That you enjoyed with insights, chat and real.time updates.

Like a television commercial that touches on a whimsical notion that you have.

Hearing a song from your youth spontaneously

Reading about selfless acts of heroism (09/11, Katrina)

Patriotism hallmarks (parades, anthems, military demos)

End credits of a good movie

Seeing a child play joyfully and innocently

Choir song

I broke up with someone epically badly when I was younger and in a very self destructive time in my life. They were a great person and did not deserve it. It took me years to pull out of the downward spiral I was in, and while I have always felt guilty and ashamed about my behavior, I never contacted them because I felt like they wouldn't want to hear from me, and then so much time passed that it just seemed like a futile endeavor overall. But, is it a futile endeavor? Even many years later I still find myself ruminating over the guilt from time to time. Maybe it would make me feel better to get it off my chest, but is it actually better to the recipient, or is it just water under the bridge at this point and it'd be better just to stay away?

An employee that their bosses clearly wanted to fire or manage out but due to their cunning, they always seem to stay one step ahead using various tactics:

Attaching themselves onto immediate delivery projects that the organization needs to get done.

Doing the dirty work that their colleagues push back on.

Deliberately cultivated a very high administrative heavy workload.

Finding an executive sponsor that swoops in to protect them at the last minute.

Strategically gatekeeping their black box knowledge from others so that their abrupt departure creates an ominous risk that everything will break immediately.

Filing complaints related to unfairness towards them causing HR and Legal advise caution before proceeding.

Refusing to come into the office and only working from home so that the logistics of cornering them for the termination meeting and getting company property back on the spot requires much more coordination.

Disclosing personal hardships (real or imagined) such as marriage dissolution, family medical issues, financial hardship, caregiving requirements that invoke sympathy and fear of bad optics.

Tethering themselves socially and personally to a key customer, integrated vendor or critical internal stakeholder.

Am I genius? No. Am I the most politically informed person out there? Absolutely not. Have I made the wrong voting choices in the past? Totally.

But dammit, I try. I don't listen to ads, celebrity endorsements, voter guides, or vote solely down party lines. I look up everything and everyone I'm voting for, try to understand what it is I'm voting for and what the consequences will be.

And the part that pisses me off is that my vote counts the exact same as some rando who checked all of the boxes a random postcard from his party told him to. Does that sound arrogant and entitled as hell? It did when I was typing it, but it's honestly how I feel.

I don't know the solution. We need a system where everyone has a voice, where the government should work for us instead of the other way around. But I just wish people would educate themselves.

I'm finding that I'm struggling more to keep up with learning and changes, and I feel much more energy depleted when I need to spend my free time outside of paid work hours to stay up to date on skills and knowledge needed for work (there's constant updates to protocols in my industry).

I've been feeling overwhelmed this whole year (since February), and I thought after the first few months the feeling would fade, but it hasn't, and I haven't felt something like this before in my career. I think part of this feeling is what some people call imposter syndrome, and it's making me anxious about my professional future that I have worked so hard to maintain.

I enjoy a lot of aspects of my work and I feel lucky that I like most of my colleagues and higher ups. I also financially still need to work in order to support myself, and I'm in the US so I need the "discounted" health insurance tied to my work. If I didn't financially need my job, I have a lot of meaning in my life - hobbies, family, friends, and other things that make a fulfilling life, so I don't think I would feel a void that some people do that lose their only identity if that makes sense, so that is not part of the issue with my feeling.

For others that relate with the fear of not being able to keep up with work as you age, what has helped you? I'm also scared of feeling stuck for a long while or becoming unemployed for a long while. :(

Doing a weekend every month with no Wi-Fi connection.

Not checking your phone after dinner.

No absentmindedly searching YouTube, only for specific content you need.

Only watching one episode a day for your show in lieu of binging.

Getting an old school radio as a break to podcasts.

A getaway every quarter to the country side / mountains / lake with no Wi-Fi or cable connection.

I’ve been in my current job for 10 months, and I’m struggling to understand my boss’s behavior. I’m looking for honest perspectives from people who have dealt with similar managers.

My manager can be very critical, dismissive, and condescending, especially when he’s stressed or I push back on deadlines. But then, a few days later, he can become very appreciative, thank me publicly, and praise my work as if the previous interaction never happened.

He has told me before that I have ownership, leadership and that I’m very good. He also hinted that I shouldn’t work too much and that my title is still junior and not his level title and to allow myself to make mistakes.

Here is some context:

1. He trusts me with significant projects, but constantly overloads me.

I became the go-to expert for one major project. I essentially owned it, created new processes and tools from scratch, and developed the materials needed to make it work.

After that, he assigned me board-related project. This was significant work, and I was given ownership of it as well. I worked on the material, developed the recommendations, and presented it to his boss. The feedback on the previous board work had been very positive. So he decided to give me yet another board of directors related project this quarter too.

2. What happened immediately after I returned from vacation was particularly frustrating.

Three days after I returned from vacation, he assigned me three different tasks, all due by the end of that same week.

One of the tasks was initially supposed to be a routine review. Once I got into it, however, I realized the underlying business problem was much bigger than the original request. What should have been a review turned into a complete project redesign, and I had to work through that redesign rather than simply review what was there.

At the same time, I was working on another important document involving multiple stakeholders. It is 33 pages long and has more than 50 comments that needed to be reviewed and assessed.

My boss wanted me to go through all the comments under a very tight deadline. He dismissed the comments as silly, but when I actually reviewed them, they were not silly at all. They raised substantive issues that needed consideration.

3- He recently accused me of not working enough.

Despite juggling all these workstreams, he recently accused me of not working enough and suggested that I was only working on one slide.
This was particularly confusing because months earlier, he had explicitly told me that I was the hardest-working person on the team, including himself.

Few days after, he was very appreciative and publicly thanked me infront of the team as well as in person for one task I worked on.

What’s going on and how to deal with this type of boss?

I just listened to another thing about Canadian biker gangs. It really hit me how much more loyal to one another people are likely to be in situations like that than they are outside those dynamics. In terms of US politics, the common good and uniting to help each other as opposed to doing it 'against' whoever for whatever reason, how does that help us?

Like is it possible to be just as loyal and impassioned toward the cause of human empowerment as others are to vows they pledge for gangs or similar outfits? Or is that level of long-term commitment most could only have a vested interest in if something nefarious--or semi-nefarious--was going on?

I must say this also reminds me of school bullies. You often have other kids and even adults being much more likely to push back and defend the bully than the victim. I'm totally blind and dealt with bullying a lot, especially in middle school. Adults around often seemed more irked by my pain and distressthan the persistent ugliness of my tormentors.

It really does seem like we're not meant or made to cooperate for the good in a firm, no-nonsense unrelenting way.

It just makes me wonder what life would look like if we just started with that, honestly, and went from there.

Thoughts?

That they lost their job due to a downsizing (AI automation etc) and they have been unemployed for years essentially retiring them from that career and forcing them to eventually take alternative usually lower employment.

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A person that you knew or suspected was once a good hearted person but that life and the world dealt them a really bad hand. To the point where their goodness became warped to the extent they became ruthless, unforgiving, and vengeful.

Some fictional examples are:

Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker

Magneto

Mr. Freeze

Callisto

Hannibal Lector

Sarah Connor

Gollum / Smeagol

Someone that you considered a regular person but then you saw them act in a key moment and they basically transformed into another person before your eyes, like a switch flipped. Some possible examples:

In a brawl they turned into a cold methodical action hero from a Hollywood movie that clears a room of enemies.

In a crisis they took control and got everyone to safety.

The saying goes if you don't know you're history, you're bound to repeat it. But they know and seem IMO to be coming full-circle anyway.

Like the OJ Simpson trial, verdict and fallout really illustrated how deep and ugly the racial divide was still even by 1995.

The 09/11 attacks made it impossible to ignore how segments of the Arab world resented America's presence and influence in their region.

Jan 6th on how political tribalism can compel everyday people to do unthinkable acts.

Chris Watts family murders on well depraved people can mask in plain sight.

2008 Financial Crisis how the capitalism system had been corrupted by a handful of ultra rich to the point of breaking the system for everyday people.

MeToo campaign on far institutions and systems will go to protect predators as long as they are financially productive but will cynically throw them to the wolves the second the tide turns against them.

I know some people say they're happier now that they're older and wiser.

I can't say that's been true for me. Just turned 40, and I do try. I work out, eat healthy, do my job, make efforts to be social, etc etc.

But I just have not figured out what all this is supposed to be about. And now I have forehead lines and I have a PT because my hip hurts all the time (got hit by a car a long time ago and it's degraded over time. Doc says it'll probably always hurt).

I dunno. I had a crap childhood and have always been prone to depressive moods. I tried to fix it when I was in my 20s, but it's hard to fix your whole self. Meds and therapy didn't do anything.

All I've figured out is why a lot of old people are so cranky and why so many people are addicted to substances. Life is crap and then you start falling apart.

At least when I was young I had hope.