It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire. All of the wealth is going straight to the top. All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled. All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet. We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.

Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.

I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job. The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.

Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it? If so, what snapped you out of it?

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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    26 minutes ago

    Guillotine Party!

    Universal healthcare, securities tax, punitive top-tier income tax. We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons, or we can do it like the French got rid of their first and second estate.

  • ronflex@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I have personal goals in life I want to reach and I’m going to do whatever it takes to do so. Try laying out your life goals… What do I want to do 5, 10, 20 years in the future? Then you make a plan to achieve those goals, keeping in mind employment with inevitably be on that path. It can be seen as a means to an end or more depending on how you shape your view.

    Do you want to do a minimum wage job where you feel like you’re a worthless drone, or do you want a more meaningful career that could maybe even turn in to something more? You have the option to pave your own path. If you look at a job as nothing more than wage slavery, then those are the only jobs you are going to find. The companies that pay well and/or offer good benefits are definitely out there and they want people with skills who are motivated and reliable. Everyone has the chance for their big break, but it will never come if you don’t work for it. Also not every place to work is a faceless corporation, there’s a lot of small businesses out there needing talented people too, and those are often the sweetest deals as long as the business owner(s) care to keep their people happy. There’s such a thing as working for a company that you believe in and want to see succeed for a greater reason than bumping up your own paycheck.

    There’s also such a thing as working a job and doing what you like doing at the same time. I work with computers. Do it at work, do it at home too. I enjoy all of it, I lean new stuff every day and I make a good living doing what I consider to be fairly mentally stimulating but also rewarding work. Sure, it is pretty stressful at times, but there’s always a light around the corner.

    I’ve found that things have a way of working out, no matter how shitty things might look. Live your life for you and the ones you love, if you have to grease some corporate palms along the way or do some jobs you don’t necessarily love to get by, that’s just the way of things. The system is just kinda designed to work like that. Are you going to let that stop you? I personally say hell fucking no.

    I see one of the most powerful and defining traits of human beings to be our adaptability. You have the power to handle just about anything the world has to throw at you, whether you realize it or not.

    I’m not sure if you have any kind of faith, but it honestly helps. I’m not a religious person but I’ve found that having faith in myself and in the ones I love the most to be a very rewarding/fulfilling part of my life. I’ve found you have to find your own light in life, no one else will necessarily do that for you. Building a plan for your future and executing it is daunting and there will be adversity, but you can handle it. Balance out the hard/mentally taxing stuff with whatever it is that makes you truly happy.

    The system has failed, but we still have to live within it. There’s a positive though, if we play our cards right and use the system to our advantage to the best of our ability, we will have enough smart and skilled like-minded people down the road and we can band together to beat the system. The next revolution, whatever form it takes, will require all kinds of different talent from many different walks of life.

  • Zement@feddit.nl
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    6 hours ago

    MVW… Minimal Viable Work. Companies think only they can deliver shit? Just deliver the bare minimum… as they don’t the customers.

  • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I used to be in a bad space, getting off the internet more and living life more helps a lot, I am not trying to dismiss your concerns, but I think you will find the real world to be much less extreme than what’s on the internet.

    I mostly stopped following politics, the amount of injustice make me angry and unable to function, but I came to the realization that I am not the kind of person who is going to devote his quite literally limited time on earth to trying to fix other people’s stupidity, I go out and vote in elections, then I live my life, that’s it.

    Being online and reading people bitching about stuff and saying how bad it’s gonna be doesn’t really get you anywhere only into a bad space mentally, so why read it? I have curated a homepage on lemmy thats almost completely politics free, what’s politics is mostly satire to make me laugh, I feel better, and I focus on being a better me.

  • cum@lemmy.cafe
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    6 hours ago

    For survival. Do you somehow have the choice to simply not have to finance yourself to stay alive? This reeks of privilege, when your worries are about politics rather than staying alive.

  • zarathustra0@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    I feel you, but you need to remember that the world is generally a pretty chaotic place and predicting the future when complex systems pass tipping points and transition to new equilibria (as they are at the moment) is pretty difficult.

    Invest in yourself, your ability to cope with new and unfamiliar things, and build resilience. Resilience being the ability to bounce forward when you hit rocky patches. Don’t expect to bounce back and end up where you left off, but learn to adjust to the chaos where you need to.

    Develop your capabilities until you have a sense of being a competent, worthwhile and dependable person outside of the circus going on around us. Someone that isn’t quite so dependent on the big bad system we are often forced to be part of.

  • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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    12 hours ago

    I have no answer for you. Really, there is no point. Hopefully enough people give up on the system that it crashes and we can start over.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      If everybody gives up on the system we fought to build with protections for workers and public goods everyone can use, then starting over will just cause more death and suffering.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago
          1. Minimum Wage, Workers Compensation, Unemployment Benefits, Fulltime Employee Benefits, Union Protections, paid sick leave, maternity leave, vacation days, minimum employee age requirements, the ability to sue your employer for discrimination or other wrongful termination, etc

          2. Roads, Hospitals, Schools, Libraries, Water supply, Fuel Reserves, Medicaid, Medicare, etc

          And yeah, we’re going to lose a bunch of shit, because of assholes like you convincing everyone to “give up on it”.

  • Acamon@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I get the sense from your wording that you might be in the younger end of the spectrum. Although the world can feel pretty shitty and messed up, it’s often worth remembering “this too shall pass”. Obviously no one wants the world to be awful, and living through hard times isn’t desirable, but just like the good stuff never lasts, the bad stuff changes too. The Great Depression lasted a decade, the Nazis ran Germany for just a bit longer.

    Those were presumably fucking dreadful times to live through. But the decades that followed were comparatively prosperous for the countries. What’s happening in the US is depressing as all hell, but it’ll change, and all you can do is the best you can to make it less dreadful, for yourself and the people around you.

    • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      The difference this time, is that it doesn’t recover. Maybe bursts of recovery in specific places but on the whole, for the world, there is no recovery. Just subsiding into desolation.

      I am literally sitting in the truck after having basically quit my job. I feel this post in my bones and I’m 30.

      Sorry OP, wish I could give you some advice other than try to save some money and get a gun. Either to end the life of those who would do you harm, or for yourself when things become truly unbearable. Hard times are coming for all of us and they will last until we die, how bad things get is partially up to us. Do we just let them steamroll over us? I should hope not.

      • cum@lemmy.cafe
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        6 hours ago

        It’s really not that bad lol. America is still the richest country. I’m in the best financial and health spot I’ve ever been in.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    I feel the same. I found a way to leave the country. Will be leaving in the new year. I have kids and I can’t have them growing up here anymore. Time to try something new.

  • normalexit@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I work because I enjoy healthcare, food, and shelter. The system has always been rigged, so you just have to find something you enjoy (or can tolerate doing). Ideally try to think about things that make you happy and can pay you, and maybe try doing something in that field.

    When I go on vacation to tropical states there are always some overly tanned boat captains that just drive drunk tourists around and get paid decently well for it. I always think about those guys when I’m having a hard day at work, “man, they sure figured it out”

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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    10 hours ago

    If I don’t work I become homeless and starve to death. I do the minimum to keep my job and fuck the rest.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I mean, work is always a shit deal, trading life for money but you need money for life also including retirement which is a lot less guaranteed for millenials and younger.

    I’d recommend learning a trade like electrician or plumbing. You get fat stacks and control your own time. It takes a bit of time to learn but the work you do will never be a scam since it’s you working for an average person and yourself.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Life gets worse when you dont work hard.

    It doesn’t always get better when you do work, but it can always get worse.

    • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      That’s simply not true. I busted my ass for years and because I was a producer, I was kept in my role.

      Eventually I wised up and left. I put in the absolute minimum effort now and make way more than I have when working hard.

      Work smarter, not harder. And only work hard if it’s your own company. Hard work only goes so far and will eventually burn you out.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Right but imagine you didn’t work at all in those times. Can you imagine you would be living well currently?