Life in the United States is simultaneously cake and impossible - but if you think things are a magical utopia in other countries, you should probably make more international friends.
'Cause the world is kind of a beautiful dumpster fire everywhere.
One Reddit user asked:
What makes you sad about the country you live in?
And yeah ... turns out the issue is probably not the place, but that humans need to just get it together.
Divided
It feels like the "Divided" States of America instead of United.
People have seemingly lost the ability to talk to one another in a civil, productive way to achieve a better result for everyone.
Online, yes, but in person I just don't see that. I live/work around, right, left, black, white, rich, poor, religious, non religious etc and we all get along fine in political discussions in person.
Social media makes it seem a lot worse, I think. Some people are unreasonable in person, but most of them didn't need social media to be unreasonable
A Brazilian Grandma
Suspicious Buffy The Vampire Slayer GIFGiphyI was walking down the street the other day on my way to a friends gathering, when this very ancient-looking lady, dressed like a Brazilian grandma, approached me at a street corner and kindly said something like this: "Oh dear young man, could you please help me cross the street? I am afraid a car can hit me because of my slow pace."
Normally I am very happy to lend a hand and help people out, especially elders, but it was a quiet and poorly illuminated street in a central district of Sao Paulo past 10 pm. That means a perfect place for street crime. I only needed to walk 3 blocks from the subway station to my friend's apartment, and as a local aware of our high crimes rates, I was planning to do it as quickly and unnoticeably as possible. But I said yes.- mavaremkj
The old lady holds my arm firmly and we start crossing at her very slow pace. All of a sudden it felt like something was terribly wrong. "It's a trap" I immediately thought. "She's an actress part of a gang whose members will come out of nowhere, attack me, rob me or do anything at any moment," I thought. It seemed like a really long crossing-the-street minute while I was so sure something bad was going to happen to me. "How could I be so naïve?" and "I'm screwed" were my last thoughts... before reaching to the opposite sidewalk safely.
That was it. She thanked me and went on her way, leaving me feeling COMPLETELY relieved for not being a victim of a gang or something like that, and TERRIBLY bad at the same time for having suspected about her attitude and, worse, her sincere need for help.
That made me realize that my fear of losing my life has largely blocked my sense of trust and empathy for others, and how much of a commonplace this is in Brazil's today society. Of course, we have a lot of problems, but this makes me really sad about my country.
Indigenous Canadians
As an Indigenous person in Canada, I'm extremely sad that my native language was almost wiped out during colonization. All of our remaining speakers are elders. We are doing our best to relearn.
It's not even during the colonization! So many traditions and language was lost during the f*cking residential schools that indigenous kids were forced into. Thousands of children died. Thousands more lost their roots and identity.
The f*cking craziest part was there were still residential schools in THE GODDAMN 1990's! We Canadians should feel immense shame when we think of how our country has completely f*cked an entire group of people, but if you ask the average person on the streets, they probably have some deeply racist opinions about the aboriginal people in the country.
Sh*t hadn't changed. We still treat the indigenous people of Canada like absolute sh*t.
Women have been forced to get hysterectomies, CAS has taken children from families without justification, they are targeted by police, they are targeted for murders because killers know there won't be a serious investigation into the disappearance of an indigenous person. Its nice to think that Canada is so much better than the US in regards to tolerance, but I think a lot of us just have our eyes closed
- 0ngar
Tolerating Intolerance
Netherlands. We've always told ourselves that we're a tolerant nation, to the point that now we've grow accustomed to tolerating intolerance.
I expect a lot of Western Europe is feeling the same.
German here. I understand you well.
We are at a point in history where we need to tolerate these QAnon people who endanger our democratic and relatively safe lives with their "Corona isn't real" and "wake up sheeps of the system" bull.
We recently got a young racist douchebag of a woman drawing parallels between herself and Sophie Scholl (a brave woman of the resistance against the Nazis, for those who don't know her) - and we have to tolerate sh*t like that, because otherwise we are hindering them in their right for free speech eye roll.
So Much Potential
Everything. (The Philippines.)
I mean, you could name a dozen other countries that are just politically, economically, even culturally f*cked we are.
But when I read through our history, we had such potential. Our agricultural and industrial sector was pretty good after recovering from WW2. We were either ahead or on par with the likes of Singapore, South Korea, and even Japan. We should be standing alongside those countries as equals today.
But the 70s and 80s were wasted under a brutal dictatorship that embezzled the equivalent of billions of dollars worth of our national capital and left us heavily in debt. The political climate never quite recovered from the cronyism of that era. Our government continues to be extremely corrupt and dismissive of the public's needs.
Our job market is so terrible, a significant portion of our workforce has to migrate overseas for work. The "Overseas Filipino Worker" is like a labor class onto itself, with connotations of people being exported like cattle to prop up a dysfunctional domestic economy. It's also led to the rather negative stereotype that there are Filipinos all over the goddamn place, cos there's hardly a corner of the world where you won't find our people.
Just when things were starting to climb in the early 2010s, we elected the "Trump of the East" in 2016, an authoritarian who has spent the last 4 years dismantling our democratic institutions, persecuting critics, allowing China to infringe on our sovereignty, and waging a brutal war on drugs that has accomplished nothing more than an indiscriminate massacre of the poor. And he's not due to leave office until 2022.
So here we are, a poor, backward, shadow of what we could have been, surrounded by neighboring countries who have long since surpassed us.
Greek "Superiority"
I live in Greece and incase you didn't know, Greece is heading to hell financially.
I don't mind patriotism but at school they teach you about achievements we accomplished thousands of years ago as if they were yesterday and speak of us as if if we are superior to other countries because some took reference of our ancient vocabulary, and honestly I don't like that.
I Want To Live In People's Imaginations
beauty river GIF by JerologyGiphyThe way people think of it.
People are all: "BEAUTIFUL NATURE!! Freedom in the forest! The graceful mountains. The north-sea..."
Me: Normal county... ???
The way people think of Norway makes me want to live in their imagination... but I can't. The nature and environment people think of - that was before.
I'm never gonna know that. I'm never gonna be in it. It makes me think of people destroying the earth, something that makes me sad.
The Police Do Nothing To Stop It
Mexico
Every day there's 10 women who are murdered and our police system does nothing to stop this. There was a case of a CEO who murdered his wife and nobody did anything. The victims even report their abusers many, many times but the police does sh*t and then it's too late.
I live in a pretty calm city but now it's almost regular to hear about a woman being murdered or abducted.
It is horrifying. The fear is real. Even when we weren't in quarantine, we thought twice about even going out with friends or even at night.
In school it was risky to be alone. There were many stories of students who were almost abducted and this is just in my city but there's worse cities that deal with this every day.
"Outraged"
How tax evasion and small corruption in general is considered normal, despite being one of the causes of our high national debt. Obviously when a major case of corruption is discovered they're all "outraged."
Plus the growing intolerance toward immigration, due to some parties propaganda. I live in Italy
Unimproved Since The Fall Of The Soviet Union
Bulgaria
Corruption is everywhere. Our wages are laughable and it is even worse when it is time to retire.
Our educational system is mediocre, students are intentionally flunked so they can pay their retake sessions of which associate professors and professors take a chunk out of.
Our healthcare system is pretty much unimproved since the fall of the soviet union. Emergency medicine is late most of the times. Our doctors lie to the patients in order to perform operations that are not needed so they can take money from the state, which is financing some of those procedures.
We Used To Be
Germany.
We used to be a country in which everyone pulled in the same direction. Focus on education, expand the great healthcare system, get an balanced economic growth and reduce the number of poor people every year. Everything changed in the last 6-10 years.
Now we are a country filled with hate against those we don't really know and don't even try to understand. Instead of fighting real world problems we fight against right winged politicians who think it's smart to shoot people trying to enter our country or let them drown in the ocean instead of letting them enter the European Union.
We have to fight people who describe German history and it's actual representation as mostly fictional instead of learning from the past. The saddest part in all of this is: these people represent a decent number of people and their political views.
We should have learned from the last years but it looks like we did not. We drown in politeness and political correctness instead of fighting those who "fight the democracy" as they call it themselves.
Our democratic system seems to fail to protect itself against those who are determined to destroy it.
- El_Com
Something Bad Is Always Coming
Cuba is a country where we can't enjoy good stuff for too long because there is always something bad coming. For example, last year we got a salary increment - but then started a scarcity of food, hygiene supplies and fuel. We had a little bit of money, but almost no public transportation or diversity of food to buy.
This year, due to Covid and lack of tourism, the government decided to get dollars by switching our stores payment method from national money to US dollars.
We cannot purchase those dollars or buy in stores with them, you must own a magnetic card and you must get the money from outside the country. Guess what?
Trump said he had enough of us and forbid banks from send us dollars.
There are many examples, but living in Cuba is like that: something good happens and few weeks or months later something bad comes and F*CKS US, VERY HARD. VEEEERY HARD.
We Cubans are strong, happy people. We have faced adversity and survived troublesome times but F*CK! We just want to live simple, regular, happy lives without worrying about so many f*cking issues all the time.
We Already Went Through This
People saying Refugees (mostly Muslims) should live in separate places designed for themBasically camps. I live in Austria. We already f*cking went through this sh*t and people still support history repeating itself.The Most Blessed And Most Cursed
I live in Pakistan, it is the most blessed and the most cursed country.
Pakistan consists of forests, jungles, precious mines, deserts, sea, mountains and godly windy terrains along with multiple agricultural fertile land.
If utilized properly, Pakistan's economy could've massacred the other top ranked countries. But the only curse is that we have the most corrupted and the scummiest leaders, causing it to just slowly fail.
Even with nuclear power, Pakistan is heavily in debt with the US and other countries. Moreover, Pakistan's founding fathers and later on Prime ministers made some poor decisions to which residents are still suffering from.
Science
neil degrasse tyson GIFGiphyI don't usually like to post comments like these, but I feel really strongly about this topic.
America.
Simply too many people don't understand or believe in basic science and health principles that should be common sense. Simply too many people fight tooth and nail against wearing masks.
It's so depressing that in the same country with a good amount of the world's leading scientists/doctors you have so many people that don't understand that we can eradicate this damn virus by putting a freaking face covering over out face and by staying 6 feet away from each other.
That in the same country we have so many people that swear up and down that climate change is false yet we're seeing undeniable evidence of climate change wearing away our planet.
That in the same country there are so many people who make their life revolve around politics, even things that were never meant to be politicized in the first place.
I haven't even mentioned the disgustingly expensive healthcare situation
Beautiful - But Ugly
Serbia is a really pretty country - like the nature and everything it's so cool.
But the people who live here are stuck with a mindset of people from the 15th century or something. They are all blaming AmEriCA for everything. I see so much ingrained ugly; like just a lot of homophobes , transphobes and racists.
Then they sit around wondering why nobody likes us.
I don't hate it here, actually. It's Beautiful. I hate the people here. Ugly.
- Nanat1me
Lesson Not Learned
We allowed a fascist to run and ruin our country. For the second time!
Like we didn't have enough in 2012 when his party collectively stole more money than the country makes in a year. And they tripled the number since February!
Slovenia
It's Not That Much Fun
Everything is small and there is no variety.
For a country only a few spots down the leaderboard from 1st place, life is surprisingly dull and bleak - unless you're into the same looking old buildings everywhere.
It's nothing like America, the country it's most compared to. In America, if you have something you want to do there is probably a store/place not too far that does it.
Here, if there's something you wanna do it means you need to either go on holiday or expect to drive across the whole country.
England isn't as fun as people make out.
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Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.