Doing good deeds is often a selfless act. It's a golden rule... go through life doing good and your best and expect nothing in return. It's generous way to be, and often the reward is in witnessing the fruits of it's intentions, but every once and awhile it's ok to admit, a little recognition would be warming or just the thought of receiving recognition. We're all human, a pat on the back goes a long way.
Redditor u/David00001729 wanted hear from everyone who has been slighted for a good deed or two by asking.... What is the biggest thing you did but never got recognized for?Salty Salt...
Happy Hour Drinking GIFGiphyWorked 70+ hours a week from March through May to put 3000 student's classes online at the beginning of the pandemic. The president of the university I work for regularly thanked literally everyone else under the sun in the weekly campus updates.
Not salty at all.
My Wife's Betrayal
I got one for my wife. My wife and her coworker (both have doctorates in the medical field) were asked to be part of an official task force to help manage the Covid epidemic in our area. They both agreed and their employer let them keep their jobs for when they return. She was tasked with tracking patients waiting on test results, also tracking any that tested positive and who they came in contact with, and then organizing all the data coming from all the separate teams into safety guidelines for the public.
She was working 7-6 for 4 months straight, and some weekends.
Her work has annual, and quarterly awards that comes with a lot of great perks. This quarter they wanted to award it to one of the people who were removed to work on the Covid teams. Everyone knew my wife would get it, all their coworkers knew what my wife has been doing. In the end, the administration picked her coworker instead.
What was his role you ask? He worked 3 days a week, answered phones, and gave a 45 second briefing to public officials every other day using the data my wife and others gathered. He simply got it because he was more visible.
My wife is still really salty about it.
HIM?!
I wrote a poem for a "Why my mom deserves a diamond" contest which the class bully promptly took from me. He ended up winning with it out of the entire county and I didn't say a thing.
How proud his mom and our teachers were of "his" accomplishment was what pissed me off the most.
The 4th....
I placed 4th in state at a high school FBLA convention and they called the wrong name. I got to watch someone who didn't even compete in the competition I was in go up on stage in front of thousands and get my award.
Some New Girl...
Pretty small compared to other in this thread but at my work we have essentially an employee of the quarter award (given out every 3 months) that comes with some nice benefits: extra annual leave days, stay at a nice hotel on the company's dime, free lunch with the higher ups at a fancy restaurant, etc.
One quarter the company was falling apart and I did a bunch of overtime, held my team together, trained new employees, and had to do my bosses job too when he left the job. i'm usually pretty humble but this one time I was certain I had worked harder than anyone else at work and that i'd win the award (this was a large workforce too like 500+ people) and everyone that saw how hard I was working was telling me how much everyone appreciated it and my hard work wasn't going unnoticed.
Anyway they gave some new girl the award the award because she always walked around with a smile and kept everyone's spirits up in during a difficult time (the boss's words not mine) a bunch of the higher up talked to me afterward and told me that I had actually won the award after they voted on who should win but I was vetoed because the big boss liked the new girl (she was way more popular than me) and didn't even know who I was.
That's when I learned not to break my back for my company because forget the little guy right?
In the Nick of Time....
Saving a friend's life. We were in a car together, I was the passenger. Had a rollover accident into deep snow. She was thrown through the windshield, I was still in the car. I crawled through the window, found her trapped under the car, she couldn't breath and was in extreme panic. I pulled her out. After ambulance ride, police reports etc. not one mention ever about how she was still alive. I had nightmares for months.
"that sounds like a lot"
As a child I took care of my mom who was a wheelchair user with MS. From 10-16 years old, I would lift her out of bed, into bed, toileting, dressing, each year she got less mobile. No one in my life told me how much work I was putting in. I'm real tall and was pretty strong, but it was a big job on top of school. The first time I was told "that sounds like a lot" was by my therapist this year now that I'm 25.
My mom tried her best to minimize the work and eventually got homecare, and she tried to keep me smiling and laughing, normalizing it to keep me afloat. Looking back everybody, teachers, friends parents, my mom's friends tried to take care of me, but nobody would admit to me how big of a deal that was, because if they did, I'd probably stop smiling.
And that woulda been okay. I'm grateful either way. They were doing their best. And so was I.
Edit: I'm a woman, just cuz it's becoming relevant in replies. Sadly my username having lady in it isn't the quickest give away!
Covert Ops....
George Clooney Reaction GIFGiphyCovertly provided information to the EPA that contributed to enforcement actions resulting in a substantial reduction in industrial sulfur dioxide pollution.
Underwater....
Saved a family friend's daughter from drowning. I almost went under as well as I was only a few years older than her. I am not looking to get a celebration every year or anything but quite literally what I got in response was "She should have known better."
Meh not the biggest thing but the first thing that popped into my mind.
Intersections
knock knock door GIFGiphyI sent a 265-signature petition to my city council at the age of 14. I went door-to-door instead of online. It resulted in a set of city ordinances which added flashing stop signs at 3 intersections in town.
A Childhood Lost
That I took over the role as mom to my 10 yo brother, 5 yo sister, and 10 month old brother at age 11. My mom was really sick and in the hospital. When she wasn't, she was in bed. I still went to middle school everyday, while a family friend would watch the two younger siblings, and then I'd take over after I got home. This included watching my siblings, making dinner, doing homework with my brother, and putting everyone to bed. My dad worked and was at the hospital a lot, and I know he tried to be home more, but he almost lost his job.
Our extended family (my dads siblings, grandparents,etc) never reached out, and to this day, I am still dumbfounded how no adult stepped in. It was terrible and it made me grow up really fast. After 13, I still served as a mom, but I was bumped to second mom when my mom would just disappear and ignore her responsibilities. She was never mentally herself again and was very negligent when she was physically well again.
Now I am 30 and those days still haunt me. I think it's because my mother and father never acknowledged my lost childhood. I've tried explaining what I went through to my mom, that I don't blame her for being sick, but that it was really hard and I need/needed therapy. My 5yo sister used to cry at night asking if my mom was going to die. My mom refuses to listen until this day, so I stopped trying.
Thanks for letting me rant and reading my story. I really needed this.
weight loss GIF
College Daze
Studying broadcasting in college. The program ran the college radio station, and we were all given shifts that changed on a weekly basis. All to give us that real world experience, they ran it as close to a real radio station as possible.
It was Friday night. I was the last shift for the week. On the weekends, the station is on autopilot... runs nothing but a playlist fed into the computer. Now the person in charge of playlists that week was the class screw-up. As I was getting ready to leave, I thought, "I wonder if they remembered to make playlists for the weekend."
I checked the computer and they didn't. This was bad. No playlists in the computer meant the station would be dead on Saturday and Sunday. And since it was Friday night and just me left, I sat down and cranked out some playlists for Saturday and Sunday.
Station ran smoothly all weekend, the class screw-up still passed, and I haven't told anyone until now.
YA Days....
I was offered then given a job by a publishing company in New York to read YA novels and give my opinion. I'm not even into YA, my dad was just at their office for business and I was there for a tour and you know how sales ladies are. She was like, "Yo, you're a young adult! How would you like a job?!" And I, a jobless teen, was absolutely willing to read some shitty ass YA for a couple bucks.
So I do what I gotta do to get the job, and as a dumb fool teen I ignore the big butt red flag "So, we're a little backed up with all of our readers information, but we'll definitely send you the forms to get payment set up soon!" Several months later, they owe me like 130 bucks at this point (I know, crap for pay. What do you do) and I'm just... Exhausted. I'm reading these freaking things all the time, and they are just crap. So crap. I wanna die, they are so crap. But I keep thinking, if I just stick it out a bit more, I'm gonna get my money.
Until my mom just said no more. I was doing poorly in school, and the disappointment that my very first job was a bust was eating me alive. So I stopped sending them in. And a few weeks after my last assignment was due, I get an email for my freaking forms to be paid. And I never filled them out. And those buttheads made out with like 15 of my freaking essays. Which I know was my own fault, but I was a kid.
To the Grape
Will Grace Megan Mullally GIFGiphy2 majors and 2 minors in 4 years of college while working 3 jobs. Family was late and missed my graduation and drank all the wine they bought me as a present.
I just want help.....
I'm currently taking care of my 96 year old grandma. She has 4 living children, 10 grandchildren and a number of great grandchildren. With the exception of one of my cousins, none of them give any care or are geographically close enough to her to do anything but call her on the phone once a week. When I was 22, I took care of my mom for years, while she was ill, prior to her passing and got shit on by her family before and after she died. Now my moms mom needs help and again no one can be bothered to show up. It's infuriating. I don't even want recognition, I just want help.
Damn Covid
Finished my sophomore year taking both high school and college classes (I go to an early college and this is pretty much known to be the hardest year at my school). At the same time COVID-19 had just hit and no one else is home but me. My grandmother who has been bedridden for five months at that point needed a full-time care service. We could not afford having a specialized caregiver around the house, so there was no question that I would do it. Both of my parents are working and I'm 16 years old, doing online classes at home.
The transition was rough and I'm hit with new assignments with strict deadlines everyday. School is hard enough online, and it's harder when you have to look out for someone who is paralyzed from their third stroke. Everything from feeding, changing, and giving her a bath. I did it alone.
This went on for at least two months. At one point, I didn't do my assignments for three days and fell extremely behind. My mental state was terrible. I thought I wouldn't make it. I wanted to end it all but I couldn't. I wasn't going to leave before my grandmother did.
After the school year ended in May, I never heard from any of my teachers or classmates again. It all ended so quickly, even though each day was hell for me. As silly as it sounds, I didn't get a pat on the back or anything. With all those sleepless nights, I managed to end the school year with straight A's. Everyone expected me to do it and I somehow... did it.
We'll call him Dave....
I was offered a significant promotion before someone else who had seniority, we'll call him Dave. Dave and I had already discussed his desire for this promotion and he was pretty excited about it, and he was certain he was going to get it. I declined the offer and directed my boss to Dave who of course happily took the offer. It just felt morally wrong to take it when I knew he wanted it, and the large factor of him having more job knowledge and experience than I did. The defining qualities as a worker that made my boss choose me was reliability and dependability.
I never, ever let my boss down and was willing to learn anything.
I was offered another promotion and I took it this time. Dave became distant with me, my new coworkers were buttholes and clearly didn't want me there, and my old coworkers (some of whom I've fed because they couldn't feed themselves and their children at the same time) started to drift away and no longer would stop to chat. I found out that Dave was spreading rumors about me.
About how I only got the promotion because upper management needs something young and pretty to look at, and that someone else deserved it more than I did. I spent an entire year working directly with this guy and we used to have a fantastic work relationship.
He still has no idea that his new position was because of me.
'Indiana meets Japan'
I designed an 'Indiana meets Japan' wall mural for the hall leading to the library of my high school. Had a bridge, plants, and the Indiana state tree on one side and a cherry blossom tree on the other. Flower petals from both drifting on the wind and everything.
I didn't get to sign my name on the mural after it was all done since I didn't put the pencil work and paint on the wall. Even though the kids who painted it had to bring me out there to help them figure out a spacing issue the teacher hadn't foreseen.
This wasn't a tiny thing either. We're talking floor to ceiling design in your average 'entrance' hallway from one section of the building to another. If that makes sense?
It's been ten years and I'm still moderately pissed over it.
Homeward Bound
Home Sweet Home GIF by swerkGiphyI paid the down payment on my best friend's house but never told anyone. She has 5 kids and they all needed stability and something to really call their own. Had just cashed out on an investment when she told me she's found a house but didn't have cash for the down payment. It was like serendipity. I had the cash so I gave it to her. I really love her and would do it again.
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Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.