Who wouldn’t like to live in a world without consequences? Where you could go back in time and start all over again. Where we could be fully in charge of whatever happens. Where life would give us lemonade instead of lemons.
The reality, however, is way different. So when someone asked “What are the hardest pills to swallow in life?” in an AskReddit thread, it surely hit very close to home for many people.
The responses started flowing in, with one uncomfortable truth being spilled after another.
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Animals are worthy of moral consideration
Animals, whether pets or livestock have no say in their situation. If you take an animal into your life, it's welfare must be your priority.
No one really knows you. They know their own version of you.
That’s true even for the people closest to you – like for instance your family. It took me decades to understand that … and a couple more years to accept it as a fact. Oh well …
That your boss and coworkers won’t care how hard you worked the second you leave the company.
Enjoy life. Go outside. Have a picnic. Don’t work so hard.
I mostly worked for myself - enjoyed challenges and creating good and easily usable systems. My work was mine... a source of pride in what I had accomplished. And I enjoyed getting paid for my work... but I did it for me, not for the company.
Some relationships or friendships are meant to be temporary. Appreciate the memories and lessons they give you, but when the time comes you have to let go and move on
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose
Not only is incompetence frequently left unpunished, it is sometimes also richly rewarded.
Being in love isn’t enough to make a relationship work.
Falling in love is a feeling. Staying in love is a choice that requires work. A relationship is like a plant that needs tending.
Just because something is not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility
Some bells can’t be unrung. And you have to live with the fallout from decisions you made and things you did when you didn’t know this fact.
You can't force a cat to cuddle
Bad things happen to good people.
Sometimes for no reason at all, completely randomly.
Doesn’t matter how fit you are, you get old and your body starts to break down. It sucks. Hard.
I just turned 41 today. I swear everything in my body started to hurt for no reason, a year ago today XD
Two justice systems; one for the rich and one for everyone else.
Some countries start to wake up on that and change their laws so that fines are a percentage of income and wealth and not fixed amounts of money. A billionaire might just scoff if a parking ticket costs 1000 bucks, but if the fine is 1% of income even they will feel it and think twice about doing it again.
Bad people win frequently.
Some people in leadership position are not good leaders. Some who are not in leadership are good leaders.
People will take advantage of your hard work. Many people get to where they are because of nepotism.
Nobody is obligated to be in your life. Years of commitment and love can go up in smoke because someone decided they were done with you.
Truth. I took my marriage vows 100% seriously. My ex did not.
That sometimes even if you tried your best, you just weren't good enough.
When you're young and healthy, it's hard to imagine being anything but.
When you lose your health, it's mind blowing how quickly things change.
You can't" be whatever you want to be" just by wanting it
And most of the times problems are really problems, not "challenges" how they're trying to sell to us.
you only get the one life, so dont wait for things to be perfect
And don't always wait for something big to happen to make you happy. Find pleasure in the small things, like a beautiful flower, a sunset, the full moon, etc. or life will be dull.
That no matter who you are or what you do, the wide, wide majority of people (like me) will be a memory for one generation and then utterly forgotten.
Sometimes when bad things happen to you it’s your own fault.
The world does not revolve around america.
This is so irritating. No one thinks that. I’m American. We just go about our lives just like everyone else
You’re going to not exist in a very short amount of time that will feel like it went by in a blink.
Life gives you the test first, then the lesson.
Limp Bizkit: life is a lesson, you learn it when you're through
The people you love the most in life will die, sometimes sooner than you could imagine, and the only thing that will come close to healing that wound is time.
Arrogance is not extreme confidence, it's the opposite of confidence and it shows your insecurities.
If people call you arrogant, they are not intimidated by your confidence, they see what you are so desperately trying to cover up.
I don't agree with this necessarily. I've met some really talented people who are arrogant. I think arrogance CAN be a cover for insecurity or incompetence, but quite often it's also a case of narcissism.
No one will love you the way you want/expect them to. I feel like a lot of relationship problems, at least the minor ones, come from a miscommunication of love. We love in our own way, and find ourselves expecting the same kind of love when that’s just not possible. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s hard to remember sometimes.
This one is tough, at least it was for me. I'm a very open, super positive and outgoing person. My husband is the not. I hug and kiss for no reason. He still wonders about that after 15 years of marrige. I made him a choclate heart cake. He said it's a little dry. :( But when I sit down on my favorite spot to have my coffee in peace, there are my favorite cookies waiting with a note "Enjoy your you-time". Or when I struggled to get better in running, there was a note in my running shoes "Today your personal 10k record will be beaten". I noticed, he never says sth sweet, but found a way to tell me anyway. It means sth even if it's not the way I wished it was. And I kept all those notes :)
Nobody is 100% *good* no matter how much you lie to yourself.
I've calculated that I'm about 45% evil, which is much better than previous estimates of 70-75% evil.
you can’t help people who aren’t willing to try and help themselves
to quote a music artist i like “you don’t take the advice you f*****g use me for”
No but you can suggest options... apart from that it's up to them to pursue them
Sometimes things just change, it’s nobodies fault but they change.
Someone once said (but said it better), "the only constant in life is change"
Accepting the fact that the person you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with might not be the one.
This one is false. There is no “one”. A relationship takes hard work and sacrifice, regardless if they are what you considers “The one” or not.
That lot of people you have are just there for the fun times, when accidents and life trauma happens most of the people you thought of as a safety net will just vanish.
Like how you think as a new parent that if something happens to you, there are this village of close friends and tight knit relatives and family that will be there for the kids. It’s really tough to accept the idea that it’s really not like that.
People come and go from your life and sometimes you’re the reason why.
Problems need to be solved. Most of them don't go away if you ignore them.
Depends on the problems, that's a really touchy advice if you suffer from anxiety because most of your problems are made up to give a reason for your anxiety to exist in the first place.
If you want a great life, great friends and experiences, you have to seek them out for yourself, and nurture them. They aren't randomly assigned to you, and no one else will take care of it but yourself (ofc also partly depending on other people, but you have to have agency)
You aren't as unique as you think, so probably you aren't much different compared to the other 100 people that someone may have met that day. The "I'm built different" dialogue goes on everybody's head.
Being cynical is not the same as having healthy skepticism.
It doesn't make you seem smart, but rather short-sighted and just angry that the world didn't just award you everything you feel entitled to because you are so gifted.
In my experience, trying to see the world as it is, not how it’s supposed to be is often misinterpreted as cynism. Well, maybe so – but that’s okay with me.
Note: this post originally had 88 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
They left out the most cheerful one: you might die any time and today may be your last day alive.
The world isn't black and white and there are no fixed standards. Many truths depend on point of view and in many cases facts have different weight depending on the individual situation. So be careful with judging others. You only see the moment, never the whole picture, so wait a little before you judge and if you can't get all the facts, don't judge at all. I just saw a colleague calling out the laziness of another colleague in an open slack channel at work. Her teamlead made her take down the message in minutes and had the IT delete the reactions. The colleague in question wasn't lazy, she has cancer and is out of office several times a week for cancer treatment. So while it's completely ok to have opinions, it's not ok to carelessly apply them when you're not truly sure and in the know. You never know what's behind the surface.
“Some Bells Can’t Be Unrung” – this is a wonderful and precious thread full of insight and wisdom that makes me ponder or contemplate. Thanks!
What a depressing article. I will not be reading anything this author compiles again.
Just because someone does something you don't like doesn't mean you have to hate them for it
This actually a highly depressing post, that I don't should need 40 depressing things. Life is life and s**t happens whether good or bad. Is the author okay? Because it's awfully Stanger to write a post this long on Debby downers.
Im fairly unique, not in a good way totally, that being said I have 2 pupils in one eye and have pointy ears. I can u also see ultraviolet light. Id like to see how many points eared, 3 pupils people out there that can see ultraviolet there are. On the negative side I do have some mental issues. One day at a time!
They left out the most cheerful one: you might die any time and today may be your last day alive.
The world isn't black and white and there are no fixed standards. Many truths depend on point of view and in many cases facts have different weight depending on the individual situation. So be careful with judging others. You only see the moment, never the whole picture, so wait a little before you judge and if you can't get all the facts, don't judge at all. I just saw a colleague calling out the laziness of another colleague in an open slack channel at work. Her teamlead made her take down the message in minutes and had the IT delete the reactions. The colleague in question wasn't lazy, she has cancer and is out of office several times a week for cancer treatment. So while it's completely ok to have opinions, it's not ok to carelessly apply them when you're not truly sure and in the know. You never know what's behind the surface.
“Some Bells Can’t Be Unrung” – this is a wonderful and precious thread full of insight and wisdom that makes me ponder or contemplate. Thanks!
What a depressing article. I will not be reading anything this author compiles again.
Just because someone does something you don't like doesn't mean you have to hate them for it
This actually a highly depressing post, that I don't should need 40 depressing things. Life is life and s**t happens whether good or bad. Is the author okay? Because it's awfully Stanger to write a post this long on Debby downers.
Im fairly unique, not in a good way totally, that being said I have 2 pupils in one eye and have pointy ears. I can u also see ultraviolet light. Id like to see how many points eared, 3 pupils people out there that can see ultraviolet there are. On the negative side I do have some mental issues. One day at a time!
