It's all too easy to think very little of ourselves, be it based on the opinions of others or just our own innate self-esteem.
As a result, we might look for things or words that might empower us, and feel better in the moment.
But, do these things or sayings actually empower us?
While they might make us feel better or stronger for a moment, does doing these things actually help us in the long run?
Redditor weltallic was curious to hear things people say or do that would appear to be empowering in theory, but less so in practice, leading them to ask:
"What is seen as empowering, but really shouldn't be?"
The Haters Gonna Hate...
"Insisting that you are perfect just the way you are and anyone who says different is just a 'hater' and shouldn't be listened to."
"Yes, haters exist."
"But if you're consistently hearing that you have problems from people around you, you need to do some introspection instead of cutting those people off for being 'negative' or 'toxic'."- Vero518
It's Just Plain Rude... And Agressive!
"Being rude and aggressive."- SuvenPan
You Are Worth So Much More Than That!
“'The grind' for money."
"I work in a warehouse and everyone just brags about all the overtime they’re working."
"One of the guys who has been there for 15 years told me 'we don’t get paid well because the job is hard, we get paid well because it takes up most of our time'."- AverageCartPusher
Empowered Doesn't Mean Awful!
"Often 'being empowered' is put forward to veil selfish behaviors."- Ruggiard
"Being a bully just to show your friends your 'cool' and can boss around others."
"Humiliating others to show you are above them is just pathetic."- idkybutt
Be Mindful Of Where You Invest Your Money...
"Buying courses from online business gurus."- YLRESS
"MLMs."
"You are not a 'small business owner' if you have no say in branding, pricing, packaging, etc."
"These are predatory companies that sell the idea of empowerment through sub par products and practices."- OneBigOne
Season 3 Money GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyBeing In Charge Doesn't Mean Being A Dictator!
"'I'm a Boss B*tch' and the male version, whatever that is."- dirtycimments
"Being a b*tch/a-hole to everyone else."
"Example, I had a Sister-in-law that would always say, 'I'm sorry, I'm just one of those people that if it comes up, it comes out'."
"and I would always say 'OH so you have no filter for your mouth?'"
"'isn't that just an excuse for being a b*tch?'"- Feels2old
Name One Time This Turned Out Well...
"Mob mentality."
"Usually, the mob is emotionally stunted and without all of the facts."- ilaissezfaire
crowd riot GIFGiphyIt is important to find one's inner strength to get through the day.
Just always be mindful that being strong doesn't mean not treating others with kindness.
And "power" can be dangerous when used improperly.
Redditor LunchCautious8781 wanted to talk about some items that seem old but may still be in the beginning stages.
They asked:
"What do most people not realize is newer than they actually think?"
Iphones. 14 generations is not that far on. Let's talk at 50.
+/-
Pregnancy Test Im Pregnant GIF by Shay MitchellGiphy"Home pregnancy tests, in the 1970s. No longer do we have to inject the lady’s urine into frogs, mice, or rabbits to confirm a pregnancy!"
nagisu
Water Only
"The knowledge that it’s bad to drink when pregnant. Only became widely known in the 80s."
youcallthataheadshot
"This one boggles my mind. Alcohol isn't exactly new -- the ancient greeks had wine and mead. The temperance movement was active for a good hundred years before they got the 18th Amendment."
"But nope. While there were certainly some alarms raised throughout history, people were surprised to learn about fetal alcohol syndrome in 1973, and it wasn't confirmed by a second group of researchers until 1979. In the 60's through 80's it was apparently common for doctors to give alcohol intravenously to women to stop premature labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorder#History"
Lord_Nivloc
Family
"The word sibling was coined in 1903."
ClapAlongChorus
"I learned in English class in 1990 that English didn't have a word for sibling. Later, they said there was a word but no one used it in everyday speech. My mind was a little blown the first time I saw someone actually use it online, around 1999."
Emmison
"This is totally false. The word sibling was coined in Old English and used to refer to anyone who was related to you. It fell out of use for a little while, then was brought back in the 1900s to exclusively refer to brothers and sisters. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sibling#Etymology"
Photo Op
"Having to show ID at the US/Canada border. Prior to 9/11 they often wouldn't even ask to see a drivers license."
Seinfelds-van
"Same at the Mexican border, even after 9/11. I can remember going down to Puerto Penasco around 2002 or 2003 and just being waved through on the way home. Didn't even have to roll my window down, much less show an ID."
mynonymouse
Carb History
Bread Oprah GIFGiphy"Ciabatta bread goes all the way back to the early 1980s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciabatta#Italy"
Hyphum
"Haha I heard of that too, awhile back. I went googling it again and apparently baguettes are from early ~1900s. Crazy, I would've thought they'd be historical."
Kep0a
Oh that is good bread.
For Comfort
"Boxer briefs are fairly new to the scene, becoming popular in the 1990s."
FaberGrad
"I'm happy they did. My favorite underwear."
McFluff_TheCrimeCat
New World
"Tomatoes are actually a new world crop. So when you associate Italy with pasta sauce, you're actually thinking of Italy, post Columbian Exchange (mid 1500s). And actually, tomato sauce wasn't even integrated into Italian cuisine until the late 19th century, so go figure."
lacroixb0i
Back Together
"What hit me the other day: Germany. It was only reunified 30 years ago."
"Same with Italy. Not that it was reunified 30 years ago, but it hasn’t been a country as long as America has."
GREGORIOtheLION
"I was actually just thinking about this last night because Google Rewards gave me a survey asking about my feelings towards Trabant as a brand: https://i.imgur.com/3lUyozZ.jpgI really don't know why it wanted to know my opinion on a brand that went defunct when the Berlin wall fell lol."
FuzzelFox
The Drift
"The theory of plate tectonics. It pretty much makes up the entire backbone of modern geology, yet it wasn't actually accepted until the 1960s. Alfred Wegener proposed his theory of continental drift in 1915 but couldn't explain the mechanism behind it so his theory was dismissed."
mechanism behind it so his theory was dismissed."
"Over the next few decades, the evidence of crustal movement became undeniable and plate tectonics developed as a theory. It's just crazy to me that geologists were pretty much completely clueless until around 60 years ago."
Gneissisnice
Inhabitants...
Read New Zealand GIF by Rugby World CupGiphy"New Zealand! Its indigenous population only arrived there about 800 years ago, despite Australia just across the Tasman having been inhabited for 75,000 plus years."
GrimThursday
History short and long is fascinating.
Redditor AbsoluteHavoc wanted to heard all of the family drama that we've heard unleashed.
So they asked:
"What family secret was finally spilled in your family?"
Years Later
Family GIFGiphy"Found out my grandma had a baby as a teenager and was forced to give him up for adoption by my great grandparents. 40 years later he found us."
dont-take-my-soup
"Same thing happened to my mom. I'm 33 now, older half-brother is roughly 35. I hold hope that I'll meet him one day."
YagamiIsGodonImgur
Nod & Agree
"That my parents 'had' to get married. They always told us they got married in 1961, but it was 1962, 3 months before my sister was born."
"What's amusing is that my father was an accountant who was insanely fast with math. Whenever he was asked how many years they'd been married, he'd be off by one. My mother would correct him through clenched teeth and then my father would nod and agree."
dramboxf
23 and me surprise...
"My great grandmother wasn’t actually Mexican but rather was adopted by a Mexican family from a Chinese family who was being kicked out of Mexico when railroad construction was over. She always had more typically Asian features but only spoke Spanish and it was never really questioned. 23 and me is a hell of a thing."
bustyodust
ALL OUT!
"When my paternal grandfather died the federal govt reached out to do a state funeral. He'd been career army and a colonel, so we didn't question it. Then the funeral came and they went ALL OUT! Huge procession, people showing up who are really big names, like heads of dept's, senators, retired senators, people from the CIA and State Dept, it was nuts and we were all super confused."
"Turns out he was a key dude in the OSI during WWII and when the OSI splintered into the CIA and Secret Service, he went the Secret Service route. He wasn't on White House detail, but instead worked in a covert office that dealt with counterfeiting and currency."
"He went blind when I was a toddler and retired from 'the Army.' For whatever reason, he told no one about all his covert work with the OSI and Secret Service and the only person who knew (my grandmother) was sworn to secrecy and never told anyone. My father grew up thinking he was just a colonel working on base."
"Only after his death were we given all sorts of cool s**t like publications by him, lectures given by him, and all kinds of things from various things he did and was known for. All I knew him as was a blind old man who was perpetually smoking, drinking and being a crotchety b**tard. Turns out he was a bad motherf**ker and all but none of us knew."
haroldtitus425
True Crime
Consider True Crime GIF by Dateline NBCGiphy"My father's brother killed 4 girls when he was in high school. My father was the one who found out and told the police."
yeshelloitme
Good Lord. What in the world?
The Generation Before
Joe Biden Shock GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphy"My grandparents are first cousin’s... an uncle on the same side of the family is in prison for the assassination of a presidential candidate (family still says he was framed and is innocent)."
Cervesaz
The Push
"This is kind of messed up, but my parents told me my mom had a bad back because i pushed on her spine during birth. this was what I thought all my childhood. I think I was in my teens when my older brother told me my dad pushed my mom during an argument and she fell and had to have surgery. I thought I ruined my mom's back my entire childhood and those SOBs let me believe it "
thtssotrue
#7
"My mother is kid #7 of 10. My aunt (kid #4) who was born in 1945 did her DNA and found out that she has a different father from everyone else. She was devastated. There was always rumor that there was an affair but nobody talked about it. She has so many questions but nobody's alive to answer her."
I_see_farts
Thanks Mom...
"When I was 5 years old (1988), Santa Clause left a Nintendo on our front porch. It was wrapped in newspaper, and my parents had no idea who gifted it to us. My dad, particularly, tried to figure it out. He was always suspicious that it had been a family friend. It was by far the best gift of the year, and we played it all the time throughout our childhood."
"My dad died in 2004."
"Last Christmas, my mom explained that she was the one who had bought it and surreptitiously placed it on the porch. My dad really liked to be in control of things and had forbidden the purchase. She knew better. She didn't tell a soul for 30 years."
"Thanks Mom..."
Madame_F
In the Swamp...
Okaay What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"I only just recently heard about this, but my grandmother had gotten a little drunk with my dad and brother a month or so ago and started talking about our great uncle Ferber (not sure on the spelling), but from what I heard he apparently killed quite a few people and buried them on some family-owned land in a swamp."
DHA_Matthew
Well if there was ever any reason to change your last name and move.
Do you have anything your itching to get off your chest about your family tree? Let us know in the comments.