IGX

I'm all for enjoying the fruits of hard work and smart decision making, but some people have it too goddam easy. When your life is so cush that you view the slightest inconvenience as a true life-and-death problem, you need to take a step back and reassess your life. Maybe a little bit of that excess could go to help somebody or something that doesn't have it quite as easy as you.

A couple of recent examples from work have me thinking. I see people every day who fret over $10K+ bicycles that serve as nothing more than toys in their lives, yet they have elevated them to the status normally reserved for loved ones.

These things have moved beyond wants or even passions. These have become legitimate needs in these people's minds.

I guess watching all those who lost everything in Sandy has me even more pissed than usual at these idiots who think they have a real problem when their toy isn't to their liking.

What do you mean by a $10+ bicycle?

Kazuya Mishima wrote:What do you mean by a $10+ bicycle?

$10,000 +, meant to put a K in after the 10.

I remember sitting through a retelling of how a "very lucky" young woman got a Valentino purse for less than half price and so only had to spend $1500 on it. It took her about 45 minutes to tell the story. I only listened because I thought there had to be more to the story like a drive-by shooting or maybe a stampede, but no, it was just all about the purse.

I have children so I don't understand owning anything that isn't ultimately disposable.

I also don't understand how one coordinates one's outfit with a purple patent leather purse so that confused me as well.

syaigh wrote:I remember sitting through a retelling of how a "very lucky" young woman got a Valentino purse for less than half price and so only had to spend $1500 on it. It took her about 45 minutes to tell the story. I only listened because I thought there had to be more to the story like a drive-by shooting or maybe a stampede, but no, it was just all about the purse.

I have children so I don't understand owning anything that isn't ultimately disposable.

I also don't understand how one coordinates one's outfit with a purple patent leather purse so that confused me as well.

This buying opportunity was the universe's way of verifying her "specialness"...as a friend, you were supposed to listen to her story and further confirm the fact that she is wonderful and awesome.

syaigh wrote:I also don't understand how one coordinates one's outfit with a purple patent leather purse so that confused me as well.

Shape?

syaigh wrote:I also don't understand how one coordinates one's outfit with a purple patent leather purse so that confused me as well.

I take this as a personal jab. Don't hate.

syaigh wrote:I remember sitting through a retelling of how a "very lucky" young woman got a Valentino purse for less than half price and so only had to spend $1500 on it.

You should have grabbed it out of her hands and vomited into it.

Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:I'm all for enjoying the fruits of hard work and smart decision making, but some people have it too goddam easy. When your life is so cush that you view the slightest inconvenience as a true life-and-death problem, you need to take a step back and reassess your life. Maybe a little bit of that excess could go to help somebody or something that doesn't have it quite as easy as you.

A couple of recent examples from work have me thinking. I see people every day who fret over $10K+ bicycles that serve as nothing more than toys in their lives, yet they have elevated them to the status normally reserved for loved ones.

These things have moved beyond wants or even passions. These have become legitimate needs in these people's minds.

I guess watching all those who lost everything in Sandy has me even more pissed than usual at these idiots who think they have a real problem when their toy isn't to their liking.

It all comes back to the Ego, man, and it's ignorant "Like Produces Like" view of things. "I have a 10K bike which folks consider awesome, therefore, I am awesome, too."

It's that Bitch Goddess of Success, makes people work way too many hours at jobs they hate just so they can get that brass ring, the pool and the big-ass TV, all so they can show how awesome and successful they are. They just consume, consume and consume some more, all so that other people can see how great they are.

nafod wrote:

syaigh wrote:I remember sitting through a retelling of how a "very lucky" young woman got a Valentino purse for less than half price and so only had to spend $1500 on it.

You should have grabbed it out of her hands and vomited into it.

Or be meaner-- tell her it's a fake, and not a particularly good one, and point out how you can tell (make something up). Tell her you've seen them for around $100.

Dr. Agkistrodon wrote:

Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:I'm all for enjoying the fruits of hard work and smart decision making, but some people have it too goddam easy. When your life is so cush that you view the slightest inconvenience as a true life-and-death problem, you need to take a step back and reassess your life. Maybe a little bit of that excess could go to help somebody or something that doesn't have it quite as easy as you.

A couple of recent examples from work have me thinking. I see people every day who fret over $10K+ bicycles that serve as nothing more than toys in their lives, yet they have elevated them to the status normally reserved for loved ones.

These things have moved beyond wants or even passions. These have become legitimate needs in these people's minds.

I guess watching all those who lost everything in Sandy has me even more pissed than usual at these idiots who think they have a real problem when their toy isn't to their liking.

It all comes back to the Ego, man, and it's ignorant "Like Produces Like" view of things. "I have a 10K bike which folks consider awesome, therefore, I am awesome, too."

It's that Bitch Goddess of Success, makes people work way too many hours at jobs they hate just so they can get that brass ring, the pool and the big-ass TV, all so they can show how awesome and successful they are. They just consume, consume and consume some more, all so that other people can see how great they are.

Sounds eerily familiar. Haha.


I agree. When my dad died it kinda sank in that I want a Life with my wife and future children not one that was spent pissing away at a job just to own stuff. Subsequently this was when I stopped cycling. Lol

One thing I will always remember is that when I really thought I was probably going to die, "I wish I had worked more and bought more stuff." was not anywhere on the list of things that went through my head.

One thing I will always remember is that when I really thought I was probably going to die, "I wish I had worked more and bought more stuff." was not anywhere on the list of things that went through my head.

Reposted for the lesson.

Schlegel wrote:One thing I will always remember is that when I really thought I was probably going to die, "I wish I had worked more and bought more stuff." was not anywhere on the list of things that went through my head.

My dad said something similar after he had cancerous tumors removed from his liver, and then a couple years later had a transplant.

He still works like crazy, but he gets worked up about completely different things than he used to. Far less trivial nonsense.

It's a sad thing.

I was having a conversation with my ex-wife recently, and some things came up which I had been deliberately avoiding thinking about.

It had occurred to me, back when our marriage had reached hull-crush depth, that she might not necessarily be angry at me; that she may in fact not hate me, as I thought she'd grown to throughout our few short years.

I wasn't an abusive husband or anything like that. My problem was that I wasn't really there for her, and in many ways for us, when we were together.

You can take a cursory glance at my training log and take away from it the impression that I have a tendency to think way too much about things which interest me. Maybe it's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, who knows- but when I find something that interests me, I immerse myself in it, all the way. This isn't necessarily a bad thing- I found one day that I like computers, so, I taught myself the basics of Unix and Linux Systems Administration, the Perl programming language, and I've managed to build myself a career out of it, one where I work 9 to 5, occasionally an our or two on a Sunday for scheduled maintenance, my boss lets me take a day off whenever I want, and it pays enough to feed me and my dog, and have enough money in the bank to cover any of the contingencies that could crop up in my simple life.

But it can be bad, too. The poor girl met me and I was one person- a beer-swilling hooligan who laughed at people who went to gyms, stayed out all night carousing... who she somehow found to be lovable and charming. Then, all of a sudden one day I flipped my wig, got religion (became a Buddhist), quit getting shit-faced-hammered every night, started caring about my body- and everything changed. I bounced back and forth between so many fitness, and strength & conditioning extremes she probably had no idea who I'd be, the day-after-next. And the trouble was the total immersion. So much time and energy and thought put into figuring out new diet programs, lifting protocols ... Time and energy that could have been better spent put forth in the relationship. I could have just been doing sets of 5 in the gym, adding a little weight each time, then going home and eating a steak, and taking care of shit there. But nope, in my head, I was always at the gym, always thinking about what to do, or eat, next. OR, how to do shit differently, and every time I did that I'd change into a completely different person.

It wasn't that I had changed that bothered her. It was that I had changed way too much, I guess.

I don't think she was angry at me. I don't think she hated me. She told me yesterday that she still loves me.

I think that it was frustration, that was at the root of her behavior. I think that she was frustrated because even though I was there, bringing in an income, having dinner with her at night, watching TV with her, I wasn't really there. I was off somewhere else, missing it. I'd gone too far off the map, changed too much, and she couldn't figure out why, and what's more, she felt afraid, because I was exhibiting a complete lack of stability (and this is a bad thing, when you're a husband).

I thought a lot about these things and I came to realize that just like it's a good thing if you have a job which you enjoy purely for the sake of the work its self and getting it done, and this job pays your bills and feeds your family and gives you peace of mind that you're providing for yourself and your own, and doesn't eat into your precious time with your loved ones (but rather helps enhance it), than so too should the positive things you do in your free time- your exercise program included. It should add-to your life, it should help you enjoy the rest of your life with those you love, not detract from it.

When I die, I will still regret not being there for her like I should have been.

That was actually quite exquisit. I've lived with Mr. Screaming Flying Monky for 26 years and 3 children. It is hard fucking work. I hate him for when he wasn't there for me, and he hates me for when I wasn't there for him. The vows and grit and determination and the offspring kept it going. Marraige is no walk in the park and is only for the warrior and strong of heart.

And back to the original posting. This is the shit that matters. Raising kids who are loved, and keeping your shit together, come what may.

I can tell you now, having someone who is very dear to you and suddenly losing them from your life really puts everything into perspective.

You look around you and nothing else matters. It polarises your focus on what is important.

I recently lost a grandparent who was dear to me and a partner that I had invested a lot of my heart and dreams into,
(different circumstances for both cases, but the loss is the same).

Never waste sharing a single moment with those you love - ever.

But marriage breaks down because men crave strange pussy and women crave strange cock........and after the apocolypse survivors will kill others for the things that we throw away now.

Dr. Agkistrodon wrote:It's a sad thing.

I was having a conversation with my ex-wife recently, and some things came up which I had been deliberately avoiding thinking about.

It had occurred to me, back when our marriage had reached hull-crush depth, that she might not necessarily be angry at me; that she may in fact not hate me, as I thought she'd grown to throughout our few short years.

I wasn't an abusive husband or anything like that. My problem was that I wasn't really there for her, and in many ways for us, when we were together.

You can take a cursory glance at my training log and take away from it the impression that I have a tendency to think way too much about things which interest me. Maybe it's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, who knows- but when I find something that interests me, I immerse myself in it, all the way. This isn't necessarily a bad thing- I found one day that I like computers, so, I taught myself the basics of Unix and Linux Systems Administration, the Perl programming language, and I've managed to build myself a career out of it, one where I work 9 to 5, occasionally an our or two on a Sunday for scheduled maintenance, my boss lets me take a day off whenever I want, and it pays enough to feed me and my dog, and have enough money in the bank to cover any of the contingencies that could crop up in my simple life.

But it can be bad, too. The poor girl met me and I was one person- a beer-swilling hooligan who laughed at people who went to gyms, stayed out all night carousing... who she somehow found to be lovable and charming. Then, all of a sudden one day I flipped my wig, got religion (became a Buddhist), quit getting shit-faced-hammered every night, started caring about my body- and everything changed. I bounced back and forth between so many fitness, and strength & conditioning extremes she probably had no idea who I'd be, the day-after-next. And the trouble was the total immersion. So much time and energy and thought put into figuring out new diet programs, lifting protocols ... Time and energy that could have been better spent put forth in the relationship. I could have just been doing sets of 5 in the gym, adding a little weight each time, then going home and eating a steak, and taking care of shit there. But nope, in my head, I was always at the gym, always thinking about what to do, or eat, next. OR, how to do shit differently, and every time I did that I'd change into a completely different person.

It wasn't that I had changed that bothered her. It was that I had changed way too much, I guess.

I don't think she was angry at me. I don't think she hated me. She told me yesterday that she still loves me.

I think that it was frustration, that was at the root of her behavior. I think that she was frustrated because even though I was there, bringing in an income, having dinner with her at night, watching TV with her, I wasn't really there. I was off somewhere else, missing it. I'd gone too far off the map, changed too much, and she couldn't figure out why, and what's more, she felt afraid, because I was exhibiting a complete lack of stability (and this is a bad thing, when you're a husband).

I thought a lot about these things and I came to realize that just like it's a good thing if you have a job which you enjoy purely for the sake of the work its self and getting it done, and this job pays your bills and feeds your family and gives you peace of mind that you're providing for yourself and your own, and doesn't eat into your precious time with your loved ones (but rather helps enhance it), than so too should the positive things you do in your free time- your exercise program included. It should add-to your life, it should help you enjoy the rest of your life with those you love, not detract from it.

When I die, I will still regret not being there for her like I should have been.

DA, You're WAY over thinking this. Move on.

(edit): Meant to say, Don't beat yourself up. That's for ex-wives and IGX.

shit. There I go again.

I got some kick-ass Airwalks (after wishing they would make a size 15 for about a decade) a few months ago for just $25. The sole already started peeling off one of them. The only thing that saved me from overdosing was seeing the 4-D (whatever that means) ultrasound of my boy, who will arrive soon without any obvious deformities.

Congrats, Peach! Raise him to be just like me when he grows up.

He'll be taller than you when he is 7. And not just because you'll be RIPing.

He'll be taller than me wearing size 15 cheap inferior shoes but not because I'll be RIPing. You must know after all these years, I will live forever. Even after the apocolypse.

Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:I'm all for enjoying the fruits of hard work and smart decision making, but some people have it too goddam easy. When your life is so cush that you view the slightest inconvenience as a true life-and-death problem, you need to take a step back and reassess your life. Maybe a little bit of that excess could go to help somebody or something that doesn't have it quite as easy as you.

I guess watching all those who lost everything in Sandy has me even more pissed than usual at these idiots who think they have a real problem when their toy isn't to their liking.

I wish I could fit that onto a bumper sticker. Maybe a screen saver for Windows? Anyway, good post. You a smart guy.