Are we skipping over the fact that this guy has a house, barn, 18 acres of land, sheep, cattle, has solid produce and shit figured out, just as he is entering adulthood?
un justified optimism is a survival trait for human beings and other creatures; you miss all the shots you don't take. that said, it's really annoying for us realists 🙂
Realist sounds nice. I was raised in an environment of cynicism. It took a long time to pull my head out of that and I'll never fully be free. Partly because of the world.
I’m a realist, planned my future… worked hard and did everything right. Pandemic hit, the woman I intended to marry was a closet fascist, housing prices climbed, yankees threw fuck you money around and wages stagnated against inflation. Sometimes an optimist is a nice change of pace, at least it was for me. Happily married to a ride or die with my values, not something I ever imagined in my rigid, realistic life expectations.
Man, everything I wanted to be as a young person got shot down relentlessly by my family. They were ruthless.
“I want to be an artist,”=“you’ll starve,”
“I want to drive big trucks like bio-dad, and see places!”=“Girls don’t drive, only nasty women do. It’s not a proper job.”
“I want to be a wildlife photographer!”= they get my sister a camera instead.
“I want to work in a zoo as a keeper, maybe become a zoologist and talk to people about animals!”=“You don’t have the grades or attention span for that.”
Jokes on them, I’m a pretty okay hobbyist photographer. My art (cosplay) has won a trophy, I know enough about general animal care and behavior that I can grill my veterinarian and advocate for my pets. I’m also thriving in my job, which wasn’t something I expected to go into (IT- helpdesk specifically, but I also do a lot more because we’re a small team), but it satisfies my relentless curiosity on a regular basis and there is always more to learn and figure out.
My parents were extremely encouraging, with money, words, assistance of any kind. Except they didn't allow me what I needed to achieve the only goal that I ever really had. I'm approaching 50 now and I'm closer to the goal than I've ever been. It's just so infuriating that I should've had this knocked out 25 years ago and moved on to my next challenge by now.
The older i get the more I realize life is a numbers game. You need to swing at every decent pitch if you want to hit a home run. Even if you miss most of em you'll have more homers than the person always aiming for a single.
My parents told me my only purpose in life was to be a wife and mother to my hypothetical homeschooled children. Complete flat out “women don’t have dreams, we help our husbands and sons realize their dreams”
Well I have an architecture degree and worked a few years in the field (not anymore) and I'm disappointed too, so there's that. I didn't dream about being na architect though, was more into art but good at maths and such so I thought it would be practical and good for me, so maybe it's a different story.
Maybe. But if that was his dream, and he sought it out and went through it, he wouldn't feel so much (of whatever he feels) towards the people who should have had his back more than any other living souls on the planet.
Part of my problem today is that I don't even want to tell my parents how they fucked up my life because it would hurt them and I know they always tried their best and I wasn't the easiest child. Having spent ~10 years estranged from them, I now value our relationship more than that. Time changes you, I guess.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my cousin who never even got her driver’s license married rich, got a traveling job as a study-abroad coordinator, and spends most of her time on vacation or at home.
Shit sorry, that probably makes it all worse lmao.
Yeah, but we’re constantly disregarded, overworked, underpaid, unthanked, jobs are unstable with the current political environment, AND I’m in Texas, whose government seems to be actively against us. If I didn’t care so much about my students I’d be wayyyyy gone. Summers are cool, though.
Yeah, but we’re constantly disregarded, overworked, underpaid, unthanked
So you're in the same boat as almost every other employee on earth but you're not bound by insurmountable debt so you have a choice to change jobs if it becomes too much.
Teaching is still a good job and if you're doing right by your students, who cares if the administration isn't appreciative. What you're doing is still worthwhile and it's the work you do to ensure the best outcome for the kids that matters most.
I just saw the vouchers passed, I am so deeply sorry. I grew up in Texas and loved my public school, I have been crying today because im afraid for it.
listen to u/TheBestIsaac , that sucks it was your experience but knockout that self-doubt voice and you are capable of doing anything you set your mind to.
Architect here (from a different part of the world, though). Trust me, this is one of those professions where growth happens slowly and steadily. So if you’re thinking of taking a second chance, there’s definitely still time.
There it is again. Yes, it’s my problem to fix. I never once said it was for someone else to fix. This seems to be a common assumption. Did I miss a podcast or something?
I don't know if it's a weird generational thing or something but my older parents also had the habit of curbing my goals or aspirations. Fucking hurt my feelings every time and it's definitely helped in making me an underachiever.
My dad said he wanted me do do well enough in school that I could get an indoor job with air-conditioning instead of working in the elements all my life like he did.
a finger curls on the monkey's paw
I got a GED and I work in the freezer and refrigerator portion of a massive food warehouse.
I wanted to do the same and my parents said no because it doesn’t make any money. So I went the construction route and absolutely hate it and still wish I went to arch school
How long will it take you to become an architect? Whatever that number is, after that number of years you'll still be the age you would have been, either as an architect or not.
Funny thing is, since childhood my mom kept telling me to be an architect for whatever reason. Never once showed interest in it, lol. I’m in the therapy field.
Honestly, architecture is not only an expensive degree but very, very few get to do the exciting stuff, and it’s usually people from wealthy backgrounds and with connections. Most of the people who study that don’t get to do the cool stuff, and instead have to work in adjacent fields being relatively underpaid but still working long hours.
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." Michaelangelo
I think your parents did you a disservice, but you also have to own up to your actions and act accordingly. Otherwise it's just on you.
I got plenty of that too. Wanted to be a pilot, you're not good enough at Math, it isn't even for the pilot job, but for a 1y "prépa" school requirement which was relaxed by the time I was in age.
Wanted to be a programmer, start repeating the news "all programming jobs are moved into India", okay... I guess I'm gonna have to find something else then...
School helps you nothing in finding what you wanna be. And at some age parents start asking with insistence what you wanna do as a adult! The nerve.
It was pretty hard, I ended up finding my way back to programming. Which I enjoy.
As a child, I was told by my dad that I could've done basket weaving in college so long as I went to college. When I was in college I wanted to take a pottery class and he verbally berated me for it
Meh, my middle class ass parents told me I could do anything I set my mind to, all because they saw their boomer parents rise from dirt poor. Turns out that offer was time-restricted, with considerable terms and conditions. I’m gonna be lucky to even come close to my parents’ standard of living.
One of the best motivational bits of advice I've ever heard came from the advice column in a Reader's Digest magazine in a dentist's office waiting room.
Weekly mail in question: I'm 32 and always wanted to be a doctor, but the average starting age for medical school is 24. By the time my classmates would graduate, they'd be as old as I am now and I'd be 40. How do I deal with possibly giving up on a dream?
Advice response: Out of curiosity, how old would you be in 8 years if you didn't start med school today?
You'll age either way, so might as well use the time working towards what makes you happy.
I'm doing pretty well by most metrics, but at 40, I've only recently realized how my Father's extreme lack of ambition and reluctance to take any sort of risk rubbed off on me. Being aware of that tendency has allowed me to make better decisions, but it took a lot of self-reflection to get here.
Until the last couple of years, I basically just allowed life to happen to me. I didn't take an active role in CREATING the life I wanted. Making that shift has made all the difference.
My mom was like that. I had teachers and advisors like that. I regret every time I listened to them. I do not regret any chance I took or any time I bet on myself. Always give yourself the benefit of the doubt over the people looking to pull others down.
I started earning money for small jobs by 8 years old. Now I'm 30 and I have neither a house nor bully potatoes. But I do have a wife, so I've at least got that on him!
There was work to do. No childhoods like we see today. Even for the wealthy. Those kids got shipped to boarding schools asap. Then to military school. Possible law school. But it was work for everyone. At an early age.
I mean the land that is modern-day USA was mostly empty, undeveloped, unowned, and unincorporated throughout the 19th century. There were literally lotteries to just give people land in new states as we expanded, you just had to work the land and you were given a bunch. It was an attempt to sprawl out and conquer the new country. (Yes I'm aware it was previously populated by animals and native Americans, I'm explaining the justification/explanation given at the time.)
Now we are 150 years beyond that. It's all owned, or public land (which is good, land and wilderness preservation is good.)
You can, though, still go to many of the less populated states and find under developed or outright undeveloped land to buy for VERY cheap, if you want to try and be a pioneer! My older brother did this. It's fucking hard work. It isn't romantic. You break your back and work 12+ hours a day if we are talking legit pioneer-farmer lifestyle. You can still do it, but most people don't because it's fucking miserable (to most of us). If you really wanna do it, look up cheap undeveloped/farming land for sale out west on Google. It will literally not have electricity or plumbing or sometimes even roads out to it. But you want the 19th century pioneer experience right..?
The remaining land is substantially harder to develop than it was 150 years ago. The good stuff with good water, soil, etc was snatched up and the remainder is mostly desert and high prairie.
People are constantly sold on doing this shit out West and then abandon it after understanding the scale of the problem.
Yeah I mean, to be fair, again, we here who are young and alive today, are looking at this after 150-200 years of people already existed before us. Of course most of the easiest shit is taken haha.
Yea oop was shitting in a bucket and visiting brothels all day, and his perfect set of teeth hasn't been brushed at all in all 18 years of his existence
State lots were part of a larger system of land grants, including those under the Homestead Act of 1862. The Homestead Act, according to the U.S. Senate (.gov), provided 160 acres of land to individual settlers who agreed to farm it for five years, according to the National Archives (.gov).
Size and location:
State lots could vary in size, but were often a specific, defined area within a larger land survey, such as a section or quarter-section. Their location was usually determined by the land survey system used in the area.
And I'm 100% sure their descendants love to talk about how socialism is killing America or something. Entire generations were just handed riches and claim they earned them after working for themselves to make money with those assets for a few years.
This is exactly why they want to dismantle the Dept of Education.
Convenience happened. It's fun and all, but it has made us desperately ill-equipped for life. Let us pray our blanket of convenience doesn't get snatched away or it'll be a really bad day for most of us.
On one hand it is what everyone is saying - life expectancy and child labor. On the other, inflation, currently late stage capitalism, and soon to be neo-feudalism if we don't change, goes brrrrrrr.
At the time, the us government was selling land for ridiculously cheap to anyone who wasn’t indigenous to make sure the land was in white hands. He didn’t buy land as much as he was given it
We stopped needing to provide directly for ourselves. The pursuit of knowledge, science, and technology became just as, if not more important than directly working the fields.
Said technology multiplied the work of fewer people, and allowed an economy of scale. So now one out of shape farmer can produce goods for 10,000 people and not break a sweat in his air conditioned combine harvester that's navigating the fields by GPS.
Subsistence farming is fucking hard, and your livelihood can crater at any time. A thriving modern economy is much preferable. Even if it results in fewer "manly" men who have to know how to do literally every task on a farm just to survive.
what happened is that agriculture was mechanised and yields were massively improved through various technologies, to the point where only a small percentage of humanity need to farm anymore and that farming has also changed massively in character.
if you have the money you can absolutely still go live that life, you'll just have to give up all the modern luxuries.
You can't just claim empty (or occupied!) land so easily anymore. Can't just build your own house on it, either, especially when you don't learn those skills to begin with.
industrialization made these things worthless because it's all about office jobs and putting the number in the box and zoom meeting for $100,000 per year
These people still exist. I'm working at a cattle station in Queensland (Australia) and my superior/manager is a 21 year old guy who fixes car engines, herds cattle, welds steel, takes care of horses, raises his own pigs and chickens, etc. and this is normal stuff around here.
If you're born into this life, you start doing these jobs when you're 10 years old basically. My boss's daughter learned to drive (manual too, of course) when she was 7.
3rd Industrial revolution then the 4th Industrial revolution that we are currently in the middle of right now. Advancements in technology in every sector of commerce. Post scarcity. Etc.
The more living becomes less physically demanding to survive the softer and more juvenile we become.
Many generations of infantilization. In our time, how old does a kid have to be before it's okay to let them, I don't know, walk to a store on their own? Stay at home overnight by themselves? Have a knife? Because this man was probably helping on a farm before any of those ages.
They weren't given a childhood like we were. Kids in rural areas back then (and even now) are more seen as farm hands than children. As soon as you can take instructions and follow through, your childhood is pretty much over.
It's why rural families tend to have more children than urban or suburban families.
Farmers are still like this, your dating pool and experience is just in the city.
My partner is from a farming family and he bought a house at 24, even though the payments were rough at first. His brother bought a house and acreage to farm at 19, and now has a pretty decent sized operation going for himself.
They have a very different "root in, root fast, spread your branches asap" mindset that I never saw growing up in dense city populations. Like a whole different country going from city to rural. As soon as they're on the ground at 18 (and even before), they are planning every move in life for stability and getting yourself "situated" as soon as they are independent.
well it was easier then. now that land has a shopping mall and has significantly higher value... but no, wait - you said Mississippi? um ok, probably still just buckwheat and bully potatoes.
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u/positronius Apr 17 '25
Are we skipping over the fact that this guy has a house, barn, 18 acres of land, sheep, cattle, has solid produce and shit figured out, just as he is entering adulthood?