Some jobs people just take for granted. They look at them and think, "this is so easy", but in reality, they don't know s**t. Things can be way harder than they look, and you will never truly know until you attempt it yourself.
u/FatBeforeFact asked: What's a lot harder than people actually think?
True facts.
Quitting just about any bad habit you've had for a long time.
5 1/2 years smoke free. Hardest thing I've ever done.
Relationships are HARD.
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Maintaining a healthy, loving relationship.
People think it's always pretty easy, but it involves juggling a lot of plates together to make things work.
This is so true! Most people think that love just happens to you and if you fall out of love then you just move on and find someone new. But there are stages to love and after you get through the initial hot and heavy stage, it takes work to maintain it. You have to make time for each other and actively work to create a loving relationship together.
Sad, but true.
Finding worthwhile friends.
The other side of that challenge is striving to be someone that worthwhile people want to be friends with.
Ugh, yes.
Going to the gym. I don't mean working out itself, I mean the actual act of coming home tired after work and forcing yourself to go to the gym. Physically getting there is so psychologically taxing. It actually wears on me throughout the day at work, especially if it's a tough day at the job.
Main reason why I started doing gym in the mornings. Now, if I could just get used to waking up super early to go workout...
It's all about technique.
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Fighting.
My first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class I recall thinking "I'm a big strong guy, I know how to fight, I'll be ok at this"
Nope. Nope nope, just no.
A tiny older lady proceeded to mess my world up. I still have no idea how she stood on my face and threw me at the same time, but I was bottom over teakettle the entire roll.
My first striking class "well BJJ was tough, but I did karate as a kid, I can throw a punch and kick; besides my conditioning is better now. I'll be fine"
More nope nope!
Cue scrawny kid lighting me up, bruised for days and I'm convinced that I was kicked in the side while holding pads hard enough to cause brain damage.
Being good at fighting is hard. Aggression, strength and size can carry some people quite a ways, but goddamn there are some hidden monsters out there.
I'm sure that's not what you meant.
Exposing yourself. Emotionally speaking, not like swinging your d**k around, though I imagine many would also have difficulty with that as well.
"If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known," - Tim Kreider
i.e: if you're too shy to take your pants off you'll never get any decent action.
Maintaining conversations with people. Most of the time, small talk would happen; it's absolute drivel.
I used to have the same problem, then I decided to learn communication skills by doing door to door sales. The key is to try to avoid asking simple questions that have simple answers, like yes or no answers or so forth. Instead ask open ended questions that require the other person to activate their brain to answer.
"What are you passionate about?" "What are 3 things you like about your current job?"
Don't just ask them what they do for a living because that will give you a flat one or two word response. Instead ask them what they do and then expand on it. "Oh, you're a teacher? If you could change one thing about your school day what would it be?" That should get the gears moving. Open ended questions are key.
That's the only way to learn.
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Reading and writing. Think about it, it takes years of direct instruction before you are minimally literate and you continually learn vast amounts of words into your late 20s.
The fact that most people know how to do it to any level obscures the challenge.
If anyone disagrees with this, learn a foreign language. It really puts into perspective how incredibly difficult, complex, and nuanced communication is.
This happens a lot, unfortunately.
Leaving an abusive relationship. People always say stuff, like "Why doesn't she/he just leave him/her?", but it rarely is as easy as this. Maybe this person still has some feeling for that persons.
Quite often the domestic violence victim is really afraid of the perpetrator and fears that the abuser might beat them up badly or even try to kill them when they leave. They also might, completely wrongly, believe after awhile that they did something wrong and the beatings are justified.
I have found in verbally abusive relationships that the person who is being abused thinks that, that is how relationships work, or oh I can fix him/her. It can get really bad when people on the outside keep telling you to break up with that abusive person, but no one likes to be told how to date, and sometimes double down and try to prove everyone wrong.
I know this because I went through this myself. People can just live in denial, and think that there isn't anything better for them because they have little to no self esteem.
An important lesson.
Recovering from multiple broken broken bones.
I broke 15 bones of my mountain bike a month ago. I was just cleared by the doctor to start being able to walk. It's like you forget how to walk and even though you think you remember you are not strong enough to walk. It's even worse for me because I broke my left wrist and collar bone so I can't even use crutches...
The lesson I learned from this is always be careful because one wrong move and you could change your life.
TRUTH.
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Acting. I have studied acting now for six years, and it is still so complicated. It is not remembering lines, it's emotion, reaction, character, voice, breath, emphasis, memory, a knowledge of human behaviour, body language, and even knowledge on how to build tension or enhance claustrophobia.
Working in retail. When I was 15 I got my first part time job during school as a "check out chick" and I thought it was super easy. I was also a bit of an arrogant kid just because I had good grades at school and thought "this is gonna be super easy."
I almost had a breakdown on my first shift. They gave me no help, I was distraught at how fast adults moved their groceries along the belt and a these different payment methods etc. I had no clue on what half the vegetables were called (I only knew things I ate like carrot, broccoli etc) BUT NOT 9 different TYPES OF APPLES AND MANGOES. Customers were condescending and I had no idea what half the buttons did or how to do certain things and no one told me, I also had severe social anxiety at the time and wasn't used to talking to strangers.
It took me over half a year to finally be fully on my feet. Even then, I felt almost no confidence in my ability to do my job properly and also had to learn from each bad experience I had (e.g a customer would get mad if I didn't know how to do something right - because apparently they were perfect at their first job). Packing groceries and speed were also a nightmare for me because different customers liked different packing styles and different weights.
Anyway, it's been almost 2 years now and I have turned from a little anxious hermit into a very outgoing and cheery person who enjoys making customers' days better. It's also worth noting that I've certainly humbled out and have learned to appreciate every single job and person around me and that I am not the centre of the universe as I had been when I was a child. Heck, it even inspired me to use my education to hopefully get into med school because I both enjoy learning about medicine and interacting/ assisting with everyday people.
Anyway, long story short: Every job is harder than it looks - no matter the wage etc. Next time you feel like attacking a retail assistant - think of how you'd like to be in that position with no experience.
OMG!
Stiff Muscles.
At peak condition, or through electric Stimuli, your muscles can tense to a point where they can withstand being hit by a baseball bat and could even break it.
You just blew my mind if this is true!
A good method.....maybe.
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Getting motivation to study. Sometimes you really want to study, but when you finally come to it, you procrastinate, or get distracted. It's really hard to have a study properly. My advice? Irregular sleeping hours.
Obviously this might not work if you have school early in the morning, but during holidays, you may want to choose to sleep in the afternoons or in the mornings, and study at night instead. At night, no one is awake and everything is quiet, perfect.
I do this constantly and it's not really affecting my health. Just remember to change up your sleeping cycle a day before you have school so you don't get affected too badly by this habit.
No easy feat.
Pole Dancing. You wont look sexy after taking a one hour class. It's been over two months and I'm still waiting for the sexy to show up.
"I've always thought..."
"I've always thought that humans will begin modifying DNA and making cyborg-like modifications to the human body until we reach the point that the concept of human will be so diluted that we will have to call ourselves another way, leading to the extinction of humanity as we know it."
So what you're saying is... On the next season of Westworld... the humans strike back.
"I think people..."
"I think people really underestimate what it would take to actually completely exterminate our entire species. We already bounced back from a population collapse down to under 10,000 once, we could do so again. Nuclear war, ecological collapse, incurable disease; I highly doubt that any of them could kill everyone. Even if it's just a few isolated pockets in the outback or the jungle that survive, that's still not extinction.
Honestly, I think it would take a cosmic catastrophe (asteroid/comet impact, gamma ray burst, etc) to completely obliterate us and that assumes that it occurs soon enough that we don't have viable populations outside of Earth."
If an asteroid or comet or gamma ray burst is going to hit us, then I suppose it would all be over mercifully quick. That's not soooo bad, I suppose.
happy amy poehler GIF by Amy Poehler's Smart GirlsGiphy"Zorp The Surveyor will come down to earth and end human existence by melting off everyone's faces with his volcano mouth."
Well, at least I'd laugh while I meet my maker.
"A bad-tempered..."
"A bad-tempered, bureaucratic alien species of space engineers deciding to construct a hyperspace bypass through our solar system."
Oh! Oh!
I've seen this movie. It was just okay... Ridley Scott, what were you doing?
(Don't get me started on Alien: Covenant).
"How about..."
"How about solar flares? What if there comes a solar flare that fries all electronics? Suddenly, we'd have no transportation, no food because it relies on transportation, no running water, no pacemakers, etc.?"
"The inevitable continuation..."
"The inevitable continuation of the mass extinction of insects leading to the mass die-off of vegetation leading to starvation. But climate disasters will be happening simultaneously along with social unrest (magnified by the increasing disparity between the wealthy and everyone else), so there will be plenty to kill off most of us before we get to the starving part."
I think nuclear war. The madman theory states that no sane person would launch a nuke due to the fact it would end the world, but I don't think sane people end up in power, and I definitely don't think someone in power would concede power as a result of war without lobbing one final and world-ending "f*** you."
And the theory of nuclear deterrence states that an enemy will be deterred from using nuclear weapons as long as he can be destroyed as a consequence. So far that's held, but... fingers crossed.
"The regressives..."
"I think it'll be a full-on Idiocracy situation. We're already over-branding everything, and getting more aggressively stupid. The regressives will take over the planet, and not know how to run anything. The problem is that no one has ever invented those auto-deactivating cryogenic pods, so Luke Wilson won't wake up and tell them to use water on their crops. Then they'll all starve."
"Greed..."
"Greed of manufacturing companies causing pollution/rubbish that destroys the planet for us."
"Most of our societies..."
"I see most of the likely guesses already. Decent chance that we'll make our planet uninhabitable in the next 100 years or so, but there's another possibility.
Most of our societies are evolving in a deeply unhealthy way. We're not interacting physically with members of our communities and establishing connections to the people who share our cities and towns with us. In the hierarchy of needs, social connection is not high but it is there and you can already see the effects of it not being met.
I think that even if we dodge all the other bullets we'll raise enough subsequent generations of children that feel no attachment to other humans that we'll just lose our will to continue. I already see young people today who will never know the joy of a neighborhood pickup game of baseball or going to their pub to socialize or just hanging out with friends. All of their social gratification comes from talking to people online who are much more like them. There is less effort required to understand someone who likes all the same games, music and art that you do than there is to some kid on your track team, so they take the path of least resistance and a lot gets lost in that process.
This is not some cranky old man complaining about the next generation. I don't see them as entitled or lazy. I see them as the victims."
We live in a big and beautiful world. It's just a shame that we treat it as if we have somewhere else to go. Maybe if enough people get that, then we'll be just fine, but I'm not holding my breath.
Have some opinions of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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Sometimes it's just a look. A direct look across the room or a crowded corridor can change the plans for the evening in some fabulous ways. When sex is involved, words aren't always necessary. I can attest.
Check!
Radio Station Checklist GIF by JMattGiphy"I jokingly told my sister's friend she was on my To Do List. She took it seriously and asked if I wanted to cross her off."
Hungry?
"A girl I met in class was lost for her next class. Showed her the way and got her number (you know, if she gets lost again). We parted for the day. She was pretty so I ran the story to my roommate. Roommate decided to play a dumb joke by sending her a message saying that I miss her already. She texted her dorm address. Brought some food but she wanted to do something else. That was it. Lol."
- diesus
Wrong You
"A girl I worked with told my mate that she had a thing for me. Mate told me so on the next night out I approached her with unflappable confidence and we had a good night. Spoke to my mate the next day about it and he told me he got her name wrong, it was another girl who liked me."
"Update: Thanks for the awards! Totally unnecessary but much appreciated. And yes, I did end up having a casual thing with girl 2 a couple of months later."
After 10...;
"Parked in a multi-story carpark while we went on our first date (had some grub). End of the night I offer her a lift home, she accepts. We walk to where I parked. The multi-story carpark is locked after 10pm, I hadn't noticed signs saying this would happen and didn't think it was a freaking thing in the first place. She invites me back to her sofa after I ask for any recommendations on taxi providers. An hour later we're both having the sex of our lives."
OH!
Sports Bar GIF by OriginalsGiphy"I was at a bar and a girl sat down next to me."
"Her: What brings you here?"
"Me: tryna get laid."
"Her: lol, me too."
"Me: (looking around the room). Yeah, there's some good looking people here."
"Her: (says nothing, just stares at me)"
"Me: Oh!"
Now why can't things like that happen to me? Those are movie scenarios. We're all just a pent up bag of sexy explosives. Just laying around waiting for someone to strike a match.
Scrubbed
radio remains GIFGiphy"Spotless bathroom, she told me later she was undecided until she seen my bathroom was spotless."
Club Time
"My friend was at the club and he's the kind of guy that doesn't go to clubs at all. He saw a girl on the dance floor he liked and we all told him he should go talk to her. He went down and 10 min later we see him walking out the club with the girl he liked. We were all shocked he got a girl the first try. The next day we asked what happened and he told us he just complimented how good her belly button looked. We all laughed our butt off."
Seth for the Win!
"A tinder match said I looked like Seth Rogen, she invited me to a hangout. When I got there she told me that "if she could have sex with any celebrity, it would be Seth Rogen"and I laughed, she then introduced me to a couple of her friends, and she asked them "if I could mess with any celebrity, who would it be?" And they both said "Seth Rogen". And I was a close enough second!"
Feet for the Win
"A woman at my job said that my feet were sexy. I was wearing sandals. I said ok, thanks. Before our workday was over she asked if I wanted to go to her place, I was like, sure, thinking this was just a social visit. We get to her place and she says, you need to shower, I was like, ummm ok. I took a shower and she steps in as well and from there on we had lovely sex."
Sexy
new girl schmidt GIF by Vulture.comGiphy"Stared at this woman and when she said, "What!?" I said, "I'm trying to seduce you. I'm just really bad at it." We have three kids now."
Now that was some fun reading. And I def took copious notes. Did y'all? Take a chance, meet a new person... wear sandals.
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