementally, and then hoping that that societal change improves your life or just focusing on improving your life within the unfair structure? For me, trying to improve my life has had much better results than complaining.

Do unto others as you would have done to you.

frenchyd said:

“Treat people well” I honestly believe that’s the real secret to success.  I believe in Karma. That is a Christian version of Karma. Treat others well and good things seem to happen.  Not on a Quid pro Quo basis rather a good things happen to good people basis.

Sounds like what I call "Pop Culture Karma" as seen on My Name Is Earl - the expectation of real-world rewards for just doing good, and perhaps harm for doing bad. In theory it could be scientifically disproven, and personally I'm certain it would be. There are too many counterexamples everywhere for one thing. War criminals and terrorists enjoying a cozy retirement in Florida, good people dying slowly of unusual diseases or early in freak accidents, etc. Proper religious definitions of karma have the usual afterlife/next life loophole which makes them untestable and practically meaningless in the real world.

The main reason I don't like it is that it can help to rationalize the Just World Fallacy - the idea that everyone has earned their lot in life, whatever it is. If someone's poor, maybe they did something bad to deserve it, and if someone's rich for clearly terrible reasons, maybe they're secretly awesome so it's all OK. Awful idea.

There are better reasons to do good. Altruism, quid pro quo, leaving a good legacy, pick one (or many) 'cuz they're all better, but Pop Culture Karma will likely lead to disappointment for yourself and subtly poisons the society around you.

Fletch1 said:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Is it easy?  Not always.   Will you always get through to people?  No.  But it sure wouldn't hurt.  Sometimes a helpful word or deed can really make a different for someone.  Be excellent to each other dude's!

One point about the “heap fiery coals on their head” part, it DOES NOT MEAN you do something nice to a jerk to make them look like a jerk, or make yourself feel elevated. That phrase means to “soften ones heart”. In other words- you be nice to that jerk, in hopes of showing him that you love him even though he’s a jerk. And in hopes that it will soften that person’s heart and help them realize there is a better way. A way of love. 

frenchyd said:

We will simply have to disagree about home ownership.  You can use the equity in your home to fund a start up. You can use stability in your home to increase your credit rating. Homeownership does reduce crime as you could potentially lose more than the crime can produce.  

Home ownership sets a fixed cost that becomes easier to live with as inflation increases other costs. Home ownership does not need to end in a sale. You can rent your home out and there are companies that specialize in providing you with assistance such as emergency maintenance, qualifying rental candidates,  and re-renting to your next tenant. 

Home ownership puts you on the inflation elevator not as a victim of inflation.  Rent closely follows inflation and demand. Demand increases as home ownership is reduced.  

We may agree a bit more than you think on the topic of home ownership - what annoys me is the mentality that leads someone to spend more than they should on a home because "it's an investment" or "a tool to build wealth," instead of looking at "What is the most cost effective way to spend my money on a place to live at my desired standard of living?" And many of the benefits can be realized just as easily with an inexpensive home as an expensive one, within reason.

Rental properties are a different category - I was mentioning specifically a home bought to live in. They are an investment, and call for a different approach.

In reply to Appleseed :

Being good and kind is important and we all appreciate you (and all those like you) and you should benefit from it somehow, but it very often doesn't work out that way. Appleseed, I can only offer, keep doing what you know is right and hopefully things will turn around. I switched jobs (involuntarily) 11 years ago and am almost back to my same pay and benefits, I know where you are coming from. One of my kids, (30 YO) has been for the most part a good and kind person. He works hard and tries to do the "right" things but he always, I mean ALWAYS ends up being in the wrong place at the right time whenever he makes a mistake. Every time he seems to be getting a step or two ahead, he gets knocked back three or four steps. It has to be very frustrating and I can see why he gets angry, he feels like all the choices he makes are bad. We have tried to convince him to look at what is good in his life and try not to dwell on the things that are not good. It is very hard to do this in real life, which is why I believe so many people are angry. Many of us feel like we are being stomped on/ taken advantage of by almost everyone around us. I have seen numerous references to it in other posts, we are bombarded by the media (news and advertisers) that this is what you should be scared of and what you need to be happy and so many buy into it. We all project our thoughts and ideas on most of those around us. That leads to us believing that we know how they should live and behave. We will never know what most of those people we encounter each day are going through when they offend us. The norm is, if you are nasty to me I'll be nastier to you, this will always end poorly and how wars start. When I was younger that was my normal reaction, now I try to give people the benefit of doubt  when I feel I have been wronged, I hope that they are just having a bad day and not always a shiny happy person. If I get upset with their behavior then both of us are angry, which does neither of us any good. It seems as though much of society does not take this approach. I have no idea on how to fix the mess we are in but to try and be friendly to those I meet and teach my kids and grandkids to work hard and be the best person they can be.Two sayings that may help save the world. My wife has a fridge magnet that says" To be happy, Don't do whatever you like, like whatever you do" and a  friend who is a priest has a wonderful quote he uses; "May you be the face of Christ in all those you encounter today and may you see the face of Christ in them". If it were only that easy...

I agree with Frenchyd, owning a house is the gateway to financial security.  Your payment doesn't change, you have equity to play with, you're on the appreciation wave in your area.  Even if you do sell the house in the future, chances are you'll sell it for at least what you paid for it, which means you just lived there rent free for all those years.  If it sells for more than what you paid, which again, is quite likely, then you just positive cash flowed it and got paid to live there.

There's a reason I went out of my way to buy the building my practice is in, the building will be far more of my retirement than selling the practice will be...

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I agree. I do it because I prefer to love my fellow humans. Whatever I obtain in life I prefer to obtain through my efforts than the grace of others or "God". 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

You said it better than I could have. Karma is a nice thought. Kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy, and for that it's great.

It's been said that success = talent + luck and great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck.

Once you understand the role that luck plays you can try to skew it in your direction and create your own. As Thomas Watson (IBM) once said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.” So the more chances you take, the more at-bats you have the more opportunity you will have for luck to work in your direction .

volvoclearinghouse said:

It could be said that people's expectations of a 3,000 sq foot house with granite countertops in a Suburban cul-de-sac with a 2 car garage and hardwood floors throughout contributes to anger when they realize all they can afford is a 1500 sq foot mid century rancher on a postage stamp with street parking.  

I blame HGTV for the anger.  

1500 ft postage stamp ranchers are pushing towards that 7th digit in some areas.  Baffles my mind how anybody buys into this market now days. 

ProDarwin said:

frenchyd said:

Become a successful Doctor, Lawyer, computer security specialist etc. and you got a big deduction by owning an expensive home.  

What?  I think you mean get a big deduction by having an expensive mortgage.

 

Eh, property taxes.

I'll answer the question in a different way. People are angry because of emotional transfer:

people are angry because anger is a socially more acceptable emotion than a lot of other emotions such as: fear, helplessness, shame or sadness. For some weird reason, especially among men, anger is considered a more acceptable emotion because it is not associated with "weakness". The problem is that when you transfer your "shameful and weak" feelings towards anger, you loose the possibility to help yourself on an emotional level because you are not working on the right problem. Anger is a propulsive emotion i.e. it pushes you to act. But in many cases, you should not. For example: a significant person in your live dies in a car crash. Instead of living the painful sadness that it brings, you transfer your emotions to anger and you try to take action to stop does painful feelings.

alfadriver said:

frenchyd said:

alfadriver said:

The anger thing is nothing new.  If you look at the written discourse of our founding fathers back between 1770 and at least 1820, anger and fear was used quite effectively to manipulate opinions on pretty much all issues.  Exactly what you see happening today.  If it's not A, then B will cause the nation to fall.  C wants us to be just like the UK, which is evil.  D wants us to be like France- who are slaughtering each other in the streets- which is evil.

Basically, if you look at the entire body of history, for whatever reason, humans tend toward being angry.

While you may have a point, I think it’s missing the mark.  America was founded by those who felt powerless to the crown. “ No taxation without representation” 

America rebelled against the power structure that controlled our lives.  As did the people of France. 

You should go read how the country went from winning that in 1781 to ~1820.  You will find massive amounts of lies and manipulations of "truth" to  make people think.

And France did far more than just rebelling against the power structure- their anger slaughtered a lot of people along the way.

Anger was let WAY to far out in France.

“Anger was let WAY to far out in France”. 

Exactly. France had gone from a birthplace of Freedom and civil liberties to an unruly mob because of that anger over the excesses of the ruling class. Excesses that actually cost lives. 

 Extreme Anger was the cause of America’s civil war. Lincoln did not want to free the slaves if the cost was civil war.  He tried to moderate and placate the South who by that time had been so deeply angered over unfair and outright lies that they were no longer willing or ready to find a center.  

I fear that America’s poor and middle class are now in a place where reason is seen as failure and only absolute success on their terms is acceptable.  Putting one group against another while those who actually have the power to improve lives move from excess to excess.