The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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I'm having a crisis of employment.
My cycle has become:
The most dramatic instances of this are actual breakups; in 2019 I was seeing someone wonderful and really flourishing as a person, having fun athletic passionate sex with my best friend (her words), doing stuff together, feeling supported and loved. I was motivated to acquire and save money for normal human things like sailing outings, vacations, larger apartments, rings, and such. Then I said "I love you" slightly less than a year in. Three weeks later, she ended it. It turned out, she ended it to go back to her abusive ex-husband, who she also told all about us so he could track me down and mock me. I went from being in the running for a manager position at work to being shuffled off to a dead-end location. Then COVID happened. With absolutely nothing worthwhile tying me to my current life, I bailed and moved to a larger city.
The last "good" job I had was still incredibly stressful; host (floor manager track) at a trendy downtown restaurant. But a major stressor on me was that women were suddenly flirting with me. I was getting unsolicited compliments and weird lingering looks and other foreign experiences, which didn't make any fucking sense; women much less affluent and attractive than these ones were still reacting to me with fear/contempt in my personal life. I have no fucking idea how to react to being flirted with by a customer beyond exiting the situation. Then I had a particularly bad personal-life encounter with someone neuro-atypical; she spends an evening calling me pretty as we make sci-fi references together, I kiss her, she holds my hand on the walk back to her place, I get another kiss and wish her good night. The next day she's angry that I kissed her and complaining about how straight guys are always assuming she isn't asexual and she "already has a crush, anyways," which broke several things inside of me. Then the floor manager training me leaves on vacation and I'm reporting directly to the insanely demanding micromanaging owner, and of course suddenly my "excellent" performance takes a nosedive while remaining the same. I become an anxious wreck at work, get worse at eye contact than I already am, have a mini-panic-attack every time a woman smiles at me or any time the owner is around, then apparently someone with more management experience submitted an application and I was out on my ass.
I can handle a stressful and chaotic workplace OR I can handle soul-crushing loneliness and mistreatment. I can't handle both at once. It turns out that human beings seek relationships for emotional support and comfort, and without them, they become brittle and despondent. Who fucking knew? Sometimes I worry I'm absurdly fragile; then I hear other people complain about their own life-deranging stressors and it turns out I just have it really fucking rough; people have tried killing themselves over stuff that's a Tuesday for me.
It's the dead of winter and there are no hospitality jobs. Anything in my actual field (zoology) pays literal dogshit if there were even any openings, which there are not at any level I'm qualified for. I CANNOT do sales anymore; I have no tolerance for scummy practices and refuse to become a human spambot. Unemployment runs out in two months. I don't know where all these "cozy boring jerkoff office jobs anyone with a bachelor's degree can get" are supposed to be hiding.
I have absurdly low cost of living; my entire rent/utilities/food/basic fun money requirements are under $1500/month, so I really only "need" $2K monthly to consider myself acceptably getting by, which is supposedly easy in a major urban center. Yet here I am, having to countenance liquidating investments to cover vet bills. What job am I supposed to be looking for?
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@hooser's aside about being a mathematician who's benefited from "get more women into math" initiatives despite not necessarily believing in them, reminded me I wanted to ask:
What can I do to help out my mathy daughter?
Her dad and I are both everything-but-math types (like Scott); she OTOH is so far shaping up to be your stereotypical math-and-music kid. She's very young, maybe she'll stop being mathy or w/e, but if she stays mathy...I just wonder how to help her in the future. (Right now we homeschool.)
From my own experience and studies I recall reading, seems like affinity groups have been the most effective way to help minorities-in-a-field achieve to their potential. IOW, put people who have an interest in the field and are not in the majority-in-the-field in contact with one another. (As opposed to "try to change the field to be more in line with the targeted identity group's average group preferences" or some such.) I did see an online group for mathy girls 5th grade and up, maybe that'll be good for when she's older...
So, any math-and-music types here, what would you have wanted someone to tell your parents?
As a parent:
For "mathy":
The best thing for my son was Khan Academy, which basically covers everything you'd want in grade school, up to a little basic undergraduate-engineering-major-level math. When Covid hit and all the other kids' brains started atrophying, he instead was thrilled to discover he could now go as fast as he wanted (or occasionally as slow as he needed to?) He started squeezing it in to the sad little "online school" schedule that had been hectically thrown together, then he eventually got permission from a teacher to let his little sister do his "real" math homework so he could spend more time studying way ahead, and he got far ahead before testing out of a few physical classes and joining others. (or "auditing" others; they have to call his Calculus class "independent study in math" due to some age/grade restriction, but fortunately there's no restriction on the AP tests).
When he got a bit older he really started getting into math competitions, so instead of just racing ahead he's spent a lot of time getting better at the sorts of questions that a typical kid his age knows enough math to understand but still can't necessarily solve. These have also been helpful at avoiding ego inflation, putting him up against the sharpest math students in the city or the country rather than just a few classmates and a standardized curriculum.
We've done a lot of talking together about the basics of things like set theory, boolean algebra, group theory, linear algebra. There's a lot of math that's understandable to very small kids but that doesn't get covered in a standard curriculum. This is reasonable of the standard curriculum, since most non-scientist non-engineers will never need to know e.g. what a power set is, and even most scientists and engineers can get away with believing theorems without picking up the groundwork to prove them themselves ... but if you've got a kid who's interested in math, then she may be interested in math enough not to worry too hard about which of the things she's learning have what future applications. Being able to learn multiple things at a time can also be helpful if one doesn't "click"; even professional mathematicians often just dive into one subfield they really enjoy, or end up mostly on one side of a divide like the "algebraist-vs-analyst" rift.
For "daughter":
I'm actually not sure? I might have screwed this one up badly somehow! My oldest daughter has a great talent for and a great dislike for math. She's taking Calculus at 15 and doing a couple math competitions, but solely to spruce up her college applications and get ahead on engineering major requirements. Watch from 4:55 through 6:10 of NewsRadio "Houses of the Holy", but imagine a girl doing math instead of a man doing magic tricks.
My youngest doesn't really dislike math, but she doesn't have any of the interest her brother does. She's joined him in a math club, but whereas he's there for the "math" part she's there for the "club" part. Your daughter might not have the stereotypical people-vs-things gender difference, but for any child having a community to work with and (to a limited extent) compete with can be strongly motivating.
As a former mathy child:
I really wish I'd grown up with more resources like Khan Academy, but also Wikipedia and especially math YouTube. The adults around me all tried to help me hit my full potential, to great effect, but there are interesting subfields that I didn't even know existed until I stumbled across references to them somewhere else.
I wish I'd somehow challenged myself more in high school. I took a few night courses at the local university after exhausting the available high school math classes, but still had a sudden shock when I got into a selective university and could no longer just ace every math test without serious study first.
I ended up in applied math, after nearly just going full engineering, and in hindsight this was more of a good idea than a mere diversion. The state of the art in pure math is so far ahead of us lowly applied mathematicians, and I think it's good for my morale to come up with ideas that I can then immediately implement and use, rather than ideas that for all I know might be foundational to 22nd century physics but that might more likely then be nothing more than footnotes in papers nobody reads. And despite what I said above about proper math brains not caring about future applications, it's still easier for me to remember new ideas I learn if I can immediately see a few ways to apply them to something connected to reality rather than if they just feel like a neat self-contained game.
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I highly recommend Math Circles, if there is one in your area. Typically, a Math Circle is a group of kids of about similar age who meet once a week for like a semester to explore an interesting math idea. Such circles get organized and led by mathematicians (professional or amateur), and they can start quite young. For example, "Math from Three to Seven" (or great review of the book) is basically a diary of a guy running a Math Circle for his young kids and their friends.
At their best, the kind of activity the kids do in a Math Circle actually models an authentic mathematical exploration. Even when not at their best, it gets your daughter together with other kids who are interested in math, and connects you with at least one math adult who is interested in math outreach for kids and will therefore probably know of other local opportunities for STEM extracurriculars.
People mean different things when they say "math". For many not in the field it means doing drills or word problems, which at best are skill challenges posed by others for educational purpose, and do not--cannot--reflect authentic problems that require a mathematical approach. The authentic problems are messy; they are vague; you have to choose what to measure and how, and what to define and how, and sometimes all your options are but poor approximations, and sometimes you can't even begin to tackle the problem as is until you have considered many much simpler similar problems that may (you hope) give you ideas on how to approach the big messy one. That's what "math" is to a mathematician, and those are great problem-solving skills to practice no matter where your life takes you.
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In my experience, you need to get your daughter to be ok with getting things wrong. It is uncomfortable to be wrong and it seems a lot of girls shy away from it more than boys do, but if you're going to keep going in STEM-y stuff you're going to be wrong. You're going to be confused. You're going to not get it when other people do. She needs to be ok with that and if possible even embrace it.
We celebrated our daughter trying and failing and trying again. And again. Music actually helped with that because she hit the limits of her natural talent at a younger age than she did with math. So we could remind her how she wasn't able to sight read a particular piece perfectly, how it required thoughtful, diligent practice. But then she got it, and yadda yadda. We may have done this a bit too much because she perversely seeks out things she really has to work at and almost neglects areas of natural talent, so maybe keep an eye on that.
Also, we found co-ed STEM activities were likely to be at a higher level than single sex ones (more participants? Less focused on achieving consensus? More competitive?) but our daughter had to be comfortable with failure and trash talk to enjoy them, especially at the middle and high school level. Keep an eye on girl focused activities though because they can be a great introduction or place to get comfortable.
Oh, wow, I can't believe I didn't think about this when talking about math competitions.
Coaching MathCounts, I think this is probably the biggest benefit I see for the kids vs a typical math class. In a class, you're given all the material before you're given the test, and the test problems are all pretty similar, and getting 100% is a reasonable expectation. In MathCounts, well, I just got the results of our chapter-level competition, and among the hundreds of top math students in a big techie city this year there was only a single kid who (barely) broke 90%. The experience of seeing problems you have no idea how to solve, and not panicking, and going on to solve the ones you can along with perhaps figuring out creative ways to solve some of the ones you initially couldn't, is huge.
On the other hand, as a correction to the correction, I should point out that there are some very unrealistic things about math competitions too. The level of speed that's beneficial for even MathCounts sprint rounds is purely a contest thing rather than a simulation of any real-world work, and especially the "you ought to be able to answer the question before most people are done reading it" level of competition among the kids who make it to a big MathCounts countdown round is basically just a fun game show for the audience.
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@SkookumTree is back!
I had respectfully joked about you very recently. Welcome back man. How have you fared? Lessons learned?
The Hock taketh and the Hock giveth back
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I was freezing my ass off out there trying to execute The Fock and the jerk didn’t even show up! You owe me @SkookumTree!
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Holy shit.
Even The Hock can't kill that man.
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Welcome back @SkookumTree. A lot of us unironically hoped for the best for you in your absence.
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+1 for "glad you're still alive", Skookum.
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6.5 month-old baby is not sleeping well. He wakes up frequently, wants his mother.
For the first few months, almost all his sleep was either co-sleeping (common in Europe, but it never felt safe to me), or in the presence of an awake parent (holding, carrier, stroller, car). For a while, we had some success putting him down after he fell asleep and him staying asleep for a few hours, but it would often take a long time to get him into a deep-enough sleep that he would staying sleeping upon being put down.
I eventually strongly suggested sleep training. I read stuff online, Emily Oster and others, and figured we should give the Ferber method a try.
My wife didn't like it; I found it difficult too, and actually I caved on night 3, even though it was kind of working at other times. But I regret caving and think we should have continued.
But our state-issued parenting advisor recommended a gentler method which I can't see working; it rewards his crying with attention; lo and behold, he cries every time he wakes up alone.
Now my wife and I are at odds; It's been 2 weeks of this with little-to-no improvement. She is getting less sleep than I am.
3 older women in my life whose opinions I respect (mother, aunt, landlady) all say we just need to do sleep training properly and stick to it.
The modern Zeitgeist says that sleep training is cruel, even if the studies don't. My wife's friends and family are on her side too. My wife was worrying that the 3 nights we did of Ferber method have ruined our son completely (on all 3 days after he was in a great mood all day...).
For some, doing "the pause" from birth (when newborn wakes, set a timer and excruciatingly force yourself to wait 4-5 actual minutes before responding; we had to use the timer because when we "felt like" we'd waited 5 minutes it would actually be 1-2) results in babies learning to sleep through the night pretty naturally, often by 2-4 months old. As described in the book Bringing Up Bebe (an interesting discussion of the author's experience of cultural parenting differences between France and the USA).
That's what happened for us--and then came the 4 month sleep regression. First time that happened, we'd just recently stopped sleeping in shifts and it didn't occur to us to go back to sleeping in shifts (we should have). We got to the point of waiting up to 15 minutes before going in--so, basically Ferber--and that was enough.
Reading over your comment, I would suggest you start by putting him down awake. At his age he may be having the "Fell asleep in my bedroom, woke up on the lawn" reaction. (By which I mean "Fell asleep in a parent's arms, woke up in the crib" can cause the same kind of reaction in a baby that the foregoing would cause in an adult--"What happened? Where am I? This has got to be bad!")
! does she know that?
I've kind of mentioned it. But she's very "what do you mean", and I'm struggling to express all the ways that her anxious parenting is stressing us all out.
It's stuff like
Remember though your first child is the most stressful, it's common overreacting to stuff because you've not experienced it before. Second is easier and by the third you'll be almost leaving your kid with strangers (I exaggerate a little, but only a little!). Her overprotectiveness sounds pretty normal at this stage. Though the dog thing sounds pretty ok, dogs and babies is a risk I wouldn't take even now after raising 3 kids to adulthood. People routinely underestimate how unpredictable dogs can be with babies and kids in my direct experience.
But boundaries are not just for kids! It is ok if she wants to do x but that doesn't mean you have to. You have to agree on the big things but your day to day parenting can and maybe even should be different. You don't have to have the same reactions. Ferber is basically what we did and it worked fine, but the chances are whatever method you use won't have any long term impact on your baby. This is more for the parents. The baby will learn to sleep at some point regardless.
Negotiate you taking over the putting to sleep duties perhaps if she is finding it too difficult. Her relationship with your baby and her relationship with your baby are different. You taking different duties is entirely ok.
My top tip is starting to teach your baby sign language from pretty much right now. They can learn very basic signs pretty quickly and just knowing milk, more, done is very useful. For my three kids anecdotally they also seemed to be less stressed when they could communicate even very basic things. They won't be able to make the signs themselves probably for another couple of months but they will start to understand. So when you sign sleep or bed, after a month or two they will know what is happening, and my experience is that made things easier. That is probably the thing I was most skeptical about when one of my wife's friends suggested it, but was blown away by useful it was (and to be fair) how cute it is for your child to be able to make tiny hand signs and actually begin to communicate into the world before they can speak more than a few words.
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We already do this. If it's me doing it, he just screams; if she does it, it's mostly working now, as long as she stays beside him. But when he wakes in the night, he expects someone to be there.
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I could not sleep train. Listening to my baby cry was ... Impossible. She's grown now and fine, for what it's worth. If we were going to sleep train I would have had to leave the house to maintain my sanity. There was just something about my small creature crying that burrowed into my brain demanding immediate attention. I didn't react that way to toddler tantrums or little kid whining or teenager tempers. So, can you send your wife away or put her in a sound proof room? I would have agreed to that because my husband and I were capable of agreeing to a version of sleep training but we didn't have the ability to protect me from the sound. It didn't help that I nursed our daughter and a nursing baby Knows when her mother is around. Babies are cagey.
I wish you sleep, soon. It's crazy making.
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We're a little over 2 months in with our first child, and unfortunately our baby doesn't like sleeping on her back like the literature recommends. I was on baby-duty last night, and about an hour after feeding and burping her, I tried putting her down in her crib to try to build those self-soothing skills. Unfortunately she just ended up crying so hard that she coughed/spat up the milk she drank earlier in the evening. She seems to enjoy sleeping at a 45-degree angle, so she went on a pillow and I ended up sleeping next to her that way. Babies sure are a handful. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My son didn't like sleeping on his back either, so we let him sleep on his tummy. That let him sleep for far longer stretches. We weren't too worried about him suffocating, because
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I've got a 1, 2, 3, and 6yo. All were sleeping through the night by 6 months. I (father) was responsible for the night shifts, and did basically the Ferber method.
And are they all irreparably emotionally damaged?
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Only 6 weeks in with our first so I have no personal experience but my brother has 3 under 3. All of them (including the 6 month old) sleep independently in their own rooms through the night and I’m pretty sure my brother and sister-in-law did Ferber method. Can’t say I’m a fan of the idea but if I’m still only getting max 3 hr stretch of sleep at night in 6 months I may be singing a different tune.
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Good old topic. Authoritarian VS liberal parenting.
I'm on team strict. It seems to work, get results right away and forms beneficial habits, and while it supposedly traumatizes the child, I think that's either untrue or insignificant compared to the obvious advantages for everyone involved.
My wife and her family, of course, are on team OH GOD DO WHATEVER THE CHILD WANTS OR ELSE SHE WILL BE RUINED FOREVER. I think this mode of thinking is obviously wrong in every way (history, incentives, habit-forming, observable effects, the parenting histories of the people saying so), but what do I know.
Right, so how did you navigate this? Sending her links to fancy-looking blogs doesn't seem to be working for me.
In general, I've been trying to get the message across that parenting has been becoming way more time and money intensive than it used to be, with no better results. I'm the youngest of a very large poor-ish family, that is to say, my level of received parental investment was not super high, and I turned out fine. Meanwhile it appears Gen Z and Alpha have very little resilience.
He doesn't need so many toys. He'll be fine with 2nd-hand clothes. Don't be so worried about leaving him with other people for a few hours.
She wants a 2nd child, but I refuse if it's going to be this circus again.
I navigate it by doing it my way while the wife does it her way. With all the fallout and obvious failure modes. Unclear rules and expectations, constant arguments, and me often straight-up ignoring her instructions (and telling her so). I'm not even giving her any instructions of my own; she wouldn't follow those either. Instead, she just gets a regular supply of "told you so"s.
The consequence of this is that our daughter (3.5yo by now) likes me better for playing, especially during the daytime, because we do more exciting stuff that my wife would never do because there's more than a minimal risk of phyical injury, but prefers her mother for sleeping in bed with because she can get her way with a long list of demands before sleep where I would just say "nope, sleepytime now, good night" and turn off the lights. Obviously when I and our daughter have an argument about something (making a mess and not helping with the cleanup, not wanting the food she requested, refusing to get dressed before we need to go out), I'll take the hard line and the kid will try to outmanoeuver me by running to her mom, who will make up some excuse for her. But shortly after that, her mom will be exhausted by trying to do paranoid helicopter parenting while also indulging in her smartphone addiction, and it's dad time again for actually doing things during the day.
I try to avoid all those stupid dynamics by just grabbing the kid the moment I come back from work (or right after waking up, on weekends) and proclaiming that damn the torpedoes we are now going to the playground/pool (depending on the weather) and we'll picnic outdoors and we're only coming back home after she's thoroughly exhausted herself. After which I get scolded for exhausting her, can't I see it was too much? Too much what - exercise and fresh air? Modern mothers are crazy. But screw spending any time in the pigsty those two create after just one day of me being away at the office. On rainy days I run another hard line of "no playing until we cleaned up this mess". And given some tasks that she can actually accomplish, it seems she even enjoys being helpful. Then it's puzzles and board games and ball.
So yeah, no second child while the mother is under the delusion that children need uninterrupted supervision 100% of the time, or that it's acceptable to give the child unlimited access to sugar and screen time just because the mother herself is addicted to the same, and that the outdoors is a lethally dangerous place because it triggers your social anxiety and so the child is best kept indoors at all times, and that because raising a child like this is so exhausting and all-consuming, you cannot be expected to not make the household explode as soon as the man is out of the house.
Oh hey, hope you enjoyed by blogpost.
I did; I don't like what it says about my future though. My wife was fairly on-board with "strict but chill" before the birth; I hope at some point she'll get there again.
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Oh wow, this sounds exhausting. Did ya'll know about the differing perspectives prior to having a kid or did it come up later?
Nah. My wife thought and thinks herself very wise in the way of children since she grew up with more siblings and WORKED AS A KINDERGARDENER (emphasis hers) FOR LESS THAN HALF A YEAR (emphasis mine). Fair enough, overall more experience than me. I for one just thought "we'll figure it out". My opposition to liberal parenting developed over time as I saw the absolute nonsense it devolves into.
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This is my exact relationship with my kids/wife. I suspect it's overall healthy for the kids to have one "strict" parent and one "soft" parent, but I agree that modern mothers have gone off the deep end. I often find myself having to be harder on the kids than I'd like to be in order to strike a better balance.
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Not to mention it’s extremely stressful and labor-intensive on the parents. And given that the evidence on the kid’s future well-being is inconclusive, that is the main thing.
They’re doing liberalism wrong. Liberalism is rooted in a profound lazyness. ‘laissez faire’, let [things] do, let it be. It’s like old hippies ‘free range’ education, not this micromanaging shit.
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Why do I hate every job I do?
I changed job, like, 4 times in my life. To give a bit of perspective, I did a bit of everything (Public servant in administration, consultancy for a small company, then marketing specialist, now business developer and client & project manager)
EVerytime the job was defined by an initial sense of excitement and wonder, an honeymoon lasting like 6 months, and then complete demoralization and destruction. The reasons are always the same: Sense of abandonement from upper echelon, sense of uselessness, frustration derived from general disorganisation etc.
But after changing several jobs, everytime with radical differences both in theme, position, duties, working hours, wage etc, I am beginning to think that maybe the problem resides with me? I am more of an academic/literate type, always loved to write, read, talk with people. But earning a life with this kind of job is impossible, so I decided to pursue more earthly manners. But still, I feel frustrated, and despite adopting every possible idea to improve on the job (training, strict sleep and relaxation schedule, learning how to focus and external tools to remember tasks etc), I still fail to feel remotely good at something.
I have no idea what to do, I feel way less intelligent than I look like from the external.
I can only assume from those job titles that all of them have been office work of some sort. As someone who works an actually very different job (chef), they all seem very similar. They involve similar environments, similar mundane tasks, and if you hate one you will hate them all.
My partner is an engineer, but her job also falls into the giant "office job" bucket. She has been diagnosed with ADHD (which is something you might find helpful, or maybe not). Diagnosis or not, it is clear to me that the issue primarily lies in the nature of office work. It is hard to keep track of dealines or communications when they are arbitrary and electronic, amd it is hard to force yourself to work on something that seems meaningless. Some people are worse at this than others.
The benefits of her job are that it is stable, relatively well compensated, has health benefits, is flexible, and is physically easier. The benefits of my job are that I am surrounded by creature comforts, get to do things that excite me, I have direct contact with people every day. I invest egregious amounts of time and energy in my job because I love it and it gives me many more benefits than money. Luckily, I now make a decent amount of money too.
I don't think it is just a you problem, because personally I think most jobs suck. But there is usually a trade off when you choose a job out of enjoyment. For skilled trades, I tend to see it as investing the same amount of time as going to school (except you make money instead of spending it). It took me about 8 years to get to a point where I am objectively succesful, and I suspect it will take me another 4 to get where I really want. I think academic jobs outside of actual academics is a tough road, because you potentially have already invested a lot of time and money, only have to invest more in the specific line of work you choose.
So, my advice is that if you truly want a different job, it will come with big trade offs in earnings, and it will take years to reach a point where it becomes monetarily worthwhile. It may come with great benefits to your happiness, social life, self worth, or maybe not. If that doesn’t seem worth it, just keep a job that gives you the best benefits, pay, flexibility, least stress, path for advancement, etc. Stick with it, and you will feel that you will improve with time, but it will probably take something like a year or 2. You will probably feel more competent after you adapt to the arbitrary rules and customs of whatever workplace hierarchy you choose. Use all of your benefits to build a fulfilling life outside of work.
Maybe an important thing to consider: what would you be "working" on if you didn’t need to have a job? You need to have some sense of personal improvment and investment if you aren’t getting it from work. Pursue that in your personal life.
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Your attitude strikes me as bizarre. You find work is generally horrible, and yet, you act surprised. Most people rapidly intuit that work something they pay you thousands of dollars for, because otherwise, you wouldn't do it. Why is this hard to understand? Are you a Millennial raised by Boomers or something?
Listen to your Gen X, apple-obsessed buddy: The only non-negotiable element of work is money. Step into your next position with a realistic attitude that says if you do accomplish anything meaningful or have any fun at work, once in a while, ever, that's a good day!
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To me it sounds like all 4 types of work you list here are rather...similar?
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Enjoying your job is a luxury, and one taken for granted all too often. As far as I'm concerned, all I can really demand of a job is that it compensates me for the time spent doing it, at a rate I don't regret.
It's not that people can't enjoy their work. Quite a few do, and get to work on things they'd be doing as a hobby while getting paid for it. But that's too rare to be considered something to be counted on. The majority of people don't enjoy time spent working, but they don't detest it more than the dollars it brings in.
My job is something that I am mildly pleased to be doing, and occasionally rewarding when it's not bureaucratic makework and drudgery. It's still a job, I don't go into work skipping with a smile on my face, I go do it because it pays better than the alternatives. If you've genuinely exhausted your options when it comes to doing work you enjoy, then at that point you have to make peace with not having fun while at least being paid.
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You have your job, and then your career. When the job sucks, you can remind yourself you’re supporting your career. If your career sucks, you can remind yourself you have the means to change to another one as long as you have a job. The end goal is that your job and career are the same and in harmony. Sounds to me like you don’t know what your career is and need to figure that out.
My example; my job is taking photos at expensive restaurants. My career, however, is writing. I use the money from the photography job to buy a website domain to upload my portfolio of writing until I’ve got a good enough one to shoot for the jobs more specialized in writing. That way when I get existential about why the fuck I’m taking pictures instead of writing I can snuff that flame.
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I truly believe that 80%+ of whether you have a good time at work is whether you like the people you work with. If you’re friends with your coworkers it rarely feels like work, it’s more like camaraderie.
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We all hate our jobs. That's why they have to pay us to do them. If we loved our jobs, we would do them for free.
From "Would You Like Another Plate of This?" by Mike Darwin, as quoted on "On the Unpopularity of Cryonics: Life Sucks, but at Least Then You Die" by Gwern Branwen:
For that reason, I have always gravitated towards jobs that require as little work as possible and leave me free to use the internet or listen to podcasts: night auditor, security guard, delivery driver, etc. I even tried teaching once for the three months of vacation, but I couldn't control the kids.
The pay is awful, but I get by with the Early Retirement Extreme mindset of spending as little as possible (e.g. I don't have health insurance and go to a community health center if I absolutely must). The status hit is worse; my family is disappointed in me and no Western woman is going to be impressed with my job. C'est la vie.
Live the dream, random collection of letters I found on the Internet called erwgv3g34! Don't let them grind you down! If I hadn't insisted on having a huge family, you know I'd be knocking on your door on Sunday afternoon asking you if I could have your recycling to take down to the center so I could buy beer!
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Counterexample, and more general counterassertions.
I love my job. I would not do it for free.
Why? Because I have a finite amount of time available, and there are other things I love more than my job. (Obvious example: owning a roof over my head. Less obvious example: doing only the parts of my job that I enjoy the most.)
Loving other things more than X does not imply I do not love X.
Not wanting X and only X to the exclusion of literally everything else does not imply I do not love X.
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Didn’t Cormac McCarthy follow the same mindset? Thought he got himself a wife.
I did read a story of him building his own house, which I suppose points to frugality. But AFAIK he just wanted to write above all else, thus earned little and had little to spend.
But whoever knows more, let me know.
Something like that:
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I keep telling myself that if the next job also doesn't work out, I'll switch to blue-collar work. Something outdoors, if possible. Surely those people will appreciate a heads-in-the-cloud pseudo-intellectual more than the office drones I worked with so far.
You can, but watch out if your IQ is above like 110; keep your head down and castrate your vocabulary or you may soon find everyone else squinting at you in suspicion.
I tried lower-middle class work among some lovely Red Tribe yokels, but made a few missteps early on and rapidly garnered a reputation for being far, far smarter than they were. It did work fine for the first four years, and had a lot of fun with them, but then the Peter Principle saw a petty, insecure moron promoted to the position once occupied by my decent boss, and work became a constant game of bootlicking, kowtowing, and looking over my shoulder. One of the last emails I sent him stated, literally, "I'm sorry you find me hard to understand. I want very much for you to understand me."
TL;DR in a workplace where the average IQ is significantly below yours, beware, for big words = bad words
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@Magusoflight, you asked me to shoot you an update if I figured out what's up with my sports/sleep issue I posted about a month ago if I have any progress.
I don't think I fully figured it out yet because I still have to restart my proper exercise routine, but I had a couple of promising weeks. The first lead I wanted to hone in on was potassium deficiency because it's the simplest thing to do and I realized I don't have a enough potassium in my diet (tracking micronutrients via Macrofactor). My main side was rice and sometimes I cooked some sort of pasta. I rarely cooked potatoes. I did three things:
Early results for now:
I'll keep you updated - planning to restart my workout routine this weekend and test whether increased potassium still holds up.
P.S. Thank you for everyone's suggestions on my last post!
Out of curiosity I asked deepthink about your situation and it also suggested electrolyte imbalance, although with about ten other things to investigate. Maybe that's a better medical advice LLM than Claude.
Claude Sonnet also hypothesized electrolytes, FWIW. I guess real human advice of “ Just drinking vague electrolytes is not enough, you have to consciously track micronutrients and it seems like you lack potassium specifically” was more impactful.
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Glad your getting better sleep. It could still be a bunch of things, as getting better sleep is just a virtuous feedback cycle on its own.
I'm still going going to count this a win for the Wisdom of the Motte over Claude. Maybe we still have a purpose.
I'm also still baffled by the minuscule amounts of potassium in typical sports drinks and daily multivitamins. People think they are fully covered by supplementation, but the most popular sports drinks and daily multivitamins cover like 2% of adequate intake per serving. It's not even like potassium is expensive.
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Thanks for your update! Glad to hear your making some progress
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Is it worth it to buy health insurance in the USA if you make a decent middle class income and have decent savings but don't have insurance through your employer?
It's so expensive and I've seen contrarian takes to the effect that you can get a better deal on basically everything by not being insured and in the event of something truly catastrophic you're probably going to be declaring bankruptcy either way.
But that's just Internet anons so I wanna hear from some other Internet anons to get a more balanced opinion.
I've been passively thinking about this for a few years now after a conversation with my parents. They actually kept the receipts and did the math - they would've been better off paying out of pocket for the last 40 years of medical expenses than having insurance (which they did have for everyday of their working lives without exception). At ours was not a family of indestructables; a sibling had four major surgeries over about an 8 year span, and both Mom and Dad have been on a variety of not-so-cheap prescriptions for 20+ years.
Especially considering the surgeries (which had approx 10 day hospital stays after, each time), I was totally blown away that the numbers still came out against the insurance. As a side note: To note let the insurance companies weasel out of some of the major costs for the surgeries, my Mom was spending up to 20 hours a week painstakingly collecting documentation from all necessary parties.
That's some background. Here are some numbers. This is better than back of envelope, but not perfect and, as usual, normal caveats; what's your risk tolerance? What's your family medical history etc.
Liquid assets: You should have $1m in liquid assets beyond your home. Income: 250-300k for an individual, 500k+ for a family of the usual size (1-3 kids)
With some smart negotiating, you can survive even the most catastrophic events so long as they don't cluster in an insanely unlikely scenario (i.e. you get into a car wreck driving home from your chemo appointment and the ambulance taking you to the hospital T-bones your poor spouse who is speeding to meet you there).
But, take a look at those numbers again. With that kind of wealth and income, you can afford to pay for a "cadillac" insurance plan. So, why not?
And here we confront the real decision about healthcare. It isn't so much about the cost - if you're rich, you don't need it and if you're rich you can pay for it. If you're not rich, you basically throw your money away for multiple decades a little bit at a time so that in the low probability change you need it, you do have it.
The real decision is; how do you feel about subsidizing a system that works BEST for people with horrible habits and defectors in the system? We've created a situation in which doing the "right thing" with health insurance and personal health habits makes you the sucker. The game theoretic optimal path of behavior is to smoke, drink, never workout, and then walkout on all of your medical bills.
Short of the Government mandating we inject ourselves with an untested substance lest we lose our basic rights (WAIT WHAT?!), I don't see how you could make a worse healthcare scenario.
To make sure I understand this, you're saying if you make less (say, 100k/year), in the US, you should be putting your income into health insurance?
If you're full time employed by a single employer at a company over 50 people, by law they are required to provide some level of health insurance. You might still have to pay some level of premiums out of pocket (in fact, most people do) but the cost is heavily deferred by the employer.
If you're making 100k or so per year on your own (self employed) you will have to pay out of pocket one way or another. I believe there are some small biz health insurance co-ops but it's still going to be painful.
To answer your question directly - I am not saying you should do anything. Personal choice is important! I'm say that, from a median financial expected return and risk perspective, at about 100k / year, yes, you should be buying health insurance.
Returning to the conclusion of my original post; Health Insurance in America is fucked up. Its cost only becomes reasonable once you're already a top 20% earner or if you have an generous employer who can afford to cover most of your premiums for you (and, perhaps, provides some sort of HSA for deductibles). But, by definition, this means that the big majority of Americans aren't in this position. So, the bottom 30% or so just defect. They don't buy insurance and when they need medical treatment they either skip out on the bill or (kind of) use government subsidies to get in the door...and then skip out on the bill anyway. For the middle ~30% percent, they pay crazy premiums, still get hit with deductibles that don't square with their savings capability, and receive substandard care. They lose in nearly all cases except for that rare medical emergency that happens in just the right way so that insurance does, in fact, pick it all up.
In this system, the people who "win" are those who don't need the system in the first place (the wealthy) or those who actively corrupt it (the non-insurance-having non-payers).
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How's American insurance complex so fucked up. India isn't good but you can get antibiotics after paying a decent enough doctor 4 dollars for your same day consultation.
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Just an aside, how can people have a million in liquid assets and an income of half a million? A 0% savings rate?
That's $300k after tax. Put 180k of that into PITI and you're on your way to not saving much.
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Sorry, I realize I made a very unclear presentation there.
It's either/or. You have $1m in liquid assets at an income of any level. Well, probably not poverty wages. Let's say any income at or above median household for your local area.
-OR-
You have approx $500k in annual income for your household. And it's a reliable and consistent income - betting big on a commission only sales role, or your crypto day trading does not count.
As an aside to your aside: You'd be surprised how many people in super high COL areas (NYC, SF, LA) have > $500k annual incomes with low single digit savings. Private schools and even modest "keeping up with the joneses" are wild.
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I have considered switching to Medishare and they would be much cheaper -- https://www.medishare.com The catch is you have to be part of some sort of Christian parish, you need the sign-off of your minister, and have to agree to live a Christian lifestyle (no sex out of marriage, no abusing drugs or alcohol). The second catch is there is no contractual guarantee that they will cover your bills, it's basically on their honor and reputation. The third catch is that they do not have deals with a lot of providers, so you have to self-pay as uninsured and then they will reimburse up to Medicare negotiated rates. They have higher deductible plans, and save money because they don't cover "sin" diseases (eg STD's), drunk-driving accidents, certain pre-existing conditions, etc. I have one friend who likes them, but I do not know anyone who has really tested them with some super expensive treatment.
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I use a high deductible Sedera plan. They're not legally allowed to be called insurance even though they're more like the textbook definition of the word.
Basically I pay out of pocket for everything but if I have a medical "event" that costs more than $5,000 they'll cover the overage. Premiums for my family of 4 are about $4800/y instead of like $22k for normalfag insurance (which also has high deductibles).
My waifu and I are in our 40s though and don't have too many events. Might be different if we had chronic illnesses.
Yes. This part has been eye opening. You can basically pay 20-40% of billed prices if you shop around.
This is awesome and cool to see in the "grey" market.
The only thing that's better is the Cigna Expat plan. The properties are as follows
Turns out if you're high value and healthy enough to send abroad, insuring you is really cheap
There's probably also
For reference, $500/mo for health insurance is very expensive even in HCOL and high-GDP-p.c. countries like Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Norway.
Yeah I dunno man. After UK NHS told my (then) wife it would be a year wait to see a psychiatrist (to continue her mood meds she was on in the US), we found some Covent Garden psychiatrist that charged £300 for her once monthly sessions and it was all no problem and reimbursed at 100%
I don't think it's normal for a health insurance plan to let you just see any specialist with zero triaging and cover 100%
I really have no idea what their limits were. I went to a private GP to get a health certificate to run the Paris marathon, and it cost £100, and that was reimbursed. A years worth of sports physical therapy was also reimbursed 100%
I could only conclude the cohort was so healthy that even our splurging didn't matter.
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I don't know how the US market is, but is there some sort of catastrophic product (High deductible and specific coverage) you can purchase?
Unfortunately this is how insurance used to work. Now for a plan to be legal and widely available, it has to cover a huge swath of services, including preventative and elective stuff.
Some things I know:
My opinion is that you're better off being uncovered and negotiating that ER visit if you get in a car wreck, but if the hospital comes after ya and you have a fat savings account maybe they're going to take it all anyway.
Very frustrating that a DIY approach is so barely viable.
I don't think that they can go after your savings account. Medical debt doesn't even affect your credit score.
If the hospital plays hardball you can wait until it goes to collections and then settle for pennies on the dollar.
Disclaimer: I've never tried this but report back if you do.
They can go after your savings account and put liens on your property. Depending on the state, they may be able to garnish wages.
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Yeah this is the sort of stuff the anons were talking about but I was trying to verify
Note that I can't see why you'd need to enter bankruptcy to deal with medical debt. I don't think bankruptcy even discharges medical debt.
Bankruptcy discharges medical debt. When I was doing bankruptcies it was a pretty common reason for filing.
You're right, I misremembered.
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You can still get a lower premium with a high deductible, right?
Yes, and an HSA. If you get lucky it's fine I guess, though premiums are outrageous. If you get unlucky you get super-fucked. Almost all of your money gets vaporized through premiums and creative deductible accounting to make you hit OOP maxes, even if you make 6-figures.
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Yes, but the minimum premium is very high and doesn't cover much.
Premiums for a family on a Bronze Plan might be $15,000/year for example. Then your deductible might be like $8,000 per person, or $16,000 per family.
Then of course you have co-pays even once you meet your deductible. And, depending on the service rendered, the co-pay might be higher than simply paying out of pocket.
So, yeah, unless you are getting subsidies or are in terrible health, insurance sucks. Obamacare actually made insurance illegal, and all you get is this ridiculous other thing. My family is going to drop it next year most likely. I'm sick of paying for other people's bad habits.
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My job as a tax accountant is killing me with its sheer, soul-crushing boredom and monotony. Starting out it felt much better due to the fact that I actually had to pick up many aspects of the job on my own, but at this point absolutely no part of the job surprises me or challenges me at all, and it's effectively become a huge production line where I optimise for efficiency in tax preparation (sometimes even over the quality of the work, since I've gotten some comments that I should be striving not for perfection but trying to balance that with output). I'm certainly not the fastest employee in the firm in terms of efficiency, but as it stands I'm currently burning through all my jobs faster than people can allocate me new work (our billing/charge-out rate is still so high relative to the amount we actually end up charging the client that there are still write-offs). My managers state they're impressed with my ability to pick up concepts and the high quality of my workpapers, I personally think this is called not being retarded.
I was recently assigned one of the toughest workpapers in the firm. I looked through it. It does not look difficult. They're thinking of making me reviewer on certain jobs because they think I know the job enough well to do a high level review. I should be happy that they feel confident enough about my work to do such a thing, but at the same time every part of the job is an utterly predictable slog. It feels like they're essentially paying me to be the accounting version of a code monkey. Working for even 1 hour makes me feel like I'm being suffocated and I barely recover over the weekends. I keep myself awake through the workday with enough coffee to make my hands shake.
There's also the fact that I feel like people have effectively taken much of my work for granted - there was a time early in my career where I was working on one of the most demanding clients, and helped a superior of mine complete some work that was their responsibility by working until 4am on Friday and coming in on Saturday, just one day before I was supposed to travel for Christmas. That very same year, I effectively got a "Meets Expectations" (a score of 3) on my performance review, and a bonus... of 2% of my already-pretty-low salary. After many experiences like these I no longer care about going above and beyond, but even with that mindset I can't help but be bored to tears with the repetitious and unchallenging nature of my current work. How people can find this in any way rewarding is beyond me. It's fucking obscene.
I guess I should feel lucky I'm not saddled with super long hours (not typically, at least). It's certainly not the worst work out there - most jobs are pretty terrible. But the malaise from this is bleeding into my everyday life.
I don't have any advise sorry but how automatable do you think this job is by some combinations of OCR/LLM/GUI to keep humans in the loop when needed?
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Corporations in general do not reward professionals for staying. Performance reviews are justification pieces for why they will not increase your remuneration. If you're skilled as you say, you should jump ship.
As an aside I once had a line manager refuse my promotion due to being 'not quite' qualified in a field not directly related to my work. He told me 'don't worry I'm sure you'll easily qualify next year'.
I quit, started my own business and tripled my income.
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Some have suggested going it on your own. That's possible. Having been the first employee at a company, I can tell you if you're looking for excitement, it's uh... there. It ended well for me, and I think it would for you, but be prepared for a roller coaster.
Another option is moving to a better firm that values hard work and creativity. Culturally, it seems like Accountants like sticking with their firms come hell or high water, which is an alien concept to me as a software engineer. I'm not saying a better firm is common, but would moving after busy season be something you'd be interested in doing? Using your expertise as a Consultant to make more money and do more varied work?
I've considered it before and think it's a good idea, in fact I've been in the process of remodelling my CV in order to apply to other jobs.
The inertia sometimes does feel a bit overwhelming and there's the fact I do like a good amount of my coworkers, which does make it a bit more difficult to leave, but jumping ship is probably the best option. I don't think I could stay in this role for much longer without hollowing out entirely, and in terms of wages many jobs in the same field offer better salaries than mine currently does, so it's a course of action I certainly can't argue with.
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You're in a rut. You have my sincere sympathies.
Have you applied for other jobs? Just to see what's out there, if there's something that catches your interest or at least pays better? The advantage of applying while you're still employed is that (a) potential employers want you more than your unemployed competition, and (b) your current employer may make you a better offer to keep you. More money, or move you up to management.
The disadvantage is time and effort. Since you're employed and in no hurry, you don't have to put too much effort, just update your resume and start asking around.
(Unless you were just venting... it's ok to vent. In person, I have learned to ask something like: "Are you venting, or do you want to brainstorm solutions?" I have also got good at surrounding myself with people who are chill with those kinds of questions.)
Sorry for the late response, could barely get up the energy to respond to these the past few days. I was partially venting, but also did want to crowdsource solutions.
Regarding your suggestion, I think it's probably the best way forward. My firm really doesn't pay much or offer much in the way of career progression because it's a small/medium size firm (albeit one which poached clients from a larger entity when it branched off from them, so it handles a much wider and more complex array of tasks than your typical small accounting firm), so I know I'll eventually have to move anyway if I want a better deal. The longer I stay here the more pigeonholed I'll be. Moving is just not that easy, especially when you actually like some of your coworkers and have grown somewhat fond of them.
Still, I can't argue against the logic of the decision, and I think if I stay here any longer I'll be a shell of myself.
I hear you and sympathize. Do feel free to rant, no matter what you decide to do. Sometimes a rant is just what's needed to realize that you're not happy with the way things are and are on your way to constructively consider your options.
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I second starting your own business. You have to get out of there for the sake of your own soul it sounds like. Starting your own business comes with PLENTY of challenge and surprise, plus you clearly have the skill to handle it. What do you thnk?
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Have you considered starting your own firm targetted? Money to be made with niches like digital nomads, I think. More generally, what do you want from life? If you have a family, can you derive meaning from supporting it?
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I'm currently enjoying something flu-like with a fever that's been recurring for three days (does it let off during daytime or am I just taking enough Ibuprofen? Not sure.), utterly stuffed nose and sinuses to the point where nasal spray doesn't even get through the snot anymore, alternatingly feeling too hot and too cold, the mother of all headaches, and resulting from all of this sleep that's far from restful.
Any tips? Meds that help, food that helps, methods that help? Activities to engage in while in this state?
It'll probably be over on its own soon either way, but maybe I'll look up your answers the next time.
Is Rhino PRONT not clearing your nose?
You may need to be insistent, my experience in Germany has been the Apothekerin will try push something pflanzlich.
I think it depends on the place and individual. In Austria, two out of three pharmacists will look at you like you eat puppies if you ask if they have any chemical options (and like a potential druggie or vexatious patient if you name a specific active ingredient), but once I was passing through Munich and the lady at the pharmacy in the Marienplatz subway station enthusiastically and unpromptedly gave me two of Big Pharma's finest (this was also in a blocked nose situation).
That could be, it was a rather consistent experience in Germany even when I'd ask my German Ärztin wife to go to the pharmacy.
In Austria I thought it was odd there wasn't a topical lidocaine preparation for sunburns only spray sore throats.
In Finland there was no topical diphenhydramine, given the mosquitos, it seemed odd.
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I'm using xylometazolinhydrochlorid, which usually works just fine - if it can actually get to the membranes, which it can't right now because there's no air left in my nose, just snot. I doubt anything else would work.
Rhino PRONT is Pseudoephedrine, it works well for nasal congestion. It will shrink the swollen mucous membranes. It's a tablet that works systemically.
Nasal sprays here tend to be Oxymetazoline rather than Xylometazoline.
That should work then. I'll see whether the pharmacy has it. Thanks!
If they don’t have Rhino PRONT, BoxaGrippal is ibuprofen + pseudoephedrine and Aspirin Complex contains aspirin + pseudoephedrine.
I also despise nasal congestion and was relieved to find that pseudoephedrine is easily obtainable at the Apotheke. I find that it reduces the fatigue that comes with sickness, for better or worse. And despite it being a stimulant, I’ve never had a problem falling asleep on it.
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Sure thing. For me the nasal congestion is almost always the worst part.
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Worse, homöopathisch.
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Once I started working in the UK, I discovered to my frank confusion that the standard treatment of a cold was to do nothing. No actual meds, maybe treat the fever symptomatically with paracetamol or ibuprofen.
Back in India, we used to prescribe antihistamines for it on the regular. I looked up the evidence base, and most studies claimed that they didn't help. I still disagree, both from seeing patients benefit, and personal use. Levocetrizine +- montelukast got me through multiple bouts of covid, and they mitigate the sniffles in normal colds enough that you can at least be functional while you're sick. I presume you should be able to acquire either cetirizine, levocetrizine or another OTC antihistamine, though I'm not going to handle the headache of looking up brand names. If you can get the original Sudafed, with pseudoephedrine, that might help too.
I was gonna tag you in the thread. It's nuts, I have a severe case of strep or throat infection of whatever any time I get a cold, so I never eat anything cold, avoid liquor, even then, I catch one any time I'm in a new city, how is the drug procurement in the UK compared to India for over the counter drugs.
A second gen brown dude there told me once that wait times were close to a year for psychiatrists in the UK. Kinda hard to believe but won't be surprised at all.
Everything is far more locked down, which can be good (less indiscriminate distribution of antibiotics), or rather annoying at best.
I was used to just asking for prescription meds at home by using my credentials as a doctor, or just writing myself a prescription. This, while not outright illegal in the UK, is highly frowned upon by the GMC. Which is bullshit paternalism, I find claims that doctors can't be trusted to judge their own health questionable.
The wait times can be terrible. If it's an urgent crisis, you'll get seen quickly, say someone contacting their GP with suicidal ideation. For something like getting assessed for ADHD, it can take >2 years for an appointment, unless you go private.
ADHD is not autism, it is still in some edge cases enough to fuck your life up, it fucked mine up and seeing a psychiatrist helped me set it right. 2 years is insane, I get mine the day of and pay 2 pounds.
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I have a big old pile of various antihistamines lying around. Will try. Thanks!
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I've long wondered whether antihistamines would be counterproductive because when you're actually sick the inflammatory responses aren't false positives and are presumably useful traits. I have seen some suggestions that fever reducers for minor fevers may be counterproductive, I think. But it's a bit out of my area of expertise to actually find literature for antihistamines.
I recall reading some evidence that antihistamines and anti-inflammatories slow down recovery from illness, but the effect sizes seem too small to make a real difference.
For something like a cold or a flu, I doubt it'll matter, and the trade-off of being able to be more active and productive outweighs things.
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The way I heal myself is the two two two approach - two space heaters, two blankets, two bourbons for a night. If you don't die, you sweat it out during before the morning - at a moment you have fever, the next moment you are sweating like crazy and need to cool yourself - that means you are over the hill. I don't bother with paracetamols, ibuprofens and other things like that.
I am lately of opinion that mild fevers shouldn't be medicated - otherwise you just prolong the suffering.
Maybe so, but honestly I'd rather suffer for a day or two longer if it means not having to pass an entire night with those nightmare headaches.
As for the bourbon - I might try that.
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I recommend septoplasty when you get better.
Being sick like that is the only time I listen to audiobooks.
Already scheduled the preparatory talks with a specialist. Just need to wait a few months until the glorious public health care queues clear up.
I might try that. Headaches could be too bad for it, but worth a shot.
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