Tired of micromanaging my life

Wellbeing Health
1

I am depressed and biased. That wellbeing is the topic for rich folks. When you rich, you need to protect your valuables. You feel anxious that somebody invides your privacy. Poor has nothing to lose. No money. No relationships. Just paranoia. That I won’t find a job. That my parents will die. Browsing porn from anonymous tabs. Playing games, but not triple-A, and just casual free stuff. Using Linux to avoid being sued. That’s a miserable comfort zone of being poor. Somebody would say - a life choice.

There is one thing that inspires, or, rather, inspired me. That one day I won’t compete with all these cheerful and successful people in big cars around me for the place under the sun. I don’t need Facebook or meta or any other social network to compare mysefl. I just envious and sad, and it can not be helped.

What I think, and that’s why I am here, is that there is no place for me in a world of Humane Tech. Where people regulate and get public beating to those who were inspired to create something better than we humans were able to produce. Something that could help to cope with the misery of being a human. And I am not talking about drugs. I am talking about the purpose.

I live in Belarus. Every day I see the tragedy of how dumb and useless I am, that I can not change anything about my life, can not change things I’d like to see changed. Even when I know exactly what needs to be done, my exceptional ability to piss people off just wreck things in the worst possible manner. People, when offended, do nothing, and sometimes, even do the opposite. Block things and discredit them. I don’t know, maybe I lack emotional intelligence to deal with people, but for me it looks like I am just tired. Tired of smiling, tired of following all these code of conducts, rules, guidelines. I don’t punch people in the faces, do not sell drugs, commit crimes, what is left of my “freedom” if not being able to speak what I think. People being offended.

Be removing the tech, getting power to people who are offended, you are putting my life into complete mess and misery. I am tired of micromanaging my life, and I’d rather sell my soul to some tech that guides me through… to where I want to be.

2

We live in exceptionally taxing times for the human spirit. A hectic information society that bombards us with doom and gloom from all sides, overloads and overwhelms us. Hypercapitalist, we are spoonfed on how we ought to behave, who we ought to be, and what success should look like. We are made to crave shallow and vapid things. It divides us. Continuously distracted from pursuing worthy personal goals in life. That is how this system works, and how it survives.

The poor, those in need, the underprivileged and marginalized will feel most of the grind.They will feel it first, and be hit the hardest. Technology is merciless, especially when wielded by the haves, who have the luxury to shape it to their needs, oblivious to needs of others. There is nothing humane to that. But Wellbeing is for everyone. It is a human right.

Yes, it can be utterly depressing thinking on all of that is thrown at us. Most of all for those who are but small, and want change the most. But small is beautiful and small can be huge. Though in very different circumstances, I’ve been in similar state of mind at times as where you seem to be. Not seeing a positive path forwards, and upwards slopes to climb. Allowing the sign of the times to wear me down.

Until I realized that I that there was always hope, and that improvement comes in small increments but it accrues. Between seeing a glass half-full or even mindless optimism, and on the other hand perceiving a glass half-empty leading to a pit of despair, I just considered there to be a glass of water where I could sip from at any time. With some conscious effort of applying this mindfulness principle, I managed to let go of unrealistic expectations and see that there’s always things that I could do which would be uplifting to me and generally useful to others. If only just those tiny things. It doesn’t matter, they compound.

This (in hindsight) small shift of perception, opened up my mind to a whole different perspective. Suddenly I was able to view positive developments again. To see they are abound, but I was closed to them before. I do not expect to be a major factor in pushing these forward, but I am satisfied to just be of help. I am but small, and so are my contributions. But small is beautiful, and we should always remember that.

I hope you will find better times, and energy to uplift yourself. Your personal situation and wellbeing, your state of mind, are most important. As for tech. In itself it cannot be humane. Tech can only ever be supportive. It is a tool. How we humans wield it is the key factor in how humane it is.

3

Responding to your feelings about your situation:

  • I appreciated that you were very honest in your post about what you’re thinking and feeling
  • What does it mean to be rich? Does it not by definition involve someone else being poor? Why do we want this?
  • Nobody gets mega-rich without owning things, which involves literally stealing the product of someone else’s labour (the profits made selling something they made, the rent you can extract from them to live in a property)
  • It doesn’t make you a failure not to be rich. Most of the time the opportunity wasn’t there. How many people from Belarus are landing jobs in Silicon Valley? (The ones that are invariably started out with money!)
  • How many people in Silicon Valley are happy?
  • How much time does Elon Musk have to himself on any given day?
  • Do you think that you could be kinder and more patient with yourself?
  • When thinking of regret, I think it’s far more productive to ask yourself what you were trying to do when something didn’t work out the way you wanted. When I fall out with a friend, instead of thinking “why did I say that? Now they’re mad at me”, I might reflect that when I said this to them, I was trying to express that I was upset about their behaviour, and trying to address my feelings of anger. It’s harder to be impatient with yourself when you reflect on the intentions behind an error
  • When something just doesn’t happen, like landing a job, thinking “why didn’t I get this job?” is a question that you can’t answer alone (you can ask the person who made the decision and hopefully they will tell you), but asking questions like “what was I trying to do?” removes the self-judgement, and “why did I want the job?” begins to frame the question in terms of what needs you are trying to meet and how best you can achieve them
  • I think it’s OK to feel jealous?
  • Why do you compare yourself to other people?
  • Is our system effective? For example, supermarkets are our main method of distributing food, and yet in the US 40-50% of food produced is thrown away. In China there are entire cities built up of empty homes, built to be traded as stock (hence they have no use-value, just ownership-value)

A homeless guy was talking to me yesterday about how there are people who are motivated and people who are lethargic in both the rich and the poor. I think that we concluded that being lethargic reflects more how the person is feeling than anything intrinsically about them, and if you’re rich you’ll find that you can get through it pretty easily, whilst if you’re poor then it can make your situation liable to get worse. Either way I think that it can be a real menace, but that lethargy is indicative that your needs are not being met. It can be especially stressful when there are contradicting needs. e.g. when you need to work to get food and pay rent, but the need that’s causing your lethargy is a need to have more power over your day

Random book recommendation you didn’t ask for:

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Actually this isn’t true at all, but I mean that if you have means then it will give you more options (e.g. you can decide to take 6 months off, and you’re likely to have family members who pay your costs of living, help you to get a new job, you can pay for therapy)