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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2499 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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).

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I'd like to think I am encouraging it, and taking it very seriously, much like Kierkegaard wrote about Christianity:

I wonder if a man handing another man an extremely sharp, polished, two-edged instrument would hand it over with the air, gestures, and expression of one delivering a bouquet of flowers? Would not this be madness? What does one do, then? Convinced of the excellence of the dangerous instrument, one recommends it unreservedly, to be sure, but in such a way that in a certain sense one warns against it. So it is with Christianity. If what is needed is to be done, we should not hesitate, aware of the highest responsibility, to preach in Christian sermons—yes, precisely in Christian sermons—AGAINST Christianity.

Not to get too heavy. I thought your post offering your own advice was quite good.

To explain a bit more, I suppose I see older married men saying things like “you may not be ready” as part of the problem. I’d rather see older folks who have been through marriage say something more like “you’ll never be ready, it’s difficult, but it’s worth it.”

I’m not married myself so again and I can’t speak for the personal experience. I’m more talking about what would be healthy on a societal level.

I gotcha. I suppose in a way perhaps I think most people may just not be cut out for marriage in today's world because everything is telling them that marriage is a deal you can just renege on later. As opposed to a sacred vow. And I see the choice to opt out as preferable to screwing up kids who have to stomach seeing their parents divorce. But I see your point, certainly, and I'll give it some thought the next time I am tempted to jump in with dubious advice. Thanks for clarifying.

marriage is a deal you can just renege on later.

Yeah this is the shitty part. It's sad how normalized divorce has become, really shows just how heartbreakingly immature the West is. We can't have one damn adult commitment we don't break.

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