Calm down. Chill out. Relax. Take a deep breath. We're gonna get through this.
Except sometimes, we wont, because the other party is really taking this thing that you don't think is that deep seriously. Aren't you tired of it?
u/allboutryan asked Reddit:
What do people take way to seriously?
Here were some of those answers.
Vicarious Living
Giphy
Youth sports. I went and saw a co-workers kid play hockey. He's 9. Adults were screaming, a fight broke out between parents, swearing at the refs, the whole 9 yards. My co-worker didn't participate, but wasn't fazed. I asked him what the deal was and he just said "this is the norm".
Sorry Susan, little Johnny isn't going to be the next Patrick Kane. He very well could be eventually, but it's not like the draft is next week.
More Parent Problems
Honestly children's safety. Helicopter parents who don't let their kids go outside with friends or freak out at every scrape or bruise are not helping their kids. Now that doesn't mean you should neglect children, just don't suffocate them. I've seen small children with machetes and they were well behaved, probably because of trust and social expectations.
Preach
Giphy
Can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you I took my fears way too seriously in high school. Can't ask her out, she might say no. Can't make that joke, they might think I'm awkward. Can't go to that party, wear that shirt, can't can't can't.
I was so afraid of failing I guaranteed that I would fail. I never risked anything, never reached for anything. And when I finally realized what I'd done, I just made the same painful, awkward mistakes I'd feared later in life, in college, in young adulthood.
Experience is a long string of failures. Hopefully, you reflect on them and learn from them. Avoiding experience does not avoid failure. It delays it.
The World At Large
The opinions and actions of very, very small groups of people. You always see it reported in the more sensationalist media outlets: 'People outraged about...', followed by whatever decision a company has made this week. If you read the article, it's pretty much always a scant handful of people -- two at most -- who have managed to whip up a storm in a teacup, usually about nothing at all. The best advice I every heard when it comes to keeping things like this in perspective is to imagine that the plural noun in phrases like this -- you know, 'Scientists now think that...' or 'People are claiming that...' or 'Mothers all around the country are outraged by...' -- can be replaced by 'Two dudes in Iowa'.
'Two dudes in Iowa now think that global warming might be overblown' is not a news story.
Kidz!
Giphy
As a former Special Educator: teachers, many teachers, take "disrespectful behavior" too seriously.
I dealt with quite a few authoritarian teachers myself when I was young.
- I don't think it's OK for children to be rude or cruel to their teachers or elders. I put "disrespectful behavior" in scare quotes because I was referring to those situations when the child (keep in mind these are children) means no harm and/or is unaware of or can't control his/her behavior.
- I have immense respect for teachers and the profession of teaching. In my 6 years as a Special Education teacher working with students who have autism or emotional disabilities, I met dozens of teachers and almost all of them were wonderful people. Better than me, in fact, because I got emotionally and psychologically exhausted and couldn't hack it anymore.
- The person I described in subsequent posts is a cruel tyrant. She consistently uses fear to keep her students "in line (i.e. silent)". All teachers lose their temper sometimes. That's human.
- I think an adult should not take the things a 5th grader says/does personally. Even if you do have to discipline them, keep some perspective. We all made our share of dumb decisions as kids. That's what kids do.
- Thank you to all the parents of children with disabilities who support the work of special educators and work with them. You are the real MVPs.
If It Works, It Works
Giphy
Brands that they use. For example, some car guys are either all BMW or all Benz and act like their car brand is inherently superior to others. Same with snowmobiles, dirt bikes, trucks etc...
All the different varieties lead to innovation and have their own pluses and minuses.
It's TOXIC™
Giphy
Knocks to their "masculinity". I know far too many people that are missing out on great movies like Paddington 2 or Spirited Away because they're not traditionally masculine movies. And that's just a tiny little example, some folk get WAY overboard about stuff like that.
A Frisbee By Any Other Name
Giphy
Frisbees
I was on travel for work last week and my hotel was across the street from a park with a Frisbee golf course (excuse me, a "disc golf course"). Since I had some free time one afternoon, I bought a six dollar Wham-O Frisbee and went over to enjoy a beautiful sunny day and play a few holes. Multiple, multiple people felt compelled to tell me that my discs were not regulation. Who the f-ck cares? I'm not competing for prize money. My cheap Frisbee wasn't damaging the course. Go away and mind your own damn business!
Calm Thyself
Giphy
First Person Shooters and Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas. I have a couple friends that are great to hang out with in person but they are so toxic the minute anything goes wrong in a game. Yelling, blaming, rage quitting, bossing others around, etc. Its just a game guys, winning is fun but id rather lose with fun people than win with certain people at this point.
Meta
On reddit? Everything.
Reddit has an obsession with snarky responses and a "Actually..." mentality.
Hell, even if your comment supports their opinion, they'll dig and search for grammar mistakes just for the sake of proving you wrong about something.
So why should we avoid working in the wee hours? I think I already know.
Frozen
Turning Around GIF by BounceGiphy"When I was 18 I worked closing shift at BK and we got robbed. Had a gun shoved in my face and they put us in the walk in freezer. They got away with over 10k but the morons stole the managers car and left a gun in it that was registered to one of them. Then he turned on the others."
mrsmith2929
The Morgue
"Taking my first deceased patient to the hospital morgue in the middle of the night. It's in the basement and getting to the morgue wasn't straightforward. There's a lot of turns and dimly lit hallways. At the time the morgue was being renovated. I was freaking out bc there was no room left in the morgue and there was an unattended, OCCUPIED stretcher in the doorway."
tae_unnie
Allsups
"I was working night shift in a gas station/truck stop in Tucumcari, NM back in the mid 90's. I had another guy working with me who ran the diesel side while I worked the gas side. We had a guy come in around 1 or 2 am and just looked at stuff in the aisles for a while before he left. Didn't really think twice about him."
"Later, about 6 AM, when I got off, I drove home past a convenience store named Allsups, they're big in the southwest. There had to have been 30 cop cars in the parking lot. There aren't even 30 cop cars in Tucumcari so where they came from I have no idea."
"Come to find out that some time during the night the Allsups had been robbed and the clerk had been taken into the cooler, tied up, and beheaded. I found that out when I (day sleeper) was awoken by the state police a few hours later and asked if I had seen anything suspicious during the night. That guy who came in and left was the only thing I could think of."
"The police took a copy of our security footage which led them to a suspect who was later convicted for the murder. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to go to work the next day. We kind of assumed that the guy was going to rob us first, but didn't want to deal with two clerks, so he left and hit Allsups instead."
eruditeimbecile
He still died...
"Trauma nights on general surgery. We had a teen who was shot 9 times. Ran the code, did all the things including thoracotomy (so we had opened his chest to access his heart). He still died. I was sitting outside the trauma bay writing the note, janitorial staff cleaning the trauma bay (lots of blood and debris), and about 9 minutes after the end of the code and calling it... he sits up on the table, full situp under the tarp, and belts out a gutteral groan."
"Janitor staff pretty much all died and/or pooped their pants. we all ran in and restarted the code, even got some pulseless electrical activity, but ya, story still ends with him dying. Lots of theories about what it actually was, lazerus effect or just spontaneous diaphragmatic spasm. But ya, was absolutely crazy."
SkippyBojangle
Falling Out
"Charter bus driver: Picked a group of drunk people up from night-life central around 3am. We were going around 50 km/hr on a main road at the time and one passenger opened the sliding door to throw up. Had to get the other passengers to hold him back from falling out the bus before I could safely stop and let him out."
Morrigan_Ondarian078
People are crazy! When you're drunk, sit still!
Grandpa Boomer GIF by MOODMAN"I had just started the night shift with him when he jumped up in his bed, nearly pulled his catheter out, and yelled 'THEY'RE BANGING ON THE WALLS! JOHN (not my name) GO GET THE GUN! THE NEIGHBORS ARE TRYING TO KNOCK THE HOUSE DOWN!!' He had a UTI and it made him hallucinate. Still scary."
WriterReborn2
Behind Me
"I was an overnight valet at a hotel and our overflow lot was a couple blocks away. I was walking back from that lot after parking a car around 1am and I started to get this really uncomfortable gut feeling. I looked around and noticed a guy in a hoodie about 50 ft behind me."
"This was in a business district so it’s unusual to see people walking around there late at night and it was also summer so a hoodie is a little out of place, but I didn’t want to jump to assuming this guy was some kind of murderer. I picked up my pace anyway just in case, and he picked up his. When I turned at the next block, he turned."
"He was also gaining on me pretty quick. I was REAL freaked out at this point so I pulled out my pocket knife and ran as fast as I could back to the hotel. I don’t know at what point he stopped following me but I refused to park anymore cars in the overflow lot that night and ended up finding a new job not long after."
Hanz_VonManstrom
WTF?!
"I was delivering some food once on a college campus and my wife was asleep in the car. When I started back towards the car I saw a college student looking in the window and taking pictures of my sleeping wife. I yelled at him as soon as I saw (something like, "what the f**k are you doing? get away from there!")"
"And instead of running away or apologizing straight up this motherf**ker said, "oh, I didn't realize she was with somebody. do you need help carrying her somewhere?" I chased him away but was dumbfounded... like... what the actual f**k?!"
golden_death
Jumper
"I'm a security guy at a paper plant. Night shifts are slow, it's mostly watching Netflix if there isn't any emergency or fire on the site. One night will dozing off I was woken up by a loud and near sound. Got up off the chair in panic. Right in front of me in the parking: a big freaking moose. He just jumped the fence and wandered around the lot for a bit and took off by swimming down the river."
TheObnixiousGoat
Check Out
Hannibal Lecter Killer GIFGiphy"Once had a lady check out, and pull me and my coworker (both women) aside and tell us the guy wandering around the gas station had a gun and was paying way too much attention to women walking out."
LeatherHog
This why I'll only work in daytime hours or from home.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
I'm best when I'm at my laziest. Ok, that's a lie, but I don't care.
Zzzz...
Donald Duck Sleeping GIFGiphy"On weekends I sleep for 12-14 hours. I usually wake up a few times but I dream so much during those long sleeps that it’s basically become a recreation type thing and I love it."
HouseOfZenith
Warm it up...
"When I use the microwave, I’ll heat food for 1:11 or 2:22 because I can’t be bothered to move my lazy fingers."
fysicks
"I figured out that my microwave's turntable rotates once every 12 seconds. So, everything I cook is on a multiple of 12 seconds so that it always ends up at the front of the microwave when it's done cooking, and I don't have to reach all the way to the back of the microwave to get my food out."
unittwentyfive
Bang
"When I was a kid on a school day, I had this routine where I'd stick my legs out of the bed and bang around on the floor so it sounded like I got out of bed and then just lie there for a few more minutes."
bewarethechameleon
"Did you also get your toothbrush wet and squirt a wee bit of toothpaste in your mouth rather than actually brush your teeth? If so I may be your mom and you weren’t fooling me or the dentist and you sure weren’t fooling the plaque that attacked."
TigerLily98226
Pockets
"Whenever I clean the house I put on my housecoat with really big pockets. I just walk from room to room and put things in my pocket that don’t belong in that room. Once my pockets are full I go to each room and empty my pockets putting what is from each room in that room."
kindhearttbc
"That's not lazy... that's productive AF."
throwaway92715
Toss It
Pippi Longstocking Chaos GIF by ZDFGiphy"I don’t fold the fitted sheet. Just ball it up and place it in the closet."
SpaghettiSquash33
I just see people human. Don't he so hard on yourselves.
12 Hours
Tired Fight Club GIFGiphy"I once watched 12 hours of the golf Network because the batteries were dead in my remote control. I don't know if that's lazy or depressed."
sadbirdfox
I swear I was...
"I was taught to make a bed properly as a child, I swear I was. Hospital corners and everything. I even know how to fold a fitted sheet, thanks to my auntie, who's an Air Force nurse and therefore doesn't consider little problems like 'non-Euclidean geometry' to be a reason not to do it properly. The second I found out about duvet covers, that was over. Sure, it doesn't look as tidy, but five minutes a week plus 10 seconds in the morning instead of 10 minutes a day? I can live with that."
katie-kaboom
The System
"I don't fold laundry anymore. I have a system of laundry baskets like this where clothes gets sorted by type (pants, t-shirts, sweaters, etc). Most of my clothes is wrinkle free, and for the few pieces that aren't I just throw them on a hanger in the bathroom while I take a steamy shower."
User deleted
Genius!!
"Before I get out of bed in the morning, I will grab the top corners of my sheets with my hands and prop up the bottom two with my feet and move it into place. Then I slide out of bed without ruffling anything. Just like that, my bed is made."
Markymark142
"My sister has to do this before she goes to bed at night, even is she made the bed that morning. It's an odd little quirk and mostly harmless."
mel2mdl
Yummy
andrew huang pots GIF by SoundflyGiphy"Just eating food straight out of the pan."
refrshmts_N_narcotcs
None of that sounds so bad. That sounds... like my life. Don't judge!!
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.