Shit life syndrome.

[Mike]

I agree with both of those statements.

And I can understand both povs now. You can talk about how things can and should be better, but ultimately you must also live with and adapt to reality.

If it isn't fair and hasn't been fair, it's probably not changing for you. Be exceptional or die. It's interesting from a philosophical standpoint, because how you respond to this fundamentally changes your reality.

That was the key to the lock for me. Don't be sad it's unfair. Be mad. So goddamn mad and resentful and spiteful you can't sleep and it starts to consume you. I feel like Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump now.

You ain't sinking this boat motherfucker I got through all that adversity and I was weak, naive and stupid. Now I'm THIS person and I'm only gonna keep getting better.

 

[General_Speckz]

Every one of us is statistically more likely to become homeless than wealthy. And by wealthy I don't mean comfortable with a 6 figure income and a 401k. I mean real, lasting, generational wealth.

Yes, but wealth isn't everything.

As other people posted, there are plenty of vastly wealthy people who are high risk for suicide and other unlucky fates.

People really need to get off the greed horse. How about getting on the "life goals" horse instead?

 

[Mike]

Some people are poor because they're dumb and stubborn. I have a couple cousins like this. You can give them all the advice in the world but they're going to spend the rest of their lives working at shit jobs because they refuse to use advice from smarter people.

Here's some cliffs on my cousins situation.

Makes $15/hr in CA
My mom sets her up with an online profile to apply for government jobs.
She's so picky she doesn't apply to any of them.
Quits looking because they start at $1 less than what she's making. Even though in 2 years she will be at $5/hr more.
My friend has a spot at his agency in the mail room, she doesn't apply because it's too far. 25min away.
She pays a guy $250 to set up her resume better when it was fine the way it was.
Mom sets her up to apply at her old agency, she doesn't because she's "too busy".
Cousin has some health issues and now a $3k doc bill that would have been $0 if she had insurance.
Cousin takes out a loan to pay doc bill. Doesn't read loan. Interest rate is sky fucking high.
Cousin has already paid $2k but the principal on the loan has only gone down a couple hundred bucks.
Cousin applies to one job and gets hired. It's 2 HOURS away.
She looks at apartments in that area. It's a ski resort town. Prices are almost as high as San Francisco.
So she decides to commute with a car that can only go about 10 miles before it overheats.
Doesn't realize that the road gets closed constantly because of snow.
Quits after going through orientation, pissing them off and making it even more difficult to get hired in the future.

This scenario is just as common as many others. You may not be like this but many poor people dig their own graves through stubbornness and then blame the world for it as if they're this victim that is held down by society. Usually they make stupid decisions, don't consult with smarter people because they're embarrassed and then continue down this cycle of shit jobs, cash advances, terrible loans etc. The shit that's there to trap you. Many times they can avoid this cycle but they don't because they are simply too lazy and come up with any excuse they can to avoid the "work" that is bettering their lives.

Yeah this isn't a country to be poor AND dumb in that's for sure. Damn near everything is designed to have predatory triggers in the terms, and nobody reads anything.I remember when I worked at verizon people would call in with phone bills in the thousands because they went over minutes or data or text. And they always had no concept of what there plan did or didn't cover.

But I didn't know that! Ok... Well that's why you read paperwork? Well now you know and you owe us 2 grand. But why would the overage rates be that high! Because they know stupid people like you won't read shit and will rack up a 2k phone bill. It's like talking to children. Yes... some things are designed to exploit you.

I remember As a small child I had to explain to my mother why renting to own a couch was stupid and we should just sit on the floor for two months and OWN a couch. Unfortunately some people are hopelessly dumb with money. And inexplicably think everyone is their friend.

 

[General_Speckz]

Yeah this isn't a country to be poor AND dumb in that's for sure. Damn near everything is designed to have predatory triggers in the terms, and nobody reads anything.I remember when I worked at verizon people would call in with phone bills in the thousands because they went over minutes or data or text. And they always had no concept of what there plan did or didn't cover.

But I didn't know that! Ok... Well that's why you read paperwork? Well now you know and you owe us 2 grand. But why would the overage rates be that high! Because they know stupid people like you won't read shit and will rack up a 2k phone bill. It's like talking to children. Yes... some things are designed to exploit you.

I remember As a small child I had to explain to my mother why renting to own a couch was stupid and we should just sit on the floor for two months and OWN a couch. Unfortunately some people are hopelessly dumb with money. And inexplicably think everyone is their friend.

Then there's the other side of this coin, where someone is too careful -- think everyone is their enemy.

e.g. They don't fix their daughters teeth because braces are too expensive, when if they paid using a plan it's only an additional $50 per month. When in our culture try to get a date with fucked up teeth....?

Anyway, there's a balance. Don't stray too far away from it, either way.

 

[Oeshon]

Yes, but wealth isn't everything.

As other people posted, there are plenty of vastly wealthy people who are high risk for suicide and other unlucky fates.

People really need to get off the greed horse. How about getting on the "life goals" horse instead?

The same habits that lead you to wealth also lead you to happiness.

You have got to set goals and then have consistent habits and action over a period of time to achieve your goals.e

I'll give you an example. One of my friends loves skateboarding. He doesn't care about being wealthy. He just wants to travel around the world. have a great time and skate.

He didn't have money, hes not that smart, and he didn't have any skills besides skating. He worked at a skate shop.

He didn't get get miserable and complain about "the 1%"

He bought a cheap camera and started filming people at the skate park for free. He got a free video editing program and would edit skate videos for people. He spent a lot of time doing this and got pretty good at it. He then started charging people money to make edited skate videos for them. He was a friendly guy and was getting good at this skill, so he started to make some money.

He stopped spending money and saved what he was making so he could travel for 1-2 years. He backpacked around the world skating. He lived the life he wanted to live and along the way he kept meeting people and creating videos for others. He then came back and setup his own skate brand and starting selling branded boards and shirts etc too. I haven't kept in touch with him for years but last time i spoke with him, he was just living the life he wanted. Traveling and skating.

Far from rich, but he had a goal in life and he took consistent steps over a period of time to achieve that.

 

[PaleMoonlight]

Yes, but wealth isn't everything.

As other people posted, there are plenty of vastly wealthy people who are high risk for suicide and other unlucky fates.

People really need to get off the greed horse. How about getting on the "life goals" horse instead?

Wealth can be used to spend more time with family and have overall peace of mind.

Sure it’s not everything but it makes your life easier if approached the right way.

 

[General_Speckz]

The same habits that lead you to wealth also lead you to happiness.

You have got to set goals and then have consistent habits and action over a period of time to achieve your goals.e

I'll give you an example. One of my friends loves skateboarding. He doesn't care about being wealthy. He just wants to travel around the world. have a great time and skate.

He didn't have money, hes not that smart, and he didn't have any skills besides skating. He worked at a skate shop.

He didn't get get miserable and complain about "the 1%"

He bought a cheap camera and started filming people at the skate park for free. He got a free video editing program and would edit skate videos for people. He spent a lot of time doing this and got pretty good at it. He then started charging people money to make edited skate videos for them. He was a friendly guy and was getting good at this skill, so he started to make some money.

He stopped spending money and saved what he was making so he could travel for 1-2 years. He backpacked around the world skating. He lived the life he wanted to live and along the way he kept meeting people and creating videos for others. He then came back and setup his own skate brand and starting selling branded boards and shirts etc too. I haven't kept in touch with him for years but last time i spoke with him, he was just living the life he wanted. Traveling and skating.

Far from rich, but he had a goal in life and he took consistent steps over a period of time to achieve that.

"The same habits that lead you to wealth also lead you to happiness."

This is true, but unless you can define what leads to wealth it's sort of a moot point. There are plenty of ambitious people that don't get wealth. Shrug
You have to put something like statistics, coincidence, God in the picture to make it accurate.

 

[Milgrim]

Interesting point. I'd say that's exactly how I did it. There's a blue collar labor boom here, bit of an anomaly. The jobs are competing for workers here, the way capitalism is supposed to work.

also there is no reason to take a loan unless you plan to study something useful to make the money back with like engineering, medicine etc. If you get a student loan and study a useless degree, thats called being a moron.

That is a real problem where I live. Lots of 'educated' kids pissed off that they're unemployed or working seasonal minimum wage jobs, but try to find a good contractor or trades person and you wait months if you can even get someone to come out.

I have said that to a lot of young people, you can get that french literature degree, live in your parents basement and work at Starbucks to pay off your student debt if you want to, but my plumber drives a BMW. So far, most of them have chosen the basement over the BMW for some reason.

 

[Oeshon]

"The same habits that lead you to wealth also lead you to happiness."

This is true, but unless you can define what leads to wealth it's sort of a moot point. There are plenty of ambitious people that don't get wealth. Shrug
You have to put something like statistics, coincidence, God in the picture to make it accurate.

1. Set a goal
2. Wake up everyday and take consistent action towards that goal
3. Stop taking action or inaction that works against said goal

There is your blueprint. Now go and apply it.

Poor people are not doing those steps, at least not on a consistent basis over time. Success isn't a diet that you start and then stop. You have got to be consistent and work at it long term. It's not a new years resolution. Everyone has a different goal and definition of wealth/success, so you need to define your goals and then figure out what you need to do to achieve those goals, then go and do that.

Again, I'm not saying everyone is going to be rich, but if you follow the above, you won't be poor.

There are a lot of other healthy habits you should adopt, but this is square 1 for peasants.

 

[PG29 red0 Jr]

I can feel for them, doing my income taxes recently........I just can't win. Well over half of my income goes to the state and federal government, it is quite frustrating.

 

[Milgrim]

Yes, but wealth isn't everything.

As other people posted, there are plenty of vastly wealthy people who are high risk for suicide and other unlucky fates.

People really need to get off the greed horse. How about getting on the "life goals" horse instead?

The same habits that lead you to wealth also lead you to happiness.

You have got to set goals and then have consistent habits and action over a period of time to achieve your goals.

You're both right. Wealth doesn't bring happiness, but living with purpose does. It will likely also lead to wealth depending on the purpose you choose.

 

[Oeshon]

Even if you don't succeed at your initial goal, you will still be better off after adopting the above habit.

When it comes to wealth specifically, yes, there is def. some trial and error and luck involved. But luck doesn't mean you just close your eyes and suddenly its your turn. Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

I had several businesses that failed before I hit it big. I would have never hit it big if I didn't go through the work and experience of the previous attempts. 'Luck' would have said hello and just passed me by.

 

[Phlog]

There are some people that do the right thing and get fucked over and those are the people I feel bad for. There are also those that grew up in rough circumstances and have a much harder road to success and that sucks too. There are also those that have disabilities that never got a fair shot at success, and again, I feel for these people. These are all edge cases though

Facts are that the majority of poor people are poor by choice.

Yeah..

People en mass choose poverty.

There is no free will, everyone's decisions are a result of their genes and their environment, no magical self determination.

Those that do well and succeed are just as mercy to date as those that don't.


Telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is retarded. That was the point of the phrase when it was coined centuries ago, that you couldn't levitate your way out of the shit by grabbing your boots and pulling upwards.

Social mobility is measurable and it is going down. Not because people are being more lazy or feckless than they ever have but because the ladders that people used to pull themselves up are being removed.

Why does that matter to us doing well? Because it costs our society more having less upwards mobility and greater disparity corrolates with absolutely any societal ill you can imagine.

 

[Oeshon]

Yeah..

People en mass choose poverty.

There is no free will, everyone's decisions are a result of their genes and their environment, no magical self determination.

Those that do well and succeed are just as mercy to date as those that don't.


Telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is retarded. That was the point of the phrase when it was coined centuries ago, that you couldn't levitate your way out of the shit by grabbing your boots and pulling upwards.

Social mobility is measurable and it is going down. Not because people are being more lazy or feckless than they ever have but because the ladders that people used to pull themselves up are being removed.

Sorry, you are just wrong on this. If you are poor, you will stay poor until you learn to take agency of your own life and responsibility for your own decisions.

 

[Phlog]

Sorry, you are just wrong on this. If you are poor, you will stay poor until you learn to take agency of your own life and responsibility for your own decisions.

People's ability the learn is a product of their genes and their experience.

Prove me wrong or GTFO!

 

[faustian]

Well that's weird. It's almost as if societal shift away from the concept of a higher power can induce movement towards existential crisis

 

[Phlog]

Well that's weird. It's almost as if societal shift away from the concept of a higher power can induce movement towards existential crisis

Man if you pray and send me money God will lend you riches.

 

[Renard]

The mindset of poverty reminds me a lot of the symptoms of depression. There are opportunities, but people who have always been poor are so used to believing things won't work out for them that they can't muster the energy to try. Like a negative feedback loop. Personal growth and reinventing yourself takes a lot of energy as well.

In psychology, what prompts someone to do something again is a reward. If you go to a venue and have fun, you're likely to go to that same venue again. With economic progress, it usually takes years of work before a single reward is achieved. For people that are already at the end of their rope in terms of energy, immediate rewards are more tempting.

 

[bobgeese]

People are dying earlier in America and increasingly the UK. It was first identified in the African American population, then Hispanic, now it's I'm the whites too:

"US doctors coined a phrase for this condition: “shit-life syndrome”. Poor working-age Americans of all races are locked in a cycle of poverty and neglect, amid wider affluence. They are ill educated and ill trained. The jobs available are drudge work paying the minimum wage, with minimal or no job security. They are trapped in poor neighbourhoods where the prospect of owning a home is a distant dream. There is little social housing, scant income support and contingent access to healthcare. Finding meaning in life is close to impossible; the struggle to survive commands all intellectual and emotional resources. Yet turn on the TV or visit a middle-class shopping mall and a very different and unattainable world presents itself. Knowing that you are valueless, you resort to drugs, antidepressants and booze. You eat junk food and watch your ill-treated body balloon. It is not just poverty, but growing relative poverty in an era of rising inequality, with all its psychological side-effects, that is the killer."

Now I'm a lucky son of a bitch and my parents worked hard giving me a lot of advantages. I married well, got a house, look after myself and have great kids.

But,

I feel this shit life syndrome calling all the time. I know I'm in no way in the same world as the great and the good. Even with all the advantages, being able to do well for myself I still feel the inequality. I reckon if I weren't so lucky I'd be one of these statistics easy.


https://www.theguardian.com/comment...D_4g9ArjJqHF3b9LAJongcpfQLXeD45ZAn4saH7TT37G0

You can’t help those unwilling to help themselves.

 

[Phlog]

You can’t help those unwilling to help themselves.

So why is the number of people you suggest are unwilling to help themselves increasing?

Perhaps it's to do with the amount of help they get..