Reyali @ Reyali @lemm.ee

Posts

2

Comments

317

Joined

2 yr. ago

OP knows they aren’t the same thing. Their point was that if the subscription model came with promise of repair, maybe there’s a purpose/value in it for the consumer. But without that, it’s pure greed.

No benefit? I agree that inflation can make paying a house off early less financially advantageous, but it’s silly to say there’s no benefit.

with an interest rate lower than inflation

First to your point, with interest rates as they’ve been the last year or so, it isn’t safe to assume your interest will be lower than inflation. (Mine isn’t, and I bought my house last June.)

Also, removing a huge monthly bill grants freedom in the short-term. Making a mortgage payment every month may mean things like not leaving a bad job or not starting your own business due to fear of losing your house. With that expense out of the way, you can make riskier choices with potential for greater pay off.

And lastly, there’s the mental burden of debt. It’s easier to be happy when you don’t have any debt, so getting rid of it can be a huge boon personally.

So yeah, I might lose a net benefit of a few thousand dollars spread out over the next 15 years if I don’t pay my house off early. But I might miss out on even greater benefits because I’m saddled with ~33% of my take home going into my mortgage every month. I’ll take the minor hit to be debt-free ASAP.

First thing that came to mind was Blaine from Glee. I looked through some pictures and some of the things that stood out that make his style seem cute include:

• More use of color than normal (including unusual colored pants)
• Bow ties
• Suspenders
• Sweaters
• Sweater vests

Maybe not everyone’s idea of cute male aesthetic, but it works for me.

My dentist has started specifically asking people if they drink sparkling water, because people assume it’s equivalent to water but according to my hygienist, it can be about as damaging as soda.

That’s incredible history and is so unsurprising with what we now know about Musk. Thanks for sharing.

I had a weird dynamic recently that hit on almost all of these in conflicting ways.

I’m a manager at work and one of my direct reports was visiting my city on vacation. She invited me to breakfast with her and her husband. So: she invited, I’m local, she’s ~25 years older, but I’m the manager. Plus she had two guests, and it was just me.

I was ready to pay but when the check came her husband jumped on it so fast I didn’t even have a chance to push back. But then I gave her a $450 standing desk for free, so I guess she still got the good end of the deal!

I could have almost written this exactly. I moved the reddit icon on my phone the day protests started, so while I went to open it a few times, I had physical barrier that made me stop and think about my action. I’ve checked it maybe 3 times to see some of the self-implosion on the site, but otherwise was shocked at how little I missed it.

I met many irl friends from reddit meetups. It’s been a huge part of my social experience for well over 10 years. It seems silly, but I felt pretty heartbroken when I realized I couldn’t in good conscience continue to use it.

Lemmy has been great and simpler to adapt to than I expected. The hardest thing was choosing what server to sign up on, and now I’m still testing out different app options.

As I thought on this more, I realized I taught myself a new habit to use the parking brake in my car after I’d been driving for a year, and then I trained myself to turn on a driving setting in my car every time I drive.

What it made me realize is that I can form habits when they are 1) simple actions, 2) there’s specific context (being in my car), and 3) there’s a physical reminder.

For the drive setting, I put a post-it note on the dial I have to turn. Seeing that every day for a few weeks reminded me to use it, and when it’s used my dashboard changes color (blue to red). After a few weeks using the post-it, I got used to the red dash, and eventually turning the dial has become a pretty automatic thing. And if I forget it, I quickly notice the blue dash and remember to make the change.

I mentioned taking my meds is tough, but as long as I have it by my bed I actually take it ~5 days a week without the reminder on my phone going off. Because it’s a simple task and it’s next to my bed and done when I wake up, and my phone provides a physical backup when I forget.

On the other hand, I have been giving my cat 2x daily meds for a year longer than I’ve taken daily meds myself. I remember it’s a task I need to do, but I am 100% dependent on a phone alarm to actually do it (and I must snooze the alarm until I do it, because if I don’t act immediately there’s a >50% chance I’ll forget again). I think the biggest difference is that context is not the same. I might be anywhere in my house doing anything at that time. For the morning dose 5 days a week I’m working and we’re in my office, but my meetings are different every day so the context isn’t the same.

Oh, I’ve also made a habit of scooping my cat’s litter! I have flushable litter (game changer!!) and I can see the litter box while using the rest room, so I just do it right away before flushing and washing my hands. Simple task (even though I sometimes I skip it when I’m stressed or tired, but it’s a choice to skip it), triggered by physical context, and it’s in my line of sight multiple times a day.

I’m totally “thinking out loud” in what I’m writing here, so I apologize that it’s long and rambly. I wonder how I might use those 3 things to build other habits… oh! When I worked in my office, my gym was next door and I worked out with a coworker. I also kept my gym bag in my office in the same place I put my purse. Thankfully I don’t sweat much so I didn’t have to change my workout clothes daily (which was a habit I couldn’t get into), but seeing the bag and my coworker going to the gym did get me to do it 3x a week for over a year.

Mid-30s here in a corporate setting so not a direct parallel, but in my early 30s I hired someone who is late 50s and I was really scared about that. She was also coming from a manager position over ~150 people, entering an individual contributor role, and I only had 4 months of management experience at this company, and about a year over 7 years ago at another. I was really scared it would be a problem.

A year later, I can confidently say age has not mattered at all and she regularly talks about how good a leader I am.

Two things to remember: You got this promotion for a reason, and everyone (who isn’t self-employed) will end up with a manager younger than them at some point in their career. As long as you do the job well, people will respect you. And those who don’t are likely problem employees for other reasons.

If you are already eating meals consistently and don’t let yourself get to the point of physical impairments from not eating, then I can see how my methods wouldn’t work for you.

My suggestion of having easy meals was just to facilitate eating meals consistently, no matter how you feel. I found when I ate a meal at the same time every day no matter what, after a year or so I actually developed the feeling of needing to eat at that time of day. But if you’re already eating at the same times every day and you still don’t feel a need to, then I don’t think my experiences can help you :(

Sorry for the long message ahead :)

This is a TL;DR list I wrote to help when my cousin was struggling to eat and having stomach aches whenever he did eat:

1. By medical definition, “anorexia” just means low/no appetite. Anorexia nervosa is the intentional eating disorder.
2. Anorexia can cause stomach pains, especially following a meal. Fix this by eating frequent small meals or snacks.
3. Cut your diet down to bland food and introduce different things in slowly or document your food intake to figure out if there are any allergies/intolerances causing you to not feel well.
4. Make food a routine using external motivation to eat, such as alarms, calendar invites, or planning meals with coworkers/friends.
5. Suggested rule of threes: 3 meals, 3 snacks, at least 3 hours apart. Set a timer!
6. Find easy meals you can always eat. Whether it’s takeout or just something super easy to make, have a staple you can always fall back on when you don’t want to think about food. A rice cooker with a steamer basket was a game changer for me, and lately it’s been Trader Joe’s frozen foods.

Learning #1 was what made me realize my relationship with food was unhealthy and needed to change. #2-3 might not apply to your situation but I’m leaving them in case anyone else needs it.

#4 and 6 really are the answer to your question. When I got my first job out of college, I ate lunch daily with coworkers even if I had no desire to eat, which greatly helped the last thing I’ll share: I redefined what I thought of as hunger.

I realized even when I didn’t consciously feel the need to eat, my body had symptoms. I paid attention to things like lightheadedness, a tightness in my stomach, and shakiness, and started considering those to be “feeling hungry.” After forcing myself to eat more consistently and listening to my body, I actually started to feel hungry on a regular (daily-ish) basis.

Oh, and for a year or two I lifted weights 3x/week and that made me hungrier than I’d ever been in my life. The first three months I always felt hungry. But that’s a bigger commitment than the other suggestions :)

I hope this might help you!

Glad it’s not just me, but also I’m sorry. It’s so frustrating for me, especially because they’re usually good behaviors that I know are helpful for me.

LOL, relatable. I also had to literally train myself over years to feel hungry, and all that training goes away when I’m really stressed. Living with a partner is the best thing for my eating habits. He needs to eat, so I eat… at least once a day.

Oh! I remembered one more but can’t edit my comment: I use my parking brake every time I park my car and take it off when I start driving. I did manage to build that one into a habit a couple years after I started driving.

So I guess it is possible for me to create habits, but they have to be small, specific, and have specific contexts they trigger in (like the car).

Oh that one’s still usually a thought for me, lol.

I have two things that are habitual upon arriving at home: 1) I don’t open my house door until I’ve put my key back in my purse from unlocking it. Rain, cold, whatever? I don’t tempt fate. And 2) upon walking into my house my purse goes down on a table by the door. That one I sometimes break when I have things in my hands, but then I think about it obsessively until it gets done. I do those so I don’t lose my stuff everywhere and sometimes I don’t think about them, but if I don’t went on total autopilot I know I’d misplace them sometimes.

I’ve used this clip from Malcolm in the Middle for the same purpose!

Thanks for speaking to the other side, because that’s so hard to believe. I don’t know about everyone with ADHD, but it definitely seems to be a common shared experience. The only habits I do completely without thinking are a) putting my seatbelt on in the car, and b) picking my phone up like 100 times a day. Anything bigger, even something like eating, is something I have to will myself to do.

And when I’m trying to form a “habit,” like certain types of note taking or task planning at work, no matter how effective it is and how much I like it, I never manage to do it more than about 3 weeks before my brain just completely shuts off that pathway and it’s like I forget that process exists altogether.

If I don’t put my meds on my nightstand AND have a reminder on my phone, I will forget them most of the time. Daily activity, takes almost no brain power, and it still doesn’t trigger in my head as something I need to do unless I physically see it.