u/Upbeat_Scholar_159

There is a lot of talk about how we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives. And if anything bad happens in our life, it's our responsibility and we shouldn't blame others.

To a certain extent, that is correct. A lot of things that happen in our lives are the consequences of choices we make. The thing is that in today's individualistic society, many humans are made to bear the entire weight of their failures. Whereas in the past where communities were more closely knit, collectivistic cohesion worked as sort of a cushion to help you land softly.

Did you get bullied in school? You had family and community behind you. Are you depressed? The people in some form of community gathering would lift you up. And you yourself would also get to experience the fulfillment of helping someone in need or dire straits.

If you're someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, then yeah, you have the ability to control not just your destiny, but profoundly affect the entire world as well. But the thing is, the vast majority of people on earth are not Steve Jobs or any other successful entrepreneur.

So when an individual has repeated setbacks in life, it takes a mental toll, and not all people are strong enough to grab themselves by the bootstraps and be a badass like John Wayne or Eastwood.

People in modern societies are isolated islands, we have to bear the entire weight of our choices by ourselves. It's incredibly difficult to find a friend to bond with in adulthood, and family cohesion is not as strong as it was in the past. I just feel that it's difficult to keep yourself motivated when you lack a strong support system.

This is why humans are social beings. For us to cooperate, and share burdens. To pick one other up when they fall. But we don't have that anymore, especially in highly developed societies like Scandinavia or Japan. This is why there is so much depression and mental health problems.

Is there any particular singer or music who is universally popular in Tamriel? Who sort of enjoys popstar status equivalent to famous IRL musicians like Taylor Swift or Michael Jackson?

Hey all, I thought I should share a bit on how I managed to get my gaming addiction under control. Perhaps it'll help somebody out there.

Some people can wake up one day and decide to go cold turkey, and that's great if it happens. But me? I struggled with that. I tried going cold turkey but I couldn't do it. I binge gamed after 2 weeks.

What helped me reduce my game time significantly is that instead of removing videogames entirely out of my life, I added a lot more hobbies on top of gaming. I started drawing and going to the gym.

When I added other hobbies on top of my gaming hobby, I noticed that the time I spent playing games naturally decreased by itself, without any conscious effort.

When you decide to stop gaming, your mind sort of interprets it as you're gonna starve it of dopamine, so your unconscious mind will resist it, because it wants dopamine. But when you add other hobbies on top of gaming, it sort of bypasses that instinct.

It also helps that I only play single-player games and Hearthstone, which aren't very addictive games

I have read the rules

I often find myself in this dilemma. Because I talk about myself and that's fine. But oftentimes when I try to show interest in the other person and ask questions about themselves, the conversation easily becomes centred around them and I myself disappear. It seems that as soon as I show interest in the other person, they completely lose all interest in asking about me and they will only talk about themselves and I get treated like some kind of podcast interviewer

And sometimes it becomes a standoff where I talk about myself and the other person talks about themselves, and it becomes a sort of a 'battle'.

So I guess I wanna ask how you can strike the balance of showing interest in the other person without 'disappearing' yourself in the process. Because my conversations either end up being centred around me, them or it becomes the aforementioned battle of egos

I often find myself in this dilemma. Because I talk about myself and that's fine. But oftentimes when I try to show interest in the other person and ask questions about themselves, the conversation easily becomes centred around them and I myself disappear. And sometimes it becomes a standoff where I talk about myself and the other person talks about themselves, and it becomes a sort of a 'battle'.

So I guess I wanna ask how you can strike the balance of showing interest in the other person without 'disappearing' yourself in the process. Because my conversations either end up being centred around me, them or it becomes the aforementioned battle of egos

I love dried fruit. Unsweetened dried fruit usually hits the sweet spot of sweetness. But when they add sugar to it, it's simply too much, it becomes inedible for me. So there are only a few brands of dried fruit that I can eat. Like WTF, is it really necessary? Do people seriously think dried fruit isn't sweet enough? Go eat candy.

English isn't my first language. So apologies beforehand.

I've had 2 painful breakups back to back these past few years. One thing I've learned from all of this is, that life is messy. Throughout my life, whenever I encountered an interpersonal problem, I always wanted to get some kind of closure, some satisfying conclusion to either a relationship, friendship, or whatever happened in life. Sometimes I got a satisfying closure. But these past few years, I've refused to move on. I constantly dwelled on the past and I constantly had regrets. I kept replaying the same scenarios over and over in my head.

I was obsessed with making things right and rectifying the bad things that happened in the past. I had learned my lessons and I wanted to go back and apply the lessons I learned.

Some days ago, I was riding on my bicycle admiring the grey sky and feeling the comfortable breeze blowing on my skin. And I realized then and there that life will be full of unfinished business. If you can get closure and a satisfying ending to a chapter in your life, then great. Congrats. But there will be many things in life that will be left unfinished. Many relationships end with both parts feeling the other owes them something. Many times, pride will get in the way. You keep hoping and waiting for the person to self-reflect on what they've done, and see your side of the issue. But those types of people are few and far between, and it's pointless to wait around for them to self-reflect.

The uncomfortable truth is, there is no such thing as eternal love. You share moments with people that you think will be etched in history, You think the intimate loving memories you have will serve as some sort of anchor that will glue you together. You think vows of loyalty made during happy times are ironclad contracts.

Nothing could be further from the truth. You can go from soulmates to complete strangers in the span of 1 year. The person who you thought loved you, can at the blink of an eye completely stop loving you, as if your shared memories and experiences were all just a pleasant dream. And you are left standing there, keeping the corpse of your relationship on life support.

I lived under these illusions for far too long, for they were more comfortable than living in reality, but they were hollow. To borrow a term from Vaclav Havel, it's time to live within the truth. I will no longer be bound by the chains of the past, and instead, I resolve to face the dark storm that is my future. I'll simply have to leave any unfinished business behind and move on.

But one thing I can hold my head up proudly of, is the quote from Teddy Roosevelt about being in the arena. Sure I failed miserably and got knocked out cold. But at least I dared greatly. And daring greatly, is really all that we can do.

I just find it weird how Trump's appeasement of IRI kicked into high gear after his meeting with Xi. Trump is doing everything Xi Jinping wants him to do in regards to Iran.

Do you think Xi Jinping somehow convinced Trump to surrender to the Islamic Regime?

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the CCP somehow took away the real Trump and replaced him with some android manchurian candidate

A thought just occurred to me while I was browsing around. The Total War franchise has done a lot of crossovers through the years, and recently they've done a crossover with the Warhammer franchise.

So I thought, what if they make a crossover with the Elder Scrolls franchise? Imagine what kind of cool ideas they could have for the different races. A khajiit army, argonians, elves, bretons etc.

Maybe one of their campaign modes could have the epic battle between the Empire and the Dominion that led to the White-Gold Concordat.

Or perhaps even the Three-Banner war. The possibilites are endless. What do you think? Would the TES franchise translate well to Total War?

First off, I am a paying subscriber to DAZN, so watching BKFC for free is never my first option. Not even my second or third option for that matter.

That being said, I'm not going to subscribe to multiple different streaming services just so I can catch all the BKFC events. BKFC 90 isn't on DAZN for some weird bullshit reason. Is there a way I can watch the replay elsewhere?

So I wanna travel to Thailand but I haven't decided how long I'm going to stay there. So I bought myself a one-way ticket to Thailand and I'm thinking of what kind of proof of onward travel I should provide for the airline and border control.

I'm thinking of buying a cheap dummy ticket but do the airlines check if it's real or not? How long is a dummy ticket valid for? I'm otherwise thinking of buying a cheap refundable ticket to Vietnam that I will refund once I'm in Thailand. What would be the best way to go about?

I hope this isn't an inappropriate question. Because I saw on twitter a persian girl in the US who wrote about how she went up and left the dinner date when the guy started expressing support for the Iranian regime. The date had gone very well up until that point. Suffice to say, she blocked him and never contacted him again

For those of you who are singles and done some dating during this time, how has it affected your dating life? How would you react if someone you dated started repeating IRGC propaganda? Could you imagine yourself dating someone who praises the Islamic regime?

Anyone else who get mesmerized by this music video? For some reason I can't take my eyes off the video

There are endless threads and discussions about how safe Colombia is for foreign travellers. There are many stories about foreign travellers who've been drugged and robbed etc if they're not careful.

But how is it for the locals themselves? One advise I've seen often said is that tourists should not walk alone in the poorer neighborhoods, otherwise they'll get robbed and what have you. But how is it for the native locals? Do they sort of get a 'free pass' for lack of a better word? If a local guy dates a local girl, is there a risk of him getting drugged?

I can imagine that foreign gringos may be juicier targets for the criminals. But do native colombian locals have to be as careful as foreign tourists?

I was sitting in the metro and a couple of teenage girls were sitting a bit away from me. For some inexplicable reason they kept looking at me and laughed at me and made me very uncomfortable. They pointed at me and giggled.

I was not wearing anything unusual or acting weird. It was just my daily commute. I did glance at them a few times which just made it worse. If you were in such a situation, how would you have handled it? I thought about approaching them and asking them what they were doing but I didn't wanna risk escalating the situation

During my childhood, when I tried to approach my peers and talk to them, I was often met with silence and was ignored. That's why it was difficult for me to find friends. And this has seeped into adulthood now where if I'm in a conversation, I'm very scared of saying something and then not getting a response.

How can I overcome this fear of being met with silence when I say something? I feel like I'm tailoring all my speech on trying to get a response from the other person. What do you do if you say something and the other person is silent?

Well, it's often talked about how lonely gen Z is and how difficult it is for the new generation to get friends or find a romantic partner. You may think you have it bad. But I dare say that for me it is worse. I was born in the 80s, and most people from my generation have kids, families and probably some divorces under their belts. And here I am, completely alone, without anyone caring about me, or anyone to care for. I have a stable but unfulfilling job.

I feel so abandoned by the world. People talk about how bad divorces are, but I'm jealous of the guys who even have had divorces. They have at least experienced marriage and family life. They at least have children that they love and care for.

I mean, I've had relationships in the past that failed for various reasons. Some failed because it was their fault, some failed because I fucked up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suicidal by any means and I vehemently oppose it But I just don't know what the meaning is anymore. Sitting alone in cafes and restaurants, seeing all the couples tears at the fabric of my soul.

I myself know that couples are not happy by any means, god knows I myself have been in relationships, but fuck, I rather be in a dysfunctional marriage any day over this oppressive crippling loneliness. Hell I'll even be a divorcee. Everything feels hopeless and I feel like I'm living in a spiritual black hole. I feel like my social caste is lower than the dirt under people's shoes. I have no friends left, they've all passed me by. I just wanna go far away somewhere

Sorry for this incoherent rant. English isn't my mother tongue. If I offended anyone, then it wasn't intentional