Your Way of Dealing With Stress?

Reminds me of this guy.

Great guy that has had a tremendous impact on many people.

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About half of my friends from high school are electricians ā€¦ they make damn good livings

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Oh wow. Thanks, Sky. Iā€™ll look him up. Yeah, I was just looking through his book titles and wiki page. It sounds like heā€™s all about learning to recognize how we lie to ourselves, self-deception, especially in addiction. I think a lot of the stress we create is based on this kind of thing.

JP says, ā€œTell the truth, or at least donā€™t lie.ā€ The worst lies are the ones weā€™re telling ourselves, because the keep us from being the person we could be if weā€™d do the right thing. At least be honest about our flaws and own them.

The friend we were talking to about this (with the 8-year-old) is the guy who got me to read The Bonds That Make us Free, so I was telling him how much that book changed the way I think. I talked about that book earlier this year in the PWI book thread. The idea that we often know the right thing, but when we fail to do it, weā€™re very good at lying to ourselves to preserve our own self-image. With his story about his third grader, he got to do the wrong thing and play the victim of an ungrateful kid at the same time, but everything was worse for it.

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Electricians here work 10 hours a day 6 days a week. Sometimes sundays too. In some companies youā€™ll only get 2 free days a week. Those days will be sundays. And itā€™s mostly physical labour of using machines/drills to put lines for tubes into corncrete. Then later you put wires trough those tubesā€¦ and also take buckets full of rubble outā€¦ most of guys working those kind of jobs are men over 30-40 and pretty much everyone there is never sorber.

It is paid well but itā€™s shitty life. At the age of 22 I donā€™t want to be isolated from everything and everyone, just going to work and coming home to sleep. And look like shit during the day too. Not to mention how all those people there look at you when you are the only one who refuses to drink.

Iā€™m honestly thiking that they are also kinda trying to commit suicide by doing that. Why else would you drink 8-12 beers a day on average???

Because of the costs. Because my family isnā€™t in good situation so they are partially dependent on my income. So I have to work and go to uni at the same time. I doubt I can finish engineering like that. Plus Iā€™m not even interested in it anymore. I made mistake when picking highschool.

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Well, thatā€™s a bummer. Itā€™s a good trade here. Respect for stepping up to help your family.

Also, plumbers can do really well here. Dirty job of course.

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Heā€™s known for saying that the 12 steps would be useful for just about everybody.

One of the shortened versions of them that many people use is ā€œTrust God, Clean House, and Help Others.ā€.

Pretty good rule of thumb to live by.

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So youā€™re constantly bitching how the country is economically fucked up and how you cannot meet the German standard of living yet you balk at the idea of actually holding a job for which youā€™ve finished a trade school?

Youā€™re telling this to a mostly US audience. Ever heard of night classes at community colleges in the US? People work 10 hours a day, then attend lectures, not to mention people who hold multiple jobs.

Itā€™s not about being interested in something, snowflake. Itā€™s about getting an education that would enable you to earn money.

He could make a killing here working as a plumber or an electrician. But he does not want to. Thatā€™s the point.

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I was laughing as I read that and remembered how he was ragging on you, a guy that slept in a shipping container in the desert as a condition of the job.

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Looks like I missed the party, but generally I stress myself out over time. Especially on longer work cycles (landscape supply, the summer is a whirlwind)

My best solution is to just take a week here and there to simplify shit. Life is only as complicated as you make it, (and more importantly, as you let others make it)

Sometimes shit happens that you cant ignore, thatā€™s fine, deal with it. But dont feel bad about letting some things go once in a while.

Also I like drawing when Iā€™m stressed. It calmes me down. 9 times out of 10 I dont finish it or throw it away, but itā€™s just the act of not having to do anything and just putting lines on a paper that slows things down for me.

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Dude, get a life. You started to follow me around on posts.
You already occupied one thread by posting shitty links over and over again, now you repeat this on that on this thread too.

How rude of me to want some free time to actually do activities I like, right? How spoiled I am to want to have actual 8 hours of sleep on such a job where I work 10 hours a day on construction site?

There is a real link for you, mr linkmaster: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/28233-cia-croatia-s-emigration-statistics-among-worst-in-europes

If you indefinitley say that nobody in Croatia has a reason to complain then explain why do people here run out to seek for better life?

Damn, we are doing so great, why would anyone complain?

I wouldnā€™t really call that raging but well, call it as you want.

I donā€™t know his past, and I donā€™t really want to know it.

Instead of people like him wanting to make sure that other people donā€™t have to go trough same thing - he would gladly force everyone to do itā€¦ Also, fo rgood money people will do it, but come work a season job in Croatia, youā€™ll get peanuts for indefinite working hoursā€¦

  • Yeah @loppar you said you worked in lots of other countriesā€¦ if Croatia is so great as you say it is, then why did you ever leave? Thatā€™s the real questionā€¦

Instead of quoting me why donā€™t you go grow a pair of fucking balls.

We donā€™t have anything to say to each other.

I am stressed, from learning how to deal with stress!

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I disagree. The most stressful thing you posted is thisā€¦

I may lose it.

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Where I live, plumbers are the highest paid trade, aside from elevator mechanics. They make ~$92/hr after fringe benefits.

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Iā€™d suggest short-sighted. Suffering short-term to thrive long-term is the alternative. I was homeless working slightly above minimum wage, while in college. Why? Because I didnā€™t want college debt. Now Iā€™m a 28 year old who only has mortgage for debt.

In the eyes of most, you could say Iā€™m still suffering. Iā€™ve worked over 60 hours the last few weeks, currently living in a hotel room away from family and friends. The end goal will make this short season worth it.

Suffering is only an individual data point on a lifelong timeline.

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RE: Stoicism

My favorite quote, which I recite all the time to people/myself.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they canā€™t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.

From Marcus Aurelious

Also, from Seneca:

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ā€œIs this the condition that I feared?ā€ It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

The takeaway for me is the mental thought exercise of running through possible outcomes, since a portion of my job is risk mitigation. I always ask myself, ā€œis this the situation that I fear mostā€. Often times, what Iā€™m stressing about, isnā€™t actually my fault and people would only assign blame to me, because I, first, accepted it and then offered it.

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Wow we could actually make a book club guys :grin:
Instead of being harsh to a 22 year old, @dchris we can help @probnit8,not by judging but offering similar experiences, if we can!
Iā€™m not say you judged him of corse.
@probnit8 some friends of mine do the same too, actually help financially their families, I find it more than brave but heartbreaking too. They even have to put up with super annoying people too(u can find it everywhere though) but they are in jobs they hate too.
So do whatā€™s best for you, maybe get some advocate from someone older on the job thing?
I hope things get better soon, but fight back to it, wish I could help more and not just repeating classic stuff most people say.

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Oooh someoneā€™s triggered because I quoted himā€¦ LOL

I always liked to do things my way.

Besides, if Iā€™m spent up on physical labour 10 hours a day, then I wonā€™t be able to do stuff that I need to do at home. Things are complicated, thatā€™s for sure. Today I maybe injured my shoulder while splitting wood LOLā€¦ it hurt for a while, stopped to hurt fast. I kinda feel that shoulder pop when I move it on certain wayā€¦ Iā€™ll see how it goes.

Anyways, itā€™s always easy to judge someone. I try my best to just say what I know first hand, and if I donā€™t know something first hand, I usually mention it while talking about it, the same if Iā€™m not sure about something. I try to be as real as possible.

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Itā€™s your choice how you decide to live your life.

Nobody should impose their choices on other people (not implying you are doing so, but it can be taken that way).

Everyone is different.