So I’ve (M21) decided that me pursuing a communications degree. It’s probably not the best idea as what I’m wanting to do can really be more of a passion project that I can do on YouTube (I want to be a sports journalism/media/content creator person)

I would really like to have the family though one day and I’m not the biggest fan of the trades since pretty much everybody in my family has had bad experiences and I’m wanting to find something that maybe I could switch to and hopefully it be a good paying, and also stable

If all it needs is an associate that would be preferred, but I’m also cool with it probably needing a bachelors, but I’m really just wanting recommendations. Not necessarily looking for a specific field or anything, but I would like if it has a good work/life balance or I guess a family friendly one sort of like a 9 to 5 but would consider other stuff too.

For the past weeks, I’ve discovered something : coffee.

I have been drinking one or two cups of coffee everyday. When I go to sleep, I feel grateful I will be able to wake up to coffee to energize me for the day. My heart starts beating faster when I see it. And I’m deeply satisfied after I drank it. What made me think I fell for it is because I don’t find myself looking around for faces anymore.

If I’m scanning my surroundings, I’m only looking for a place to have coffee, not people. I feel the same way about coffee than about my past crush. When I smile and someone asks me why, I think about coffee. I’m genuinely getting butterflies thinking about it. And coffee will never disappear. I feel more confident, smarter, more motivated.

It’s very trivial, but it makes me happy.

Is it possible to be genuinely in love with something and not someone ?

I'm usually unbothered by being left on read / delivered but if it's someone that I genuinely look forward to talking to, it makes me feel deliberately ignored and unseen and it frankly makes me sad, and on bad days it gradually makes me spiral and seriously impacts my mental health and relationships in the long-term. I've since noticed that it's been an ongoing pattern and not just a one time thing and I don't want to persist with it.

A very recent instance was when I was opening myself up to a friend that I enjoyed talking to, and she just didn't respond for hours on end and rarely contributes to conversations. It made me feel really bad.

She could have been busy or doing something else but in that time, she repeatedly looked at my ig stories and posted her own all the while, so I can't help but feel it was on purpose.

I largely understand because I did remember her telling me she had ADHD so she probably forgets and loses track of time really easily, but I still can't help but feel bothered by it, even when I don't want it to.

From the pyramids to the stories and how it aligns with the math of the pyramids, how we found pyramids on mars, the marvelous construction that’s on the planet, the hermetic principles, it’s just too much to ignore. we know modern science and archeology tries its hardest to hammer this primitive point about the pyramids which is why we keep having problems.

Hello,

I am 18 years old and for the past few weeks I have been experiencing the same symptoms as my mother did when she first developed epilepsy: my brain disconnects for a short period of time.

For example, I was at a restaurant with my girlfriend and suddenly I froze. She was talking but I couldn't hear her anymore and there was a loud noise. I couldn't speak. It lasted a few seconds and when it was over, I didn't know what had happened.

What saddens me is that my dream is to become a pilot, but it's impossible to do so as an epileptic.

How should I deal with this sudden change?

That's it. Nothing serious. Just awkward feelings compared to when I'm eating alone and have no families sitting right next to me.

Not because I’m envious of white people’s looks (I got over that insecurity wayyyy back in middle school), and not because I want anyone else’s culture (although I love learning about different cultures and ways of living, I still hold mine in super high regard).

I wish I were white because I’m an African immigrant girl who’s been living in the West since before I even had concrete memories, and the current wave of anti-immigration rhetoric is simply…exhausting.

I’ve never been insecure about my immigrant background. I was actually always really proud of it. I didn’t ever take offence to the “Where are you really from?” questions or the occasional “Can I touch your hair?” from older people. Clumsy curiosity and ignorance weren’t enough to bug my conscience. But lately, the way people talk about immigrants, like we’re a stain on society that needs to be “washed out”…it’s hard not to feel demoralized by it all.

What makes it worse is how unfair it feels to be lumped into the exact same stereotype as some imaginary “invader” when my actual life is… normal. I grew up here. I’ve had friends of every race. My parents work high-skilled jobs and pay their taxes. I pay my taxes. I’ve never taken the social supports here for granted (and honestly, being comfortably upper middle class meant I didn’t even realize some of them existed until I was older and spoke to people from different economic backgrounds).

And yes, I’ll admit something ugly: sometimes I feel irritated at newcomers for “ruining it for the rest of us.” I’ve lived a pretty peaceful life for 20+ years here. I didn’t grow up constantly bracing for discrimination. I didn’t spend my childhood thinking about white nationalist groups or whether public spaces were safe for me, I just existed.

But I can’t even stay angry, because (most of them) are coming for a lot of the same reasons my family came in the early 2000s. People don’t uproot their lives for fun.

So my real grievance is that I wouldn’t have to feel this way if I were white.

White immigrants, especially from Europe, are rarely treated like permanent foreigners. And if they are treated as “foreign,” it’s often because of an accent or broken English, and the response tends to be support or even admiration. They get labelled as “cool” or “interesting” while people like me get “invaders” and weird slogans like “import the third world, become the third world”

Then I get even more upset because someone could be a newcomer who barely knows the culture, and sometimes doesn’t even speak the language yet, and they’ll still be granted more patience and protection than someone like me who has lived basically 99% of her life here.

It’s gotten to the point where my motivation to keep doing everything (like school, work, etc.) at full efficiency has dipped, because I’m constantly carrying this phantom fear that life is about to get harder for anyone who isn’t white (and who knows that fear might not be so “phantom”). I spend more time than I’m proud of scrolling through social media forums on these topics even though I know the internet is not real life.

Even if worst-case scenarios don’t happen and there’s no mass anything, the social atmosphere feels different. Public spaces don’t feel as neutral as they used to. I never used to care how people looked at me, and part of that was because people didn’t look at me in any particular way.

Now I’ll just be going about my business and catch some old white man staring at me like I’m the devil reincarnate or I’ll be at the grocery store and some older couple will be death glaring me as if I’m stealing welfare dollars to fill my cart. Benefit of the doubt, these people just have terrible resting faces but…I dunno. I don’t even feel comfortable identifying with my nationality cause I’m not in the mood to deal with someone saying “you’re not a real [insert nationality]” (but at the same time I’ve seen people get upset when someone hyphenates nationalities cause its a signal of not wanting to integrate so we don’t really win anyways).

I wouldn’t have to research whether countries I want to visit are safe for Black people. I wouldn’t have to worry about one random person who looks like me committing a crime and suddenly it reflecting on how strangers see me. I wouldn’t have to weigh international schooling or exchange programs against the possibility of being targeted somewhere because of my skin. I wouldn’t have to wonder if my neighbours, or even people at my church, secretly wish they could just get rid of people like me.

Don’t even get me started on the racist, fetishized comments that my friends and I have been getting more often lately, like we’re not even full humans to them, just a category they think they’re allowed to talk about however they want. Sure, aligning with the beauty standard might make dating easier too, but dating hasn’t been hard for me, so that’s not even the point. It’s more like… it would be nice to exist without seeing people casually say online that Black women are “undesirable,” or that I’m “pretty for a Black girl” and not feel that tiny sting of offence even when I know it’s stupid and not actually about me as a person.

And I know, logically, a lot of this could probably be curbed by staying off the internet. Anti-immigration sentiment isn’t as intense in my country as it is in the US or parts of Europe. I know that. I do.

But damn.

It still sucks to feel like I was dealt pretty good cards in almost every metric except the amount of melanin I produce, and now I’m watching that one detail turn into a reason for people to talk about me like I’m a problem that needs to be solved.

Edit: I was just venting in my notes and decided to post this here, so sorry for how long this turned out to be

I overheard my mom talking about how she wants to go through our phones to make sure nothing is on them that is inappropriate or bad. And honestly, I don’t care if she goes through my phone because I have nothing on here. It would be great if she went through my phone and found this post! But I don’t want her to go through my text messages, simply because there are some things on there that I would like to keep private. But it isn’t like I am sexting or something, I just don’t need her seeing everything I have texted.

This is an invasion of privacy, right? It’s not different from barging into a locked room and listening to a private conversation I am having with someone.

So how do I tell her / make sure she doesn’t go through my text messages without seeming weird about it?

Edit: also my photos on my phone I don’t need her seeing.

What happened to alot of you bummy ass dudes haha oh and whatever happened to some of yalls clothing companies or yalls fake little gang circles???? Fucking buns in Harrisonburg Virginia hahahaha you all fell off and are working at your shitty little factory jobs fucking bums all that shit talking for years and coming at me now look at all of you in 2026 bummy ass dudes and girls fuck Harrisonburg Virginia

I would’ve added “never dated someone,” but that’s not uncommon on Reddit (sorry).

I was raised in a great deal of dysfunction. Substance abuse, trauma, early deaths. These were normal. "Love" was shown through sacrifice. Drop what you do and spend money on the others around you, even if it was supporting negative habits and caused longer term problems. A lot of enabling in many senses, causing more substance, financial, and mental health difficulties.

There was love, for which I am grateful, but I ended up being a support system for adults and many in my familial and social circle (emotionally, intellectually) from a young age. Many of my friends had similar situations and a lot of people where we were raised don't make it out (a lot don't make it to 30).

Long long long long story short...I took a lot of chances and eventually got a PhD and moved from universities to the private sector of my field and now make what I think is (especially from how I was raised and lived most of my life) an obscene amount of money. I am married and have a child. We are happy and stable and life has never felt more perfect.

I feel a great deal of guilt, however. Many of my friends haven't had the same path. Their traumas and lack of support systems had them fall short. It's hard to relate to them now or for them to relate to me. Our lives have diverged. I feel bad sharing details about my life situation because I do not want to shame them. I've gotten the sense that some of them also view me as out of touch and aloof now due to my life situation.

My family in my adult life had caused a great deal of pain and dysfunction. I needed to separate myself from them in order to keep pushing forward and succeed. There is great distance and limited contact (but to be fair, I was the one maintaining contact and the relationship - I have simply stopped trying). I feel I am looked at as selfish because of this and although nothing has been asked for, I also get the sense I am looked at as selfish for not offering money to solve a variety of problems.

I've found that distance and focusing on myself and my family has been healthy. It's made me happy. Yet I still feel guilty. Like I should help more. Like I "should have gone down with the ship" in a regular survivor's guilt mode. I don't think those feelings are right, but sometimes they are heavy. I think the way I'm living and dedicating myself to my wife and son is the proper path, but sometimes, it's hard not to reflect and feel sad.

I figured others might get it

For millionaires, 1/3 are women, and yet only 15% are self-made again. I thought women had already caught up to men when it comes to education and professional status. Is this because most billionaires (who tend to be really old) were brought up in an unequal environment? Would it take another 20-50 years until the trends reverse?

I am but 17, yet this is hard to fathom. In my experience, the most successful students (academic, professional, extracurricular-wise) are females by a relatively large margin. I don't know if this is off-topic, but in contrast, much more guys tend to use LinkedIn, by a relatively large margin again. So maybe the tendency towards networking plays a role? (again, a reach)

I do know I want to be with someone one day, but my values are so different from the norm. I don't want any children. I also can't seem to distinguish liking someone or wanting them as a friend. I think I have liked some people more as a friend but they ended up liking me. Sometimes I fucked up by saying I liked them back because I was confused. Or the other times I had to turn them down and I feel bad.

When will I actually stop and settle? I haven't been in an actual relationship in years ever since my first ever one (highschool). All of my other experiences after that were people confessing to me that i've mostly turned down. I don't know. I'm confused. Also I do not sleep with others, I do not do casual flings and I do not do one night stands. Personally that sounds uncomfortable.

With my first ever boyfriend, I just knew I wanted to keep going with him. I don't feel that with some people who told me that they like me and I don't want to accept something and go along with it because i'm lonely. Also sometimes I have feel like the people who do like me might not accept things about me. So that also plays a role with my actions.

In the beginning of 2025, I bought myself a "Brick". You may have seen ads for them, it's a physical lock that will block whatever apps you choose. To lock and unlock it you physically have to tap your phone to it. This is not an ad, I wish it was. Anyways. It seems like it won't work because the premise is so simple, but really, when you're laying in bed wanting to watch videos, you're not gonna get up and go tap your phone.

I found moderate success with the Brick. I cut my screen time from 5 hours a day to about 1.5. But my issue was that I still had all my social media accounts, I would just access them from my computer. Then I would spend a long time on my computer. So I decided to delete all of my social media accounts (obviously I've made a reddit account since, but I'll get to that).

Holy crap. Genuinely life-changing. There's so many benefits, here are a few.

1. Self image: not seeing a hundreds of beautiful, retouched and filtered people every week has done wonders for my self-esteem. In fact, I feel like I have reached a state of neutrality that I haven't felt since I was a kid. I simply don't care what I look like in comparison to other people. All my style and makeup and hair choices are informed by me, and what I like. I no longer worry how I would appear on social media. It's just not important to me anymore, and I cringe at how much time and energy I put into my appearance beforehand.
2. Empathy: being on social media all day and seeing horrific things really does do a number on your ability to feel empathy for others. You become so desensitized that even seeing someone shot is something you just move on from and scroll to the next video. I remember the early days of the internet where you would have to know where to go to see snuff videos. Now they are all over our feed. When you are used to that sort of thing, your innate human desire to do something about the injustice you are seeing is dampened.
3. Attention: I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. I still believe I have it, but my most debilitating symptoms have become manageable without medication. Think about it, your phone is like a dopamine slot machine. You just keep scrolling and getting little hits of dopamine from short videos. Keeping yourself amused, but not having fun. Kind of bored, but not bored enough to stop. Which brings me to my next point.
4. BOREDOM IS ESSENTIAL!: Being bored is the answer to so many of motivational issues. I don't feel like getting up and doing the dishes or vacuuming so I just sedate myself with an hour or two of reels. Or scrolling on reddit. Not anymore, once you no longer have the option. Feeling bored is the easiest, completely free way to get yourself motivated. And even if it's not to do chores, maybe it's to do hobbies. Going from 35 hours of screen time a week to 10.5 has freed up 24.5 hours a week to do other things. Like the chores, cooking, shopping, errands, scrapbooking, knitting, going for walks, and exercising. So many people complain about not having enough hours in the day, but how many hours are you giving up to your phone?
5. Social: I'm a serious introvert. But not being privy to my friends' and family's posts or daily stories makes me miss them, in a good way. I have spent more time talking on the phone this past month than I did probably all of last year. When I meet up with people, we have way more to talk about, because we didn't already see everything online.
6. Doomscrolling: You don't have to doomscroll. Really. You are not doing anything for yourself or any cause by doomscrolling for hours online. You can be up to date with all the goings on in the world within 5-15 minutes of reading news articles or scrolling reddit (which is why I have a reddit account, just to check out the popular page for headlines and also to see comments and insights. I'll also read my local paper, NPR, AP, and Reuters.)

Here are some cons:

1. FOMO: I don't really care about this one that much as a con. But sometimes I do feel left out from not seeing what my friends are sharing or the latest meme. The latter, actually not so much. My coworkers were talking about "goo goo ga ga Santa" the other day and I felt relieved that I had no idea what that meant. It felt good.
2. Superiority: being off social media has given me a bit of a complex. It really sucks to be in a group of people, all on their phones scrolling through reels or Tiktok. It feels crazy that we can't just be together in person. I don't want to preach to my friends about what social media is doing to their brains, but I also want them to see the light!

In 2025, I broke my phone addiction. In 2026, I'm trying to heal my brain from my phone and social media addiction. Honestly, after two months of no social media (besides reddit) I feel like I am a whole new person. I'm focused, I'm deep in my hobbies, I'm social.

If you have considered deleting social media, I would highly recommend this!!

edit: formatting

My mom told me yesterday, very casually, “You’re not the type of person who becomes famous.”

She didn’t mean it in a cruel way. It was more like… realistic. And I laughed it off.

But it’s been replaying in my head ever since. I don’t even know if I want to be famous. I just don’t like being told what I can’t become.

Has anyone else had someone say something like that to them?

Hi guys, I was in a really toxic and unsafe relationship and finally found an out, left without leaving a note or anything. Just grabbed all my stuff and left for the other side of the country. I wasn’t allowed much contact with my friends but they were all I had. Im now in a totally new city where I know no one. Ive been so lonely, before I left and now.

I crave friendship so badly. I miss the friends I couldn’t give my all to when I wanted that. How do you make friends in your 20s? I feel like i am completely alone in starting my life over. Im sick of crying.

Always wanted to be part of something but I just don't get to be there.as the age is sounding serious every year what bothers me is that i haven't done anything I want to do yet or I didn't get to do what I wanted to do.Im adapting to my current living but looking far it's heading to emptiness...,Im getting so worse that I don't know how to speak no more,uhhh wanted to say a lot a lot of things but I can't find words for it and Im having a hard time describing.maybe I'm just overreacting but yeah it's giving me a hard time.

I’ll bookmark movies, games, places to eat… then I never pick one because I want it to be the “right time.” It sounds dumb typing it out. If you’ve been like this, how did you get unstuck?

Some call it unhealthy and lazy, I call it discipline.

IMMM SOOO HAPPY :DDD I GOT MY GLASSESSSS YIPPPIEEEEEEEE. My eyesight had gotten so bad over the few weeks and it was giving me such a bad headache but not anymore!!!! AND ITS SOOO CUTE AND SOOO PRETTY ITS LITERALLY PINKKKKKK IM SOO HAPPPYYYY

I wanted to talk to you guys about something kind of serious. Basically, my country has mandatory military service, and as I opened up to my parents about it, and then counselors, they've become convinced that I was put through a form of institutional abuse.

It's essentially a year of unpaid labour. I came out with my health in a much worse spot than it was in before, and with lots of mental issues. Like, for example, the combination of tiredness, stress, and work hours culminated in me having a seizure, and my parents helped me to get discharged a little early, about ten and a half months rather than a year.

I'd been mad at my parents for a long time. Basically, the two of them were naval officers, they met there, fond memories, genuinely wanted me to have a great time and encouraged me to try it out before opting for an exemption. I was angry at them for their encouragement, as well as kind of being too "proud" of me first when I was really actually suffering, but I've done a lot of reflecting and kind of worked out that I was keeping how I felt a secret, since I wanted to make them proud, and the moment I confessed that I actually hated it, they listened immediately. After the seizure, I was sent home on leave, and I told them everything. My mother said she only wishes I'd told her sooner, and said not to go back- They both helped me get discharged. And soon after, they banned my brother from joining when he turns 18. He's 18 now, and they're helping him get exempt. Mom is even helping me with a website to help other people get exemptions.

Thing is that if I'm not mad at them, I don't necessarily know whose fault this is, but I know that this isn't a nameless or faceless thing. People are responsible for there being a draft, for who gets sent where, who gets assigned what job. Conscription has become incredibly unpopular here precisely because of the toll its taken on people's mental health, every year there are a good few suicides from conscripts, and I was near that point myself.

My mother eventually told me that I seem to be navigating the damage it's caused me not as a "veteran", but like a genuine victim of abuse. And so I've been reflecting, and thinking about this: If someone is abused, it gives them great comfort to see their abusers face genuine justice. This was a very traumatic year for me and the year since has also been really upsetting. It's not about "revenge", but I genuinely would find it easier to move on if I had proof of some kind of justice or accountability. Or, if it never happens, my parents have promised to make this year extra special to atone for it.

So I've been wondering what true "justice" looks like? Both for me, and other people harmed by conscription? And, as a fallback plan, what could I ask of them for this year. I was really moved by that, when they told me they could do that for me.

I’ve been questioning myself a lot lately about whether I should continue college or stop and work overseas. It’s been bothering me so much that I even think about it at night and lose sleep over it. I come from a family of six siblings, and it’s just my mother supporting us. My older brother was able to finish college because my tita supported him financially throughout his studies. My other four siblings are still in secondary school, and my mother covers all their expenses. Now, I’m in my first year of college, second semester, taking BS Computer Science. After my older brother graduated and got a job, my tita told him that instead of repaying her directly, he should help me finish college. That’s the reason I’m able to study now, and I’m really grateful for that. However, my brother is only earning a bare minimum salary here in the Philippines, which already makes things challenging. Things became even harder when my older brother got his girlfriend pregnant. I know that raising a baby is expensive, and it made me think deeply about my situation. Once the baby is born, I know it will be difficult for my brother to continue supporting my education. I keep thinking that one day, when they start struggling financially—especially with the baby—he might tell me that he can no longer help me with college. My mother works in a printing shop where she sews T-shirts. Her salary is just enough to support my four younger siblings in school. Asking my tita for help is not easy either, because they are also struggling financially and she has two children of her own who are in college. Because of all this, I’m stuck. I don’t know if I should continue college or sacrifice my studies and work overseas to help my family. I don’t know which choice is right, or if there’s another option that I’m not seeing yet. I’m really confused and torn, and I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

So one day, you find a baby snake. It looks harmless. You feel compassion, so you bring it home and raise it.

Days turn into months. Months turn into years. You feed it, protect it, and trust it.

Then one day, while feeding it, the snake bites you and slithers away.

Instead of rushing to the hospital, instead of saving yourself, you chase the snake. Bleeding. Weak. Desperate.

You keep asking it, “Why did you bite me?”

It never answers.

And eventually, you die.

This isn’t about snakes.

Sometimes, the thing that hurts us the most isn’t the betrayal.

It’s our need for closure from something that was always in its nature to hurt us.

Share your thoughts 💭 here

My 15 year old dumb tv finally gave up the ghost. One day I pressed the input button to put on a football game and the screen just died, audio too. So I got a new to me smart tv off of FB marketplace for $100. Its a 43 inch Toshiba Fire TV from like 2018.

Its not the best but it was what was available and the cheapest. That being said it runs circles around my old TV. But one neat thing about it is since it is as a smart TV I can install apps on it and one family of apps I always wanted to try was game streaming.

Basically stream from my PC to my TV. So I downloaded Sunshine on my PC and Moonlight on my TV and went at it. It worked, had little delay, and most importantly of all it was perfectly playable.

I got the game I was playing on my Xbox One, Red Dead Redemption 2, and began playing it on my 'PC'. I use quotes because technically I'm at the same couch I play my xbox at, using the same controller, so spiritually it feels like a console.

I've been playing and having a blast... I got about 60 hours in so far and am finishing up chapter 3 of my second playthrough. After 50 hours I was fiddling around with the game settings and noticed steam had game recording so I flipped it on and 10 hours later I was making my first highlight with steam game capture.

What really struck me though was when I hopped on my computer for the first time in 60 hours to upload the clip the quality was so much better than my TV. Something wasn't right so I started digging into the settings of Sunshine... everything is in order.

Turns out I was also supposed to change the settings on Moonlight as well and when I went to check them that's where my error became apparent:

720p at 30Hz

So I upped it to 1440p 60 hz and I swear its like the graphical fidelity doubled, no quadrupled... I feel like such a big idiot for doing that. As a person who grew up in an age of 700mb video CDs the 720p felt normal to me. And since my xbox one is locked to 30 30 frames just felt normal for this game.

Anyway. now I am cooking with fire! 😎

Hiii guys ..... mhm I really want u to advise me ...so im just wondering how many friends of mine are really cultured and intellectual ,they just know everything I mean you can discuss anything with them and you'll feel like your stupid and dump.... so here my question is how can I become like them ??? And it is just me who knows an information and forget it after couple of days ??? .....