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People Share Their 'Give The Hardest Job To The Laziest Person Because They'll Find The Easiest Way To Do It' Stories

People Share Their 'Give The Hardest Job To The Laziest Person Because They'll Find The Easiest Way To Do It' Stories

Laziness gets a bad rep, but there are benefits in doing things the easy way.


Why waste a ton of time on a task if there's a quicker way to do it? Freeing yourself from simpler assignments gives you extra time to get more important work done, or maybe even to give yourself a break.

Bill Gates once said that he always hires lazy people to do the most important jobs. His reasoning, as he put it: "Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." We can't help but to agree with his logic.

Redditor u/Slimer425 asked:

"What is the best real life example of a lazy person getting the job done"

"They sat me down..."

"I once was a temp at a tiny office on a construction site in around 2003. I was only there for one day while the regular person was on some training.

They sat me down and told me that I just needed to copy all these numbers from one program to another. So I selected them, hit ctrl c and ctrl v. They stared at me.

Turns out about 60% of this woman's time had been spent manually typing numbers from one place to another."

jaymeekae

"He would give me a spreadsheet..."

Giphy

"Boss hated Excel to the point where he didn't want us using formulas because 'you can't trust them to be right' so we needed to 'do all the calculations by hand or on a calculator'

He would give me a spreadsheet once or twice a week that required lets say, 45 seconds to do, but maybe 7 hours by hand and he told me to 'go to starbucks or something and crank it out'

He thought that since I pasted as values and he couldn't see the formulas that I did it by hand when really I just did it in 45 seconds, sent an email on delay for 7 hours, and studied for the next semester."

UltraRunningKid

"He took off one day..."

"Co-worker of mine had to get rid of a smaller junk fiberglass boat with no trailer. Our other co-workers are all telling him how much time and money he's going to need to spend to get rid of it, and he's just saying 'Oh, is that so?'

He took off one day, and sat down on his lawn with a cooler of beer. That day was garbage day. Inevitably, the trash guys roll up. He hands each of them a cold beer, and says 'Hey boys, got $50 for each of you if you help me out real quick.'

They fed the entire 12ft boat into the packer, crushing two feet at a time."

NoCountryForOldPete

"I used to deliver beer..."

"I used to deliver beer. I did not like delivering beer. I may have ended up with 30 stops in a day, including deliveries that the customer would call in to our office for. I used to bring extra beer and blank invoices with me on the truck, to prevent having to drive back to my warehouse to deliver one keg to a place that I was currently across the street from. 7 years later, the driver of that route is still doing that."

Fromhe

"In high school..."

"In high school we had to do four book reports every year. A friend of mine did his on each Lord of the Rings books and the Hobbit freshman year and turned in the same four book reports for the rest of his time in high school. You switched english teachers every year so no one ever caught on. I was never brave enough to try the same thing."

AngelusCaedo

"Counting washers and screws..."

"At my last job, a truck suspension shop, we did inventory every December and it was someone's job to count all the washers and screws of every size.

It was my first inventory and I casually mentioned that they should just weigh one screw or washer, then weigh them all and divide the weight to get the count. Everyone looked at me like I had given them the key to the universe.

Counting washers and screws went from a day or two, to just a few hours."

codymreese

"I was lazy..."

"Worked as a cashier during the holiday season back when I was 16. The supermarket was selling drinks by the boxes and at that time, we only had barcode scanners that was at the front of the computer. No gun type scanners existed.

I was lazy and didn't want to carry boxes up to the scanner. So I politely asked my customers if i could carve out the barcode from their box to scan and keep. Some agreed some didn't want to but eventually I managed to amass all the barcodes needed. Labelled them and kept them in a file for easy reference."

precipiceblades

"They run from it..."

Giphy

"Herding yak with a drone takes the cake for me. They run from it, and oddly fear it. Which is surprising considering they have literally zero aerial predators. We only did it a few times because it really makes them uneasy, and doesn't treat them well. But it is very effective and easy, and you can herd them from over 1/2 a mile a way from inside the house."

Nametoholdaplace

"During my intern..."

"My professor gave me line graphs made on paper and asked me to find the coordinates by drawing horizontal and vertical lines. It would have taken hours if not days.

I thought to myself - 'I couldn't be the first one who is lazy'. So I googled it, found this cool free to use software 'Web Digitizer'.

Step 1 - Scan the graph.

Step 2 - Mark the X and Y axes in the picture.

Step 3 - Grab a beer cause you got the the nicest graph that you couldn't have drawn by yourself in a million years."

Batman_In_Peacetime

"I feel like a big part..."

"I work in finance at a large multinational corporation. I feel like a big part of our job is to just stop doing things and wait to see who complains. If someone complains, we keep doing it, if silence, then we call it a 'controlled drop' and put it on our performance review for creating efficiencies."

mcrackin

"Long story short..."

I worked in a CNC shop.

There would be a pile of jobs that needed to be done for the month.

Some took days to run while others were generally quick.

The record for jobs done in 1 day was 8.

What I did was looked through all the jobs and organized them by setup.

Meaning...

Every job has a setup time. Can take an hour to get all the tooling together, setting up the cutting table, and setting the part square to the table so the machine can "gauge" where the part is so when I insert the code into the machine it can run flawlessly and drill, mill, tap whatever within a literally hair measurement. For every single job.

Majority of parts use standard tooling. And I have automatic tool changing with 20 pockets.

Long story short I figured out how to line up the jobs so they all have the same setup.

Blew the record out of the water with 30 jobs done in one day.

Saving the company tens of thousands in work hours.

All because I didnt feel like doing all the setups that day.

Manu442

"Unlike most of the stories here..."

I used to work in the fresh department for a supermarket. Part of our routine is writing-off any vegetables, fruits or meat that had spoiled. We do this by using PDA with a built-in barcode scanner, so we scan the barcode on the packaging, and enter a quantity.

The problem is that half the items are in measured in 'kilogram' (the other unit is 'each', these have their own barcodes). These don't have their own barcodes that can easily be scanned, we had to find the ID number from a list of every single item in the database, sorted by ID number, and manually enter it into the PDA.

I, being the lazy guy, decided to make a excel sheet with only items with 'KG' as the unit, sorted them by type (apples, oranges, etc.), and downloaded a plugin that renders the barcode on a separate column, and printed it. Easily cut the time taken to write-off by a significant amount.

Unlike most of the stories here, it was actually well-received by my co-workers, also because I added in translations to our mother tongue, as well as pictures for items we had difficulty telling the difference.

WorstNubEva

"A week or so later..."

My uncle worked as an industrial engineer at a Breakfast Cereal Manufacturer. They started getting complaints because boxes were going out to stores empty. The brainstormed and created a scale under the conveyor belt right before final packing, which would beep if the box was underweight (indicating an empty box). The operator would remove the empty box and continue the conveyor belt.

A week or so later they saw that the data for the empty boxes completely dropped off, and they were confused how this empty box issue seemed to fix itself. Upon going down to the line, the line operator had a new high-powered fan up next to the line. The engineers asked him about it, and he said that the beeping was driving him up the wall so he rigged a fan which would blow the empty boxes off and not effect the full boxes.

RaeKay14

"Took Spanish 2 in high school..."

Took Spanish 2 in high school using Duolingo, each lesson has been set out to only unlock at a certain date so it would open a lesson every few days or so. My friend and I in the class went through our class the normal route for about a month until we discovered something amazing. If we scrolled all the way to the bottom it would have a button saying "test all skills now." We both complete the test and when we finish it says "all 182 skills complete". My friend and I just looked at each other for a moment and started laughing with our teacher confused. Never had any homework and very little class work for the rest of the year.

ErikW1thAK

"The place I worked..."

Stacking roof trusses. At the place I worked, they just rolled off of rollers from inside onto the ground and we had to stack and strap em.

This Punjabi guy shows me a trick, grabs a 2x4 says 'first you grab this lumber then place it here" and props it with a gentle slope to the ground. Grabs the tail of the truss (where your gutters would be) and just swings it down the 2x4 into position and stacks the remaining 12 like that.

Baboo you genius.

Guy couldn't understand English. Asked him for help.. he said yes yes.. and nodded his head and walked away.... came back with an interpreter cuz he had no clue what I asked him.

Bad_default_name

"Me and my dad..."

Me and my dad putting on something to hold a spare tire for a trailer and I couldn't get the tire on the bolts, so my dad made me sit there and think of a solution.

LamboMasta

"There were weeds..."

There were weeds growing in my back yard and my dad told me to take them out with a shovel but in about 5 minutes in I found a branch cutter and simply cut all the roots with that.

RentedReaper

"All the problems were online..."

Took a quantitative reasoning class. All the problems were online and there was this one type of question that had a massive amount of variables that you have to put through three different formulas for a complete average, even with a calculator it took a solid 15 minutes and I had to make sure that I'd rounded all the numbers correctly because it didn't specify what point to round them to. Literally just made an Excel calculator and copied the results for each problem.

SweatyClicking

"My teacher..."

My teacher gave me the quiz and I was first to finish and because the question was too hard to me I simply wrote "impossible" and hoped I would be right cause I'm lazy AF and lucky me that was the answer.

xxBerry_ChilxX

"Instead..."

I had to type out 5 A4 pages of random letters/words to practice typing on a keyboard. Instead, I scanned the papers, turned the scan into a pdf on a random site I found, pasted it into word and made a few corrections, typed in my name and voila 2 hours of work done in 5 minutes

Violet_Willow539

"My sister cracked the TV..."

My sister cracked the TV and there was a visible mark on the edges where no tv was shown, so I told her to fix it and she literally put black electrical tape and my parents haven't noticed it yet. It's been 6 years.

SuperSachan

"I, being lazy..."

I, being lazy and having an interest in video production and coding, was given a task where I needed to edit a short film. I hate working with audio, and small spoiler, whenever the protagonist takes a punch, there is a sound for that. Walking, sound for that. So guess what lazy little me did. With the help of three online friends, I coded something that would detect whenever a certain event happened and where. Phone drops on hardwood, phonehardwoodfall.m4a. Phone gets set down on table, phonesetdown.mp3. That was probably the hardest I've worked for a film. Not very lol.

UnfixedRyan

"The next time we got to work..."

This was something that happened to my coworker and I. We were receptionists for a large company, and one day our supervisor gave us the job to print out names and addresses onto stickers so we can place them on envelopes that would be for Christmas cards.

We were doing this for our company and subsidiaries and it had many names. She had a list printed out and we needed to write up the names in the Word so we could save them there then put them into the format for the stickers.

I know/knew about ctrl-c/ctrl-z but for some reason it was not working the way we wanted by putting each one into individual slots. So we spent a painstaking 2-3 days of writing into word then copy and pasting each address into each slot. A few weeks after this our supervisor brings up a Microsoft workshop that we could take and asked if we were interested in and we both accepted.

While there the presenter shows us a simpler way to do exactly what we spent 3 days doing. I can't remember the process now but it was copy and paste and did exactly what we had wanted. I know we missed a step somewhere in there but the 3 days spent probably would have taken the rest of today. The next time we got to work we told our supervisor about what the presenter showed us, and she goes I know about it but it was funny watching you two.

(I want to add all three of us were close had a lot of fun and really enjoyed each other's company. When our supervisor revealed this my coworker and I just laughed with her and thought it was hilarious).

RedditUser112234

"I ended up..."

I was put on gate guard detail a while back and it was one of those old swing gates from the 60's so everytime a car came up with proper credentials I had to get up, open the gate and let them through. I ended up being so pissed off the third day of heavy snow and tied 45 feet of paracord to the tip of the gate and put a spring on the pole so it would automatically close and open when I pulled the line. I did this for about a month and a half until sergeant major and the lieutenant colonel came to randomly visit and needless to say sgtmajor was disappointed at my invention.

lizardreview

"Had to compare trades..."

I worked in investment banking. Had to compare trades that were booked in an internal system to the trades that actually settled in the market. These were European equities and we were in the US. The person doing this would show up at 6:30am and manually match the trades until 11am. I realized you could export everything to excel and do the same comparison using a vlookup. The whole process went from 4 hours to about 1. Funny thing is instead of acknowledging the change everyone just thought I was lazy because I was showing up to work later than the last person.

Allen_92

"The rest of my group..."

When I was in 4th grade, I was in a group project that was supposed to teach us about elections. We had to elect candy instead of presidents. I was forced to be part of a skittles campaign management. I didn't like skittles at the time so I was unhappy from the start. The rest of my group just didn't want to work so they laid the work down upon me. I simply told the teacher, "in a democracy, don't we get to chose who we vote for?" My teacher at the time was cool AF and very preserving of American democracy, excused my of the assignment and gave me an A+.

I love being a smart @ss.

RapidFir3Musket

"After a month..."

At my last job I was asked to take over disability and medicaid case rep duties when the other girl quit. After a month I had it streamlined like my other case rep stuff and instead of taking all day to get everything done it took me on average 3 hours. I organized and went in order instead of jumping around.

I had everything organized and up to date and I had all signatures on file for easy access. A year later they tell me they are taking my job and giving it to another lady that used to work those accounts. I was so mad because she had screwed up the accounts before the last girl and we both had to take months cleaning up her mess.

She bounces around everywhere and doesn't keep stuff updated. I always made my calls before 2 because that us when DHS was in office and I could get answers and I always called SSA before 10 because you could get through easier. She calls everyone after 2 and never gets a response.

I tried to speak up and help but she was hateful and a bully so I quit back in November and haven't looked back. I told my boss when she screws up everything again please remember I said she would. When she left several years ago and I had to clean up her mess the 1st time I found over 5 million dollars for just 1 hospital that she almost lost and I guarantee she lost millions that we could never get back for 8 hospitals.

momoispeachy

"I did three, almost fell off..."

30 years ago I worked housing construction as an apprentice and I got all the sh!t jobs. The worst they ever gave me was to get and entire pallet (like 50 bundles) of asphalt shingles up onto a roof in August. Each bag weighed 110 pounds and you had to throw it on your shoulder and carry them up one at a time.

I did three, almost fell off, and then immediately realized I could use a collapsed extension ladder clamped to an extended one to serve as a sled to get three or four bags up at one time. It wasn't fancy - you still had to pull the ropes manually, but with one additional pulley in the mix you didn't have to work very hard to get them up there. Worked similar to a ladder hoist now:

But if they were even made back then, the company was too cheap to purchase one. They gave me a neighborhood of 13 houses to get the shingles up and gave me two weeks to do it. I did it in a day and a half.

Boss found out what I was doing, watched me for a bit, then said "S***, you one of those guys that's gonna quit, ain't ya?"

I was.

hootdinker

"I grew up in a small town..."

I grew up in a small town with a lot of old people around. My dad became friends with this guy through work. This guy wrote a lot of really long articles. One day my dad visited and stood behind him when he was writing - he had everything in one long word document, apparently, he didn't know or understood that you could have multiple documents. Every time he had to find an old article he said there scrolling for ages until he found it. My dad couldn't get himself to tell him.

Brief_Regret

"I once was timed..."

I once was timed to run a short distance (loop around a swing set) with my sister and I was super confident that I would win (and I would eternally hate myself if I lost) because I was not going to run the full distance, I was going to only run halfway, and I won, but then my sister copied me and the same thing happened like 4 times.

Somebody_youusedtono

"I'm a computer teacher..."

I'm a computer teacher at 2 schools part-time. One principal keeps giving me strange tasks that would be time consuming if done by anyone else in the school, since I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest (also a millennial). I'm convinced most would do the tasks line by line.

Anyway, one of the first tasks I'm given is, "How can I put this 1900+ page document of emails into an email list?" Backstory: the list was given to her by an alumni politician who had slowly accumulated all these emails from campaign donors over many years, and his secretary just added each email to the bottom of the document.

I look at the list, each email is written on a new line, without commas, so I know it can't just be copy/pasted. Takes me about 10 minutes to ctrl+F email endings and replace with a comma and space at the end so they COULD be copy/pasted to be sent. Well over 81,000 emails. Imagine doing that by hand (DX).

Second task: here's a spreadsheet of 600+ form entries of alumni addresses we want to put on labels. Me: Googled a formula to automatically generate the info as an address label, uses math to calculate the size of the labels and spaces between boxes so that it could just be printed. (Yes I know I could have used a template from the websites, you can't do that offline like I can with Google sheets.)

Anyway, trimester ends, and I have a broken left hand and 360+ students to write report card comments for. I end up using the same formula from the address project to automatically generate comments with drop down options (did all their work/missing assignment and can/ cannot use skills independently). All I had to do was copy/paste my class roster, add pronouns, and maybe an additional comment and BAM. Done in a few hours instead of days/having to edit voice-typed comments.

Hollywoodpupper213

"It cut the install time..."

I was an intern testing software. We were required to do black box testing and thus could only test a fully built CD by management decree. The developers would make a change and publish a new ISO to the server, we would then burn it and install it. Not only did this generate dozens of CDs per day it took 25 minutes to burn then install the software and and you needed to be present ever few minutes to get disks, label them, burn them in the multi disc writer, collect them, and start the install.

I showed everyone how to mount the ISO over the network so we could avoid burning an actual CD unless we were testing a beta or release candidate.

It cut the install time down to 6 unattended minutes (as the network was faster than even reading the disc).

Likely_not_eric

"I remember working for this assembly company..."

I remember working for this assembly company for the lottery, they had given us some menial work that was meant to take a month. They were having us cut rows of stickers so each type of sticker was on its own row using stickers.

Normally we assemble circuit panels with different components and bracketry, so we have all these sub assembly parts in neat organized bins. I grow tired of using these scissors after about 10 minutes and just screw together some brackets and fasten an exacto blade in the center, using zip ties as a track i just put the sticker roll in one end pull it through and just zip it through.

I had done the entire months work for 14 people in 3 days. The manger congratulated me on finishing all the work so efficiently, then told me there was nothing else to do for us and laid us all off until we had more work. I never felt a heavy group deathstare before, but could definitely feel some kill intent energy for sure.

TBH I'd rather get laid off and collect than for some menial mind numbing nonsense like that.

Rogue_Island

"Easiest money ever made..."

Hired someone else to do the job I was hired to do at 1/10th the cost.

Easiest money ever made and client was super happy. Gave me a bonus of 20% which I passed on to my employee as he was a good dude.

MVWeiss

"I am pathologically incapable..."

I am pathologically incapable of doing things the long-winded way. I'd rather spend 2 weeks automating something than do it the wrong way twice. Probably why I'm studying data science now.

I used to work in a company that produced market research reports. It was the financial crash and no one in my department could find a job and we were all overqualified with degrees for a job that didn't need it. The company had 24k employees and I worked in the reporting department and it was a real entry-level job. We used an in-house database which we ran some excel VBA commands on and it produced a report.

We were 'supposed' to have 2 insanely busy reporting weeks and then we were supposed to spend the rest of the month doing other bits. Meetings, checking reports, streamlining processes. I used to run the reports I had manually until the higher-ups decided to change the database I used on 2 days notice and I had to rewrite every single report over a weekend. Was about 100 reports, so no chance at all.

So the client services had to run them manually for a few months. It took me 12 months in all to rewrite all the reports which over the years had been edited by idiots and nothing had been done in the right way. Instead of replicating them I decided to automate them. I automated it to such a degree that when the week started I clicked 3 things and just sat there while it ran. My work for the month was done in 3h.

I once took 5 breaks before 10.30; I had so little work to do. When my boss realised she gave me a look that said 'You're trying to get out of work aren't you?' In that situation, I would have asked to automate other people's work for them. Middle managers always seem to be most afraid of putting themselves out of a job it seems.

I ended up leaving that company when my department got the lowest employee happiness rating in the entire company (24%) and my bosses came in and told us off, rather than asking how they could improve things. They hired 1 guy who had never used a computer until he came there and constantly had to ask how to do things, and he was on the same money as people who had master's degrees in network engineering.

rako1982

"One of my favorite teachers..."

One of my favorite teachers of all time was my freshman chemistry teacher. I, however, did not like school and never once did my work or my notes that were checked before every test. One day, I didn't want to lose the points, so I took the first person's notes he checked - I made sure I was the last - and had him gloss over them again for full credit. Basically, I gave him the same thing twice and got away with it.

creppster

"I am an idiot."

Over the summer I wanted to get some money so I worked at this agency that required me to take in information, copy it, paste it, add a calculation in excel, copy and paste it and email out the results in a nice format to clients. This was a mindless task and as a programmer it was disgusting that they needed an intern to do this.

On my first day while nobody was looking I went on replit and stackoverflow and programmed an automated patch. I was so excited it worked and proud I told the boss what I did and how it works and how I made it really dynamic and such, he was astonished and very impressed and told me that, that was the only assignment he had for me over the summer and said that my services were no longer needed. He said I wouldn't need to come in anymore after that.

I programmed myself out of a job. I am an idiot.

SanoKei

"I used to work..."

I used to work as a hotel night auditor in the 1980s. The manager designed a six-hour audit to keep us busy. I brought in a programmable calculator, and used it to get the audit down to under two hours.

kkachisae

"Over the years, I've compiled..."

College at the end of the semester, everyone wants an A. If you're teaching 700 students, you end up receiving lots of excuses for missed assignments, grade bumps, etc. - in the last 48 hours of the semester.

Over the years, I've compiled a document of excuses from students, like "my grandma died" or "I can't get disability accommodations" - etc. I've typed up a thoughtful, detailed response to each of those concerns, also saved in the file.


When those inevitable emails come, I just Ctrl+F to find the excuse, and then copy/paste my template response. I don't have time to tell thirty students the same thing, much less communicate an individually tailored response in classes with 50+ students. I even leave a spot for an individual comment, if needed. The point is for the recipient to know I received their message, I understand their concern, restate it in a way that demonstrates I understand, offer a solution, my condolences, and a happy face or whatever suits the situation. And, I can reply to sad emails more quickly, letting students have efficiency in finding resolution for their issues.

tah_infity_n_beyarnd

Well that's one solid business plan to get things done!

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People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

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.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

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.