BipolarGuy
Enlightened
- Aug 6, 2020
- 1,456
Since I'm planning on bringing things to an end pretty soon, I thought I would make a thread concerning lessons I have learned throughout my life.
Do feel free to add to the list.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this. Perhaps just to feel as though I'm passing on some of the things I've learned.
Maybe this thread will help and encourage others in some small way. Maybe it will help some people to understand a situation they're in currently or have been in.
Who knows?
Some of the things I mention here are tough life lessons that you learn through experience, while some are just basic observations about people and society that are just worth bearing in mind.
Sometimes I will provide one example from my life to demonstrate the point.
1) Don't live somebody else's life
When my dad was a young man he wanted to be a mechanic in the air force. He did not achieve this due to not grasping opportunities that were presented to him, including actually being initially accepted into the air force but then not following through with it!
He had other opportunities presented to him as well. For instance when he was between 18/19 his family organised to 'get him in the door' at Rolls Royce. His family used their contacts to get him an offer of an engineering apprenticeship. He accepted the offer of an apprenticeship but pulled out last minute because he didn't have the b***s to move away from home and build a life of his own.
Years later, he came to greatly regret not following his dreams earlier in life.
He projected this on to me, and when I was younger he tried to drive me towards being a mechanic in the air force despite me having no interest in this.
At 14/15, it got to the stage where I had to stand up to him and assert myself, telling him that I'll do what I want to do and not what he wanted to do himself.
I went on to follow the academic pathway, going to college and then university. I was the first member of my family to go to university.
You have to follow your own dreams, not live somebody else's life or do what somebody else thinks is best for you. Do not feel you have to do what somebody else wants just to make them happy, and do not feel guilty for following your own path.
2) Not every 'friend' will fight your corner
When I was at university, I worked at a supermarket during Summer and Christmas vacations.
I got to know a girl there quite well, and she liked me romantically. However I did not allow anything to happen due to her having a boyfriend. She was quite attractive, but I was put off of her making a move on me while in a relationship; "how could I possibly trust her if I was in a relationship with her", I thought to myself.
We lost touch when I stopped working there. She removed me from social media due to her boyfriend not wanting her to have contact with me.
9 years later I received a friend request from her on Facebook out of the blue.
She said she split up with her previous boyfriend and wants to reconnect.
We start meeting up, and it is clear that the old feelings are there.
We meet up a number of times and spend a lot of time messaging each other.
One time she asked me about how I'm feeling, as she saw a post on Facebook about me feeling really low. I tell her the truth, of course.
Now, bear in mind that at this point she is a trained paramedic and also tells me that she has gone through depression herself. She hasn't tried to end her life, but she says she had thought about how she would if she ever did.
Despite being in a position where she should know better, she says she wants nothing more to do with me, that I'm negative, and that she doesn't want dramatic BS in her life.
Cherry on the cake: she is the sort of person who uploads 'motivational quotes' and mental health awareness posts on social media.
Expecting people to be empathetic, logical or even consistent, while seemingly a reasonable thing to ask, will lead to frustration and disappointment.
No matter how well you think you know somebody, always be ready for a surprise.
3) The academic pathway isn't for everyone
Decades ago everyone understood the adage "it takes all kinds to make the world go round".
These days, you might be made to feel that you're valued less if you didn't go to college or university.
Your ability to contribute to society is not determined by whether you have a degree.
In fact many people who do have a degree then have to retrain when they come to get a job. For instance teachers have to go through teacher training after their degree, and accountants have to go through accountancy training. Plus, unless you go on to actually work in academic, most/all of what you learn at college or university will not be used in your career and will be completely forgotten.
That hot shot lawyer. Who maintains their car?
The cocky accountant. Who makes it possible for them to do their shopping?
The coronavirus lockdown has taught us a lot about who we really need in society.
Value yourself even if others don't.
4) Blood isn't always thicker than water
I have a very dysfunctional family.
I experienced emotional abuse as a child, from both my mother and father.
When I decided to follow my own pathway and go down the academic route, my family would literally gang up to mock me and wind me up. It was as though they couldn't understand that someone would want to do something other than have multiple children before reaching the age of 19.
Jealousy, gas-lighting and manipulation was rife.
Sometimes people feel they have a right to treat those closest to them worse than they would treat anybody else. Get away from it as soon as you are able.
5) Do the right thing, always!
I was working at a high school as a maths teacher. The school was going through a restructure and I was made redundant.
I started working at another school.
When I started working at this other school, one of the teachers got talking to me about the school I used to work at.
For some reason she was very interested in exactly what was going wrong at the school and who was to blame.
I just said that the school is going through a tough time and all teaching staff there are passionate about their ability to make a difference in the student's lives.
"Ohhh, keeping it professional, I see!", she replied.
There was a feeling that I was being professional because I was new at the school, but that she expected to be able to get info out of me once I had settled in.
Bear in mind that I could easily have engaged with this in order to pursue a sense of 'acceptance' or 'fitting in' with my new colleague(s).
Through getting to know the place, I discovered that this teacher was one of the 'in' crowd - you know what I mean, that small circle of chatterboxes that somehow get to know everything, even confidential stuff.
I discovered through observation that she was an incredibly bitchy person, and I felt relieved that I had not told her anything.
Just a few months into the academic year, the headteacher was forced to give her a formal reprimand as she was found to have been bitching about colleagues on social media. She was spreading baseless rumors and stirring things up.
After all this came out, nobody told her anything, her reputation was ruined and nobody had the same respect for her as they once had. She had, to an extent, isolated herself.
This is just one example of many that I could share.
Put your integrity above your desire to fit in. Fitting in is always temporary, whereas your integrity lasts forever.
If you feel as though you're right in a room full of people who you feel are wrong, don't be afraid of being the 'maverick'.
6) The dating game
I'm a young guy, but I have no idea what's going on with the dating scene these days!
Decades ago (maybe not even that long ago) people would tell each other if they had feelings for each other. Sure it took courage, but people would say it.
These days society makes a massive song and dance about it.
I mean sure, it's important to get to know each other before knowing if you'd like to spend the rest of your life with someone, but it's not as though you're going to go from dating straight to marriage. There is that in between period where you're in a relationship but are not married.
And it's so artificial too.
Afterward, you review the 'date'!
You judge the quality of the conversation and how easily it 'flowed'. You judge the amount of eye contact made.
Unless it was dead silent, or they were looking at you like a serial killer, it doesn't matter god damn it!
Besides, do you think that every conversation is going to be like this one conversation you had on this one date?
This point is just an observation.
I don't see this changing, but I wish things could go back to when it was simpler.
7) Don't expect to make a difference by complaining
This is especially true for government organisations, but also applies to some large companies.
More often than not making a formal complaint will not change anything unless something of such extraordinary seriousness has happened, and even then it isn't guaranteed!
Don't ever believe that internal complaints departments are unbiased or independent in any way, because they're not.
Internal complaints processes are designed to assure you that your complaint has been looked into in order to dissuade you from taking your complaint further, especially in the case where the next stage would be to an external authority.
Some organisations even have a response template that they change slightly depending on the details of each case.
If you try to be assertive and ask what has actually been done internally as a result of your complaint, you may even find that the organisation is unwilling to give you this information and will cite 'data protection' as the excuse.
Of course it shouldn't be like this, but it is.
8) Not everyone is altruistic
This may seem obvious at first but for genuine, honest people this is a difficult lesson to learn.
Not everybody has honest or genuine motivations or intentions, and not everybody does things for the right reasons.
The teacher who was motivated by 'making a difference', but now just cares about getting the next promotion.
That person who got their promotion not because of how brilliant they are at the job, but because they engage in 'office politics' and brown nosing.
The old friend who you haven't heard from in a long time who gets in touch to ask how you are....then stops messaging you when they've got the information/gossip they were after.
The church pastor who constantly asks for more money from the congregation, only to enrich himself.
The rich person who gives money to a charity in a public way and enjoys the publicity.
The politician whose job is to serve the public, but who ensures that contracts are handed to friend's businesses, for which he/she is rewarded.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
I have said before on this forum that I often feel that I'm too straight for this world. Sadly, people's intentions are very rarely genuine or pure. Sometimes I feel that the more bent you are the more you'll 'achieve'. Sometimes I feel that if you're a total sociopath, you'll rise to the top.
Again, this is not how it should be, but it is.
9) Don't forget to account for real life
This is just an observation.
People often get into debates about various things, but fail to account for individuality or the complexities or nuances of real life.
Politicians debate the future of a nation based only on their simplistic political ideology.
People, perhaps friends, will debate (for example on this forum) about various things. Points are made that sound good, but are too simplistic when applied to the real world.
People make plans for things in their life years in advance, but don't account for anything that might happen along the way.
I say this as a mathematician: the scientific method is used as a rigorous method for determining truth from untruth, but that doesn't mean that something isn't true just because there isn't scientific evidence for it!
We accept that things are true, or that they exist, without having a full understanding of them. Emotions, for instance.
We accept that our scientific understanding of the universe is incomplete.
If you look at the world only through the spectacles of the scientific method, you won't be able to see clearly.
10) Shop around
I know this may sound obvious, but you will be surprised by the number of people who shop around to get the best deal on their weekly shop but fail to assess all the options when making much more important decisions: buying a car, getting a mortgage, etc.
Buying a car:
The car sales office will helpfully offer you finance.
They don't finance the purchase themselves, they have a partnership with an external finance company.
The car sales office earns a commission on every customer they sell finance to on behalf of this finance company. It's another revenue stream for them.
If you want car finance, look around.
Typically you may be able to half the interest you'll pay if you shop around (even a bank will have a much lower interest than one of these third party finance companies).
Mortgage:
Don't settle for a bank, at least not directly.
A bank's headline interest rate isn't what rate they offer to the mortgage brokers that they work with, who get a lower rate.
Shop around. For instance ask mortgage brokers and use comparison sites.
These principles of course apply to other areas too.
11) Listen to understand, don't listen to respond
Do you ever feel like you're trying to explain something to someone and they seem to have an 'answer' for everything, even if you're not looking for an answer but are looking for empathy or understanding?
Perhaps you want people to understand how you're feeling inside. But all they do is offer cold practical advice (advice is fine, but sometimes you need to be understood).
Maybe you're in conversation with somebody who has a different opinion to you on something, and all they seem to want to do is convince you that they're right.
This happens when people listen to you so that they can use what you say to respond to what you've said, rather than listening to you to understand what you're saying.
In short, don't do this.
Aim to get your head out of the echo chamber!
That's it for now. I'll perhaps edit the post at a later date if I think of anything else.
Do feel free to add to the list.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this. Perhaps just to feel as though I'm passing on some of the things I've learned.
Maybe this thread will help and encourage others in some small way. Maybe it will help some people to understand a situation they're in currently or have been in.
Who knows?
Some of the things I mention here are tough life lessons that you learn through experience, while some are just basic observations about people and society that are just worth bearing in mind.
Sometimes I will provide one example from my life to demonstrate the point.
1) Don't live somebody else's life
When my dad was a young man he wanted to be a mechanic in the air force. He did not achieve this due to not grasping opportunities that were presented to him, including actually being initially accepted into the air force but then not following through with it!
He had other opportunities presented to him as well. For instance when he was between 18/19 his family organised to 'get him in the door' at Rolls Royce. His family used their contacts to get him an offer of an engineering apprenticeship. He accepted the offer of an apprenticeship but pulled out last minute because he didn't have the b***s to move away from home and build a life of his own.
Years later, he came to greatly regret not following his dreams earlier in life.
He projected this on to me, and when I was younger he tried to drive me towards being a mechanic in the air force despite me having no interest in this.
At 14/15, it got to the stage where I had to stand up to him and assert myself, telling him that I'll do what I want to do and not what he wanted to do himself.
I went on to follow the academic pathway, going to college and then university. I was the first member of my family to go to university.
You have to follow your own dreams, not live somebody else's life or do what somebody else thinks is best for you. Do not feel you have to do what somebody else wants just to make them happy, and do not feel guilty for following your own path.
2) Not every 'friend' will fight your corner
When I was at university, I worked at a supermarket during Summer and Christmas vacations.
I got to know a girl there quite well, and she liked me romantically. However I did not allow anything to happen due to her having a boyfriend. She was quite attractive, but I was put off of her making a move on me while in a relationship; "how could I possibly trust her if I was in a relationship with her", I thought to myself.
We lost touch when I stopped working there. She removed me from social media due to her boyfriend not wanting her to have contact with me.
9 years later I received a friend request from her on Facebook out of the blue.
She said she split up with her previous boyfriend and wants to reconnect.
We start meeting up, and it is clear that the old feelings are there.
We meet up a number of times and spend a lot of time messaging each other.
One time she asked me about how I'm feeling, as she saw a post on Facebook about me feeling really low. I tell her the truth, of course.
Now, bear in mind that at this point she is a trained paramedic and also tells me that she has gone through depression herself. She hasn't tried to end her life, but she says she had thought about how she would if she ever did.
Despite being in a position where she should know better, she says she wants nothing more to do with me, that I'm negative, and that she doesn't want dramatic BS in her life.
Cherry on the cake: she is the sort of person who uploads 'motivational quotes' and mental health awareness posts on social media.
Expecting people to be empathetic, logical or even consistent, while seemingly a reasonable thing to ask, will lead to frustration and disappointment.
No matter how well you think you know somebody, always be ready for a surprise.
3) The academic pathway isn't for everyone
Decades ago everyone understood the adage "it takes all kinds to make the world go round".
These days, you might be made to feel that you're valued less if you didn't go to college or university.
Your ability to contribute to society is not determined by whether you have a degree.
In fact many people who do have a degree then have to retrain when they come to get a job. For instance teachers have to go through teacher training after their degree, and accountants have to go through accountancy training. Plus, unless you go on to actually work in academic, most/all of what you learn at college or university will not be used in your career and will be completely forgotten.
That hot shot lawyer. Who maintains their car?
The cocky accountant. Who makes it possible for them to do their shopping?
The coronavirus lockdown has taught us a lot about who we really need in society.
Value yourself even if others don't.
4) Blood isn't always thicker than water
I have a very dysfunctional family.
I experienced emotional abuse as a child, from both my mother and father.
When I decided to follow my own pathway and go down the academic route, my family would literally gang up to mock me and wind me up. It was as though they couldn't understand that someone would want to do something other than have multiple children before reaching the age of 19.
Jealousy, gas-lighting and manipulation was rife.
Sometimes people feel they have a right to treat those closest to them worse than they would treat anybody else. Get away from it as soon as you are able.
5) Do the right thing, always!
I was working at a high school as a maths teacher. The school was going through a restructure and I was made redundant.
I started working at another school.
When I started working at this other school, one of the teachers got talking to me about the school I used to work at.
For some reason she was very interested in exactly what was going wrong at the school and who was to blame.
I just said that the school is going through a tough time and all teaching staff there are passionate about their ability to make a difference in the student's lives.
"Ohhh, keeping it professional, I see!", she replied.
There was a feeling that I was being professional because I was new at the school, but that she expected to be able to get info out of me once I had settled in.
Bear in mind that I could easily have engaged with this in order to pursue a sense of 'acceptance' or 'fitting in' with my new colleague(s).
Through getting to know the place, I discovered that this teacher was one of the 'in' crowd - you know what I mean, that small circle of chatterboxes that somehow get to know everything, even confidential stuff.
I discovered through observation that she was an incredibly bitchy person, and I felt relieved that I had not told her anything.
Just a few months into the academic year, the headteacher was forced to give her a formal reprimand as she was found to have been bitching about colleagues on social media. She was spreading baseless rumors and stirring things up.
After all this came out, nobody told her anything, her reputation was ruined and nobody had the same respect for her as they once had. She had, to an extent, isolated herself.
This is just one example of many that I could share.
Put your integrity above your desire to fit in. Fitting in is always temporary, whereas your integrity lasts forever.
If you feel as though you're right in a room full of people who you feel are wrong, don't be afraid of being the 'maverick'.
6) The dating game
I'm a young guy, but I have no idea what's going on with the dating scene these days!
Decades ago (maybe not even that long ago) people would tell each other if they had feelings for each other. Sure it took courage, but people would say it.
These days society makes a massive song and dance about it.
I mean sure, it's important to get to know each other before knowing if you'd like to spend the rest of your life with someone, but it's not as though you're going to go from dating straight to marriage. There is that in between period where you're in a relationship but are not married.
And it's so artificial too.
Afterward, you review the 'date'!
You judge the quality of the conversation and how easily it 'flowed'. You judge the amount of eye contact made.
Unless it was dead silent, or they were looking at you like a serial killer, it doesn't matter god damn it!
Besides, do you think that every conversation is going to be like this one conversation you had on this one date?
This point is just an observation.
I don't see this changing, but I wish things could go back to when it was simpler.
7) Don't expect to make a difference by complaining
This is especially true for government organisations, but also applies to some large companies.
More often than not making a formal complaint will not change anything unless something of such extraordinary seriousness has happened, and even then it isn't guaranteed!
Don't ever believe that internal complaints departments are unbiased or independent in any way, because they're not.
Internal complaints processes are designed to assure you that your complaint has been looked into in order to dissuade you from taking your complaint further, especially in the case where the next stage would be to an external authority.
Some organisations even have a response template that they change slightly depending on the details of each case.
If you try to be assertive and ask what has actually been done internally as a result of your complaint, you may even find that the organisation is unwilling to give you this information and will cite 'data protection' as the excuse.
Of course it shouldn't be like this, but it is.
8) Not everyone is altruistic
This may seem obvious at first but for genuine, honest people this is a difficult lesson to learn.
Not everybody has honest or genuine motivations or intentions, and not everybody does things for the right reasons.
The teacher who was motivated by 'making a difference', but now just cares about getting the next promotion.
That person who got their promotion not because of how brilliant they are at the job, but because they engage in 'office politics' and brown nosing.
The old friend who you haven't heard from in a long time who gets in touch to ask how you are....then stops messaging you when they've got the information/gossip they were after.
The church pastor who constantly asks for more money from the congregation, only to enrich himself.
The rich person who gives money to a charity in a public way and enjoys the publicity.
The politician whose job is to serve the public, but who ensures that contracts are handed to friend's businesses, for which he/she is rewarded.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
I have said before on this forum that I often feel that I'm too straight for this world. Sadly, people's intentions are very rarely genuine or pure. Sometimes I feel that the more bent you are the more you'll 'achieve'. Sometimes I feel that if you're a total sociopath, you'll rise to the top.
Again, this is not how it should be, but it is.
9) Don't forget to account for real life
This is just an observation.
People often get into debates about various things, but fail to account for individuality or the complexities or nuances of real life.
Politicians debate the future of a nation based only on their simplistic political ideology.
People, perhaps friends, will debate (for example on this forum) about various things. Points are made that sound good, but are too simplistic when applied to the real world.
People make plans for things in their life years in advance, but don't account for anything that might happen along the way.
I say this as a mathematician: the scientific method is used as a rigorous method for determining truth from untruth, but that doesn't mean that something isn't true just because there isn't scientific evidence for it!
We accept that things are true, or that they exist, without having a full understanding of them. Emotions, for instance.
We accept that our scientific understanding of the universe is incomplete.
If you look at the world only through the spectacles of the scientific method, you won't be able to see clearly.
10) Shop around
I know this may sound obvious, but you will be surprised by the number of people who shop around to get the best deal on their weekly shop but fail to assess all the options when making much more important decisions: buying a car, getting a mortgage, etc.
Buying a car:
The car sales office will helpfully offer you finance.
They don't finance the purchase themselves, they have a partnership with an external finance company.
The car sales office earns a commission on every customer they sell finance to on behalf of this finance company. It's another revenue stream for them.
If you want car finance, look around.
Typically you may be able to half the interest you'll pay if you shop around (even a bank will have a much lower interest than one of these third party finance companies).
Mortgage:
Don't settle for a bank, at least not directly.
A bank's headline interest rate isn't what rate they offer to the mortgage brokers that they work with, who get a lower rate.
Shop around. For instance ask mortgage brokers and use comparison sites.
These principles of course apply to other areas too.
11) Listen to understand, don't listen to respond
Do you ever feel like you're trying to explain something to someone and they seem to have an 'answer' for everything, even if you're not looking for an answer but are looking for empathy or understanding?
Perhaps you want people to understand how you're feeling inside. But all they do is offer cold practical advice (advice is fine, but sometimes you need to be understood).
Maybe you're in conversation with somebody who has a different opinion to you on something, and all they seem to want to do is convince you that they're right.
This happens when people listen to you so that they can use what you say to respond to what you've said, rather than listening to you to understand what you're saying.
In short, don't do this.
Aim to get your head out of the echo chamber!
That's it for now. I'll perhaps edit the post at a later date if I think of anything else.
Last edited:
