Name ONE thing that could improve your life

One thing that could improve my life is having some free time, being around my friends again, and getting more than 1-3 hours of sleep a night. All of those will happen in 2 weeks and 1 day.

As far as the working, been working since I was 16, my first job nearly drove me insane. I hated it way more than I even knew I did until the day I told my manager he could cram his bullshit up his ass with a machete (literally) and walked out. About 3 slayer songs and one run through of "Into the Lungs of Hell" later, I walked to the bike shop and realized just how GOOD i suddenly felt.

This was followed by 3 months of feeling like shit cause I was dead broke, but then I finally got a job at the local fish plant and kinda enjoyed it. I got to work on the fillet crew in the freezer. All I did was stack boxes... 12 hours a night... 24000 pound of boxes. BUT: No angry customers, no bitchy customers, no retarded managers, just boxes, a blast freezer and some semi-friendly co-workers. I didn't mind it that much.

My lesson: If your job makes you come home and want to kill someone, yourself, or all of the above. GET THE FUCK OUT!

But yeah, also my life could be improved by some friends who listen to GOOD metal :p
 
Erik said:
Holy shit you guys really are terribly fucking bitter that you had to waste 10 years to realize something that I've known all along, aren't you? :tickled: Neener

haha, nah, not bitter at all. In fact, having that shit job allowed me to get married, buy a home and cars and live qute comfortably considering I'm only 27 and the wife is almost 24. Now that I've got all of it, I'll take a job I like. Lke I said, I paid my dues.

And it was only 4 years.
 
All i care about is Sex Booze and Rock n' Roll, and having enough money to do all three + eat + have shelter.


I'm a fuckin' horrible person :)
 
Atlas Shrugged said:
Sounds like a rationalization for laziness. I'm talking about improving your life spiritually, mentally, and physically. Improvement within. :)

Rationalization? certainly not. Improvement which rely on time is certainly not an improvement but a calamity. When your mind fully accept its current situation without trying to change it, without wanting fulfillment in the future, your whole being is very quiet, peaceful and undisturbed. Have you observed it?
 
Iconoclastic Tendencies said:
My lesson: If your job makes you come home and want to kill someone, yourself, or all of the above. GET THE FUCK OUT!

Fuck yea! I used to work Customer Service for sparkletts drinking water. Every day I wanted to cuss some asshole who was complaining about their water delivery. One time this douchebag actually had the gall to ask. "Well who's going to pay for me waiting on hold for 20 mins on my cellphone?" I politely apologized for the wait. But this douchedcunt goes on and on about his cellphone bill for about 5 mins.

The fact that you were only allotted 9 mins per day for shitbreaks didn't alleviate much of the stress either.
 
May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis.

[/fightclub]

God, I love that movie.
 
Erik said:
Yeah but do you understand him though? His point (as I understand it) is that if you COMPLETELY STOP THINKING ABOUT IMPROVING LIFE, there IS NO IMPROVEMENT! As far as you're concerned, your life will be perfect as it is! It's a rather simple concept, but probably pretty much unattainable.

so pretty much we were more or less stating two different takes on a similar way of thinking, eh?
 
Rensei said:
Rationalization? certainly not. Improvement which rely on time is certainly not an improvement but a calamity. When your mind fully accept its current situation without trying to change it, without wanting fulfillment in the future, your whole being is very quiet, peaceful and undisturbed. Have you observed it?

That sounds like the idealogy of a homeless person. "Well, life's dealt me a crap hand, why should I try and raise myself out of the gutter and improve my conditions? Panhandling is much more stressfree."
 
Demilich said:
If you expect your life to be "good" all the time you probably deserve to suffer! Take the bad times in stride, as a part of life that we all have to deal with to some extent, and learn to enjoy the good things for what they are. That's how I try to look at it, though admittedly there hasn't been THAT much bad shit going on in my life.

As Erik pointed out, I'm not saying that you should expect your life to be "good". "Good" and "bad" exist only within you, it has no objective value. Expectation is, again, relying on time. Why should we have to "deal" with "bad" times?
 
J. said:
May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis.

[/fightclub]

God, I love that movie.

Fuck yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Atlas Shrugged said:
That sounds like the idealogy of a homeless person. "Well, life's dealt me a crap hand, why should I try and raise myself out of the gutter and improve my conditions? Panhandling is much more stressfree."

You misunderstand my point. Why should one be a panhandler to be stressfree? The panhandler are certainly not devoid of stress. By isolating yourself from "external" trouble, you obviously don't improve your mental condition.
 
Rensei said:
As Erik pointed out, I'm not saying that you should expect your life to be "good". "Good" and "bad" exist only within you, it has no objective value. Expectation is, again, relying on time. Why should we have to "deal" with "bad" times?

I guess I should have worded it more objectively or something. I'm not very good at arguing or anything, but what I meant to say is that people who get very upset over every little bit of hardship or suffering they have to endure and act like they think they're the only one who has trouble in their lives are ridiculous. I wasn't even responding to you directly or trying to attack you or anything, just using what you said as a springboard for stating my own point of view.
 
I really like my job! :tickled: I've even looked at other options, and I don't think I could do better than the role I'm in. So far, it's taken me around the world, but now I work in new locations (domestic only) every six months for about 2-3 months at 4 days per week, with new people, and always on new solutions, so I'm continuously getting new skillsets. It's cool because it's like an on-going education -- in fact, I've learned much more through work than I did at uni. I've worked with geologists, chemical engineers, wall street brokers, consumer retail gurus, it's just so diverse. I couldn't even begin to list the stuff I've worked with.

The only bad part is the travel away from home cos I have 2 kids now, but the fact is, I work from home at least 6 months out of the year, so it all balances out. The pay is ridiculously good, plus I get these frequent flyer miles and Diners club points, so the last 10-15 vacations we took were all paid for. Seriously, we don't take this shit for granted, we know we're really really lucky. When my wife was working, we had double the income.

Been doing it since 1995 now...before that, a couple of odd jobs just to pay off some student debts. Don't even bother listing those on my resume any more. I have about 4 pages worth of experience at about 15 different industry clients.

I'm actually wary about getting promoted because then I have to get more into the business side of things as a "senior manager", as opposed to just working with 'think tank' type SME's and building these cool solutions. Even been mentioned in journals for some of the shitz I managed, and had to present at business conventions etc.

If I could do something on the side, I'd really like to write a small movie script. A collection of short horror stories actually. Plus I'd like to record some music at Erik's house. :tickled: (Or anyone that will help record my crap so all I have to do is strum). :loco:
 
Regardless of expectations, there are good times and bad times whether one likes it or not. Ridding oneself of all expectations of improvement will not help a person escape that fact.
 
Rensei said:
You misunderstand my point. Why should one be a panhandler to be stressfree? The panhandler are certainly not devoid of stress. By isolating yourself from "external" trouble, you obviously don't improve your mental condition.

With your logic, mental condition doesn't need "improvement".