Fortunately for strangers online, they were given a plethora of unexpected life wisdom when Redditor Insanitanium12 asked:
"What simple 'life hack' should everyone know?"
For those who spend a lot of time in front of computers, these could be game-changers.
Information At Our Fingertips
"Google it first."
– anon
Watch Your Sitting Posture
"Get into a routine of stretching your hip flexors and chest if you sit for long periods. Absolute game changer for people who suffer with chronic lower back pain as a result of being hunched over a desk."
– JediKnightCoffman
Keep Moving
"5 minutes of daily exercise is infinitely better than 0 minutes and will make a big difference."
– 0x0ddba11
When it comes to our interactions with people, we learn as you go.
But these tips can be super helpful as we go along our respective journeys.
You Do You
"No matter how good a person you are, at some point you will be the bad guy in someone else’s story. You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t try to. Be a good person, and have friendships with people you can respect and look up to."
– cheesypoofs_1776
When Making Decisions
"If you have trouble choosing, flip a coin. While you're waiting to get the result, your mind automatically starts to wish for what it wants. Then you can choose easily."
– riathekid
Growing A Backbone
"In a lot of daunting situations, for example asking someone out or standing up for yourself, you only need to be brave for a few seconds to get it over with."
– Zuverally
You'll be grateful for stumbling upon these solutions to problems you never knew you had.
Alternative Shopping
"Buy anything you'd need in your kitchen from a restaurant supply store. ANY-THING, plates, glasses, pans etc. There are a few online that sell to consumers. Those $8.99 tongs at a box store are like $1.30. A 16 oz. mason jar glass that sells for $3-$4 a piece can be bought as a 12 pack case for $8.55. Oneida China plates that sell for $345.84 a case for $57.84. I just bought a 2 foot by 2 foot wooden butchers block cutting board that would have been close to $400 for $55."
– FenwayFranks
Make Unofficial Announcements
"If you put something down temporarily, say out loud 'I've put the screwdriver by the microwave' or whatever."
"This engages many more areas of the brain (particularly the language centres) which creates a richer memory making it less likely you'll forget where you put it."
– anon
Preventative Measures
"In a similar vein, I will say it out loud when I turn stove burners off, unplug my hair straightener etc...I’ve found this helps me eliminate those moments where I leave the house or am in bed and I’m suddenly like 'Did I leave that on?'"
– PlasticRuester
Say It With A Twist
"My wife and I made this a ritual due to her OCD. Any time we're going out, I'll say to her, 'Hey. I unplugged the iron.' Saying it in a funny voice helps too, because it's easier to remember that Shrek told her the iron was off."
– dougthebuffalo
Hygienic Regimen
"Brush your teeth more thoroughly before bed after you are done eating and drinking for the day."
"Morning brushing is important too, but more so for fresh breath; while evening cleaning will prevent bacteria from breeding and damaging your teeth and gums."
– graycat3700
If you read this far, congratulations!
With your newly acquired knowledge, you can now apply some of these to make your life stress-free on some level.
Because why should you make things harder for yourself in an already stressful world?
You deserve better.
RedditorDangerous_Mobile9188 wanted to discuss what aspects of life still leave confusion.
"What do you genuinely not understand?"
Life is full of quandaries that I give up on trying to figure out.
Everywhere?
Emoji Corona GIF by BallcomGiphy"Why people can't use a public restroom without literally pooping all over the freaking toilet."
Natural-School5690
Around the grooves...
"How a single needle can run through the grooves on a record and produce a fully layered and 'separated' sound. I mean, I get how it works in theory. But like... how TF does it work?"
LandofRy
"I know how it works, and I understand how it works, and I was gleefully trying to convey this knowledge to a friend when I realized that I am not able to explain how it works, which essentially means that I don’t actually get how it works."
smelllikesmoke
Meow Team
"The thought process of a cat trying to jump on a shelf that is clearly filled with stuff and doesn't have space for it to land safely."
Mikrosarvinen
"The opposite, actually... how on earth does my cat jump on a shelf filled with stuff and somehow always land elegantly with all four paws between all the stuff without dropping a single thing? It surprises me every time."
WanderingArtichoke
"50% of cats have a 6th sense to avoid everything and 50% of cats are clumsy as hell. 100% of cats think they have the skill though."
KneeHumper
Clueless
"How consciousness works."
DarthDinDjarin
"I'm shocked no one has replied to this. Because yea. I haven't the slightest clue and i honestly don't think scientists know exactly how either. Such a complex system that turns into our thoughts and feelings, this is one of those things that REALLY made me appreciate the intricacies of our bodies."
r-Newbiedonthurtme
10/10
So Excited Reaction GIF by OriginalsGiphy"Every time my grandmother sees me, I seem to grow taller and more attractive."
JoeyMMuelle
I love grandmas. They understand everything.
S.O.S
Role Playing Reaction GIF by Hyper RPGGiphy"How people can raise a functioning family at the age of 18 or 19? I can't even hold my own life together."
Radioactivocalypse
Staying Put
"Squatter rights! They confuse the hell outta me."
roomtempcoff33
"Right! So you’re telling me, I can get evicted/foreclosed for missing some payments… but you can’t get rid of squatters who declare a house theirs ? I should just become a squatter then haha."
violet-ack
"Squatting is basically the same. It's not that they just get to live there, but the landlord has to use the proper legal mechanism (eviction) to get rid of them. And sometimes, that can take quite some time."
banality_of_ervil
"Steps"
"How crypto mining works... like what exactly are these huge setups doing and why do GPUs matter so much? I've read several articles about it and I still don't get it."
Tripper-Harrison
"This is an oversimplification, but they're trying to solve a math problem. If they get the answer, they get rewarded with crypto. But the math problem is very very hard. There's no 'steps' to find the answer, it's just guess and check."
"So you need to make as many guesses as possible to see if one of your guesses is right. And it just so happens that GPUs are very good at making these guesses. So if 1 GPU can make let's say 22,000 guesses every second, then two GPUs can make 44,000 guesses every second. 10 GPUs can make 220,000 guesses every second, and so on."
PierogiMachine
I'm Lost
"The wave-particle duality."
FishySwede
"This is the one man. For me this is the biggest mystery. Look, I don't care how the universe came to be. I mean I do, but this is much crazier to me. HOW DOES REALITY REACT DIFFERENTLY BASED ON OBSERVATION ALONE I sear this haunts me at night. Do i even exist man."
yungbandido
"Long story short, observing something at the quantum level is not as benign as observing, say, a runner on a racetrack. In observing something so small, the mere act of doing so affects the behavior/outcome. Imagine having to knock the aforementioned runner over in order to know where they are on the track. That's more or less how it was explained to me."
BaronMusclethorpe
Magic
Ross Mcelwee Photography GIF by FilmStruckGiphy"Cameras, I’ve been explained and seen explanations 100 times. It’s still magic to me."
Salty-Director538
Learning
"Willfull ignorance. Like, never in human history have we had the ability to find correct information so easily and so quickly. I love to Google things and research so I can learn new things every day."
"However, I occasionally encounter people who are proudly set in their incorrect thinking and don’t care to learn the truth about whatever subject at hand. It blows my mind… like, why are you comfortable being wrong and not learning new things? I legitimately don’t understand how someone doesn’t want to learn and improve their knowledge."
I_Like_Thanksgiving
Everyone Sees Me
"The obsession with trying to become famous for so many people."
Tsujigiriforbeer
"Honestly i struggled with this and my music for a long time. I realized over time and I’m sure it is the same for others but I think it’s just a human emotion to want to be adored and being famous can feel like an easy way of feeling constant admiration from others."
bitbbulldoggy
The Evil
"How have we not overthrown Ticketmaster?"
Moose-n-Skwerl
"We need to overthrow Live Nation, who owns Ticketmaster and many music festivals- including Astroworld. Live Nation is evil."
wehadbagels
"It's actually because they're funneling a lot of that money back to the artists but that way people hate live nation and not the artists."
yohannyong
The Machines
Giphy"Computers. Electrical signals allow what amounts to a bunch of glorified rocks to have rudimentary thought. It drives me insane."
wafflesnores
Ok. Whatever.
"Why people get mad when you question someone at work. Like dude, I’m just verifying info to cover my a**, I’m not questioning your competency. I pull wire sometimes and we had a 3 hour drive and needed 1000 feet. They guy that loaded it didn’t do the math to see exactly how much wire we needed and just guessed."
"It didn't look big enough and I asked him how he knew how much wire was on the spool. Dude got mad as hell, saying he knew what he was doing and that I was getting on his nerves. Ok whatever. Three hour drive later and guess what? 300!feet too short. Wasted basically 6 hours of driving and the entire day of work."
Cdchrono88
Pile On
"Where tire particles go. Millions of tires wear down but there’s no giant pile of them somewhere. It HAS to be somewhere as a collective entity."
Locating_Subset9
"I read an article a long time ago that said we eat or ingest a credit card a year worth of plastic per person. A substantial amount of that plastic comes from micro plastics in our water and food chain. A lot of that plastic comes from tires. Here's an article I just found with a search but it's not the article I remember. It's just similar and equAlly as troubling."
seanayates2
Opening Doors
"Master keys... especially for like schools and dorms. How do they open all the doors, but not every key works???!!"
Abject-Action43
"I was an RA in a dorm that had about 400 guys and girls in it. There were only 7 different keys issued to students. If they knew they could walk down the hall put their key in and open 1 in 7 doors, guys floor, girls floor, it didn’t matter."
just4funloving
"The locks have several configurations for the pins to unlock the tumbler. the key specific to the door and the master key. Master keys are just keys that unlock many doors!"
IceFire909
The Miserable
Will Smith Smh GIF by The Academy AwardsGiphy"Narcissists. They will never admit to any wrongdoing, constantly believe the world revolves around themselves, and the butterfly effects are that everybody else’s lives become miserable."
the_spiritual_eye
Maybe there are just somethings we're not meant to understand.
RedditorShlegnogwanted to see who would fess up about some qualities we possess. So they asked:
"What’s something that you do that you’re pretty sure is normal, but you don’t know for sure?"
I talk to myself to go to sleep. It's soothing. Anyone else?
Pockets
Animated GIFGiphy"Putting my hands on my pockets where I keep my phone/wallet when I closely pass by someone, just in case they may be a pickpocket."
TheYeti4815162342
Wiped
"That one dude yesterday and elsewhere on reddit posted that he only wiped once after pooping and was certain that he didn't need more than one wipe to get the job done. I definitely use multiple wipes until the tissue is clean... but now I'm questioning if there are secretly a bunch of (literal) nasty-a** people out there."
SmokeGSU
Keep Dreaming
"I daydream constantly. I'll sit there and be imagining I'm the hero of some story, or I just won a billion dollars and how I'm spending it. I just have an imagination I get lost in when nothing is happening. It's so easy to get lost when you have an extremely vivid imagination. Sometimes I think it's childish, but then I realize it's honestly just a relaxing habit that maybe some adults are too stressed to be able to practice."
__________lIllIl
Mind Reader
"If I'm out in public (grocery store, school pick up line, doc office, etc), I'll have a quick thought of 'I wonder if anyone is reading my mind right now. Quick! Don't think of anything weird!' and then I proceed to automatically start thinking of weird s**t or trying to tell this imaginary mind reader that I'm totally not a weird person or side-eyeing people that I see."
ArtsySAHM
Conversations
Talking Blah Blah Blah GIF by Wiz KhalifaGiphy"Having imaginary conversations with people, that I know will never actually happen in real life."
Bulgasauri
Conversations with others who aren't there. That is a popular one.
LOUDER
Sea Lion Reaction GIF by CameoGiphy"Whenever I haven't talked to a person for a couple of hours, I just say something out loud to test if my voice still exists."
Flux-bite
Popping In...
"Horrible intrusive thoughts. They pop in without warning, and without trigger. It's usually the standard 'what if I drove off the side of this bridge' or 'I bet it would hurt to stab myself with this thing' but they can even be worse: I was washing dishes yesterday."
"My wife was heading to our bedroom to pick something up. For some reason, I imagined her grabbing my gun and blowing her brains out. It really upset me. I had to pull her aside and give her a big hug, and I explained to her what happened, to where she reminded me 'I can't even load the f**king thing.' Do ya'll do s**t like this?"
GeauxAllDay
Guzzle
"The amount of water I can consume. I know they say you should drink when you are thirsty, but I can be thirsty a lot, especially during warm weather / summer days. I can easily drink 100oz (or about 3L) of water a day."
Jim105
"I drink so much water. I swear it's easily a gallon per day if I have water by me the whole day. It's funny too because everyone in my social circle hates water and almost never drink it and I just don't understand how that's even possible. Water is amazing!"
SimplyComplexd
Creeping in
"Against my will, my mind will imagine horrific scenarios wherein some tragic death scene of a loved one plays out. It used to be my doggies, but now that I'm a mom, I imagine *my* death, because that would be tragic to my kid (and maybe I just can't imagine my own kid's death, thankfully!). It's f**ked up and its gotten better generally, but when I'm stressed out, it'll creep back in."
epigenie_986
Name that Tune
Happy Dance GIF by benjamin lemoineGiphy"If I have a song stuck in my head I often click my teeth to the drum beat. When my wife notices me doing it she asks me what the song is."
CornerMoon
Louder!
"When I have a cringe thought or something negative on my mind I'll make some noise out loud to interrupt said thought."
Favnonpornomag
"My therapist actually told me to do this. She said if I have a negative thought (about myself was the issue) she said actually saying no out loud interrupts the thought and keeps you from continuing it. I feel like it really works!!"
crashbanecoot
"I do this. I hate it. I’ve been caught occasionally and try to weave into a song, as if I just happened to be singing when they strolled by, like that is somehow better."
crescendo83
Add it up...
"When I add 7 + 4, I break up the 4 into 3+1. 7+3 is obviously 10, 10+1=11. There is probably several other examples of math problems I break up in my head to make solving easier."
nivekps2
"This, believe it or not, is actually how common core math is supposed to be taught. Not the whole 'Put these numbers into boxes and break those boxed number up etc...'"
belac4862
"Actually I worked as a math tutor and that is exactly how we taught them that method lmao. like ofc they should break the numbers up into boxes, that’s how you learn to see 7+4 as (7+3)+1"
redbottleofpoison
Taps
"Slap my thighs as if they are percussion instruments when I’m bored."
XX_OVERLORD
"I do this with everything. I even change the shape of my hands to make different sounds, so I'll tap my fingers like drumsticks, flat hand for a similar style to you. I'm basically a one man band at this point."
KaleidoscopeInside
"If my keys are not in my pocket, I will sadly slap my empty pocket all day because I’m used to my hi-hat being there lol."
labamaFan
Tongue It
chips GIFGiphy"Look at each side of a potato chip/Dorito to determine what side I want to put against my tongue."
Konebred
Where is It?
"Whenever I leave a spot I've been sitting in outside, I make sure to look back and check if I've dropped anything."
consciously_comad
"I look back at the spot where I was sitting, but only to see if I left a butt print. (Not outside though! Inside, like in a waiting room)."
Appropriate_Day_8721
"Always. Picked up the habit after I lost my PE kit 19 times in one term of secondary school. One time the lost and found lady returned my PE kit to me before I’d noticed it was gone."
carmina_morte_carent
Scene to Scene
"Create scenarios in my head of how conversations would go, even though they’re likely to NEVER happen."
ManufacturerLess7116
"I seem to pratice potential conversations all the time. Or re-act a scene from a movie in my head. Or Redo a conversation I had earlier with somebody. By the third or fourth time replaying the conversation I sound so much smarter and quick wit. You know what, I going to pretend that’s how that conversation really went with my coworker."
CH11DW
“wetting”
"I wet my toothbrush, put on the toothpaste and then wet it again. Always wondered if this was normal but never asked."
tehkitryan
"I used to do this until very recently. I was wondering one day if the second wetting makes any noticeable difference. After a bit of testing, no wetting is very noticeable and not recommended, but I didn’t notice any difference between one or two wettings. I now absolutely despise the word 'wetting' as of typing this comment, but I only wet my toothbrush once."
LucidLumi
Clear!
Rubbing Season 3 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy"Clearing a notification off my phone as soon as I get it, deleting most of my texts after a few days, and then swiping up on any open pages/apps at the end of the day."
byah1601
Me and Myself
"I talk to myself all the time, will also speak gibberish and make random other sounds. I feel weird about it, but I'm convinced it's way more normal than not. I think maybe I just somewhat subconsciously hate when things are too quiet."
leotonius
"My wife and I do this so definitely not you. Do you also ever feel compelled to mimic a sound after you hear it? It doesn't matter what it is, speech or some random sound, I find myself almost forced to do it especially if it's a unique or standout sound. Most of the time I don't even register the compulsion, I just hear the sound and mimic."
BookooBreadCo
We're all gifted. Feel no shame people. That is all.
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There are a ton of jobs or favors that don't require much skill, experience, or labor, and people who are fortunate enough to get hired walk away with a king's ransom.
Looking for those kinds of "jobs," however, is like finding a teardrop in the ocean.
Few who struck gold, at least temporarily, shared their experiences when Redditor NikTheNerdBoy asked:
"What's the dumbest thing you were paid to do and how much were you paid?"
Good luck finding these well-paying tasks.
Running Errands
"Had a WFH gig working sort of as a personal assistant for a rich guy on the opposite coast from me. I did all kinds of wacky sh*t for him. For example, one time I had to break up with my boss's girlfriend because he was too wimpy to do it himself. That was literally my job."
"One day, I bought him a new pickup truck. Meaning, I negotiated the deal and paid for the truck with his credit card. All in all, I'd say the process probably took about two weeks, for which I was paid my usual wage at six hours per day. No big deal."
"Somehow, his dad found out about the new truck and he decided he wanted a new pickup truck too. He called me about a week after I bought the truck for my boss and said he'd pay me $2,000 to buy a truck for him. I called the same dealership back, spoke to the same salesman, told him what was up and basically said give me another truck, same price as before. The salesman was only too happy to comply."
"It took ten minutes to make the phone call and then a day or two to get the title and other paperwork sorted out. So, depending on how you look at it, I made $2,000 for just ten minutes worth of 'work.'"
"Somehow, my boss's rich friend found out about all this. He decided he wanted a new SUV. 'OhYeahThrowItAway, you have to buy it for me!' I told him the last time I bought someone a vehicle, I got paid $2,000. The friend was basically like F'k it, I'll pay you $3,000, just get it for me' and then he emailed me his wish list."
"That deal took a little longer, maybe two weeks."
"I made $5k extra in just two months buying vehicles for lazy (or dumb) rich people."
Staying Out Of The Picture
"I was paid $300 to move my car for a movie that was filming by my apartment."
Pack It Up
"Got paid 10k to leave an apartment because it was sold and new owner wanted to move in. I was tenant (renter) under previous owner. I had 4 months left in my rental contract. This was in Spain (Barcelona)."
European Vacation
"I was flown to Paris to do a compliance audit, the systems weren't set up for the audit, couldn't get access so spent the week being taken to restaurants and shopping. On 1 of the days and at the last minute the company decided to send me to London for a meeting, literally just to meet people. I missed the Eurostar because I forgot my passport (totally blanked that I was entering another country), they had to rebook the Eurostar. Nothing was achieved out of this trip. No audit was completed. Nothing came of the meeting. The cost to the company 25k+ for me to do nothing for a week. Corporate money is ridiculous money."
Game For Cleaning
"My friend asked me to clean out his Guinea Pig cage because he couldn't be bothered that day."
"In payment he gave me his copy of Zoo Tycoon 2 for PC." – Bubbly-Crew9697
License To Sit
"Twenty five years ago, and in Indiana, the law was that in order to operate nail salon, someone there must hold a full cosmetology license, not just a nail technician license. A nail salon opened next to the hair salon I worked at and they all held nail technician licenses and the one who held a cosmetology license would be delayed in Korea for a week for whatever reason. At 18 years old, I was paid $25 an hour to merely to sit in the nail salon as the 'holder of the license.' I answered no phones, tended to no clients, did nothing but paint my own nails repeatedly and watch tv for an entire week. Was a sweet, sweet gig."
Not much labor was required for these so-called "jobs."
Ten-Minutes Of "Work"
"I used to work for a PR agency. Every month one of our clients wanted a handful of photos re-sized for their website; nothing fancy, just setting the width to 500px in Windows Photo Manager."
"It was maybe ten minutes of work every month, but the contract said the minimum amount of time we would charge them for was one day - and this was for the full team too, not just me. It must have cost them several hundred pounds every month."
"I showed the client how to do it several times, and explained that they could save a lot of money doing it themselves. They didn't seem to mind."
"In the end I made sure I got it in writing that I'd informed them of their options and let them get on with it."
Thank You, Goodbye
"$175 to do some kind of user study at Netflix, I show up in the lobby and then they go, 'actually we got the data we needed from the studies earlier today, you're free to go!'. Still got paid!"
– Lycid
Hush Money
"I did an event for a national association for deaf people at which they did every presentation in ASL. I am an audio engineer, who specializes in live sound and concerts. I did nothing for 5 days of show, $450 a day."
– murter95
Paid To Play
"I got asked to do 2 hours of barrier watch (Guarding a barrier ribbon while a crew did x rays inside a power plant). This was asked last minute after a 12 hour shift so the bonuses of staying happening to be a Sunday, etc I was being paid $110 to stand and play on my phone and make sure sure nobody tried to pass all the DO NOT ENTER DANGER DANGER signs during a time of day with minimal personnel."
– Hotel29
The Worthy Companion
"When I was 19, I meet an heiress (I think she was in her fifties). She paid me $20 an hour to go to lunch with her. She would take me to five star restaurants and we would shoot the shit for 1-2 hours every week. That is literally all she wanted from me... to sit and eat lunch with her at a fancy restaurant. It was nice, I was poor so that extra 20-40 bucks a week made a big difference and I got to eat some of the best food in Houston. She was a nice lady. I taught her how to pump her own gas and took her to a grocery store for the first time in her life. She taught me proper table manners and that not all rich people are narcissistic jerks."
Movie Scene Dance GIF by FandorGiphyGotta Have Wendy's
"I was driving for uber. Picked up a bunch of drunks at like 2 AM. They were like 'Yo we gotta grab some Wendy' I go 'I'm sorry this is my busy period' they go 'Can we bribe you?' I go 'Absolutely you can bribe me.'"
"One the guys said I'll give you $100...I was shocked it was that high, another guy said '$150' and finally his wife said 'F'k it I want Wendy $200 and we buy you Wendy too.'"
"I finally said yes, FYI I hadn't said yes yet because the reality is $20-$40 would have gotten me to stop at Wendy."
"So there I sat at Wendy as those 3 drunks bought me wendy and paid me $200."
Substitute Chef
"One time I was at this super fancy dinner party. I'm talking servers and everything, I was in a freaking tux! It was outside and catered by a professional bbq company. I mean these guys had won international competitions. Well get this, they were double booked and didn't show. The other servers didn't know how to grill, and this totally smokin server in her 30s is just staring at the grill like a deer in the headlights. Well I don't want to be a hero but I ask if I can help. The entire staff spend the rest of the night bringing me drinks as I make this bbq and NOBODY realizes the award winning chefs didn't show up!"
Where Do We Apply?
"Ok this wasn't a job or anything.... But I got 10$ to eat half a watermelon."
Favorable Weather
"Got paid 300$ to shovel my neighbors front steps and driveway while she was away on vacation all winter. It did not even flurry once."
Some opportunities present themselves.
When I was a kid, I hung out at a Japanese summer festival booth where you roll a bowling ball on a track that had two hills. The objective was to push the ball hard enough to get it over the first hill but not too hard to get it over the second hill.
I was fascinated with the challenge and stayed there for a long time as my parents were over by the food booths with their friends.
It was a slow day, and the dude working the booth wanted to peace out for a bit, so he offered to pay me $50 to "hang out" in his stead.
Of course, I said "sure."
No one ever came, and I earned fifty bucks rolling bowling balls for an hour. Was it the dumbest thing I ever did for money? Maybe, but I laughed all the way to the piggy bank that day.
That guy really must have despised his post enough to give a twelve-year-old kid $50.