Why I have to be honest and disagree with some on this board

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When receiving criticism about myself like the criticism from the physician, how I receive the criticism can influence how I make decisions about myself and my life.

I can push against the criticism from the physician and focus on their behavior as inappropriate and unprofessional, or I can focus on myself and consider my own thoughts and actions and how they influence my life in the context of the criticism from the physician. How I think and what I do in response to the criticism can make the difference between me being in Situation X or Situation Y ten years from now. Do I continue as I am in my comfort zone, or do I try to study or work or make a life for myself, knowing that it will be hard and I will struggle? If I take the criticism a certain way and make a certain decision now, then it will be my personal responsibility, my own fault, if I regret my decision in the future.

This, I agree with this totally. I think it's one of the things that just bothers me the most about all of this. The "if you're not working, you're just a worthless moocher" attitude that so many people in this country have. I cant count the number of times I had to put up with people telling me that sort of thing years ago. Because, you know, working somewhere like a damn McDonalds would have made me just SO amazingly worthy.

And the times when I was pressed into the godforsaken search for one hellish job after another did me NO good whatsoever. Accomplished NOTHING. Not even once.... not ONCE.... did I ever get anything remotely positive out of ANY of those years of bloody stupidity. Heck, it seriously didnt take long at all before I just stopped giving a damn about the money that came from it. As far as I was concerned, it wasnt even CLOSE to worth it. And that was awhile ago, back when I actually did need the stupid cash. The jobs just caused that darned much miserableness.

Frankly, someone could offer me $80 an hour for a job like that, and I'd still turn it down, and probably throw something at them.




Aye, this too. And most people never seem to think this way, ever.

I wish my Prime Minister saw it that way. I fear he will kick me off the pension and have me work for the dole. Do basic menial jobs that do nothing to increase my skills or chances of getting a job I can flourish at.

I think a job would give me more confidence. I would just rather doing something that I'm good at and love.

I'm not on disability and am not even diagnosed but I was still never able to work and the couple of short times I did it was no where near enough to live on, not even with a roommate which I wouldn't do because I couldn't stand to live with some stranger.

When my mother is gone if she can't leave me enough to keep me going for a while and I can't get disability (which is not enough to live on) I'll end up homeless and may as well be dead.

"You gotta do what you gotta do" is a phrase I've heard many times, even from my own mother but it is pretty meaningless for me as I'm frequently unable to make myself do things. Even if I can for a little bit it won't last long. Even if it's things that I know need to be done or there will be bad consequences from doing them. I had to go to family court so many times for not going to school and I still couldn't make myself go.

No one would hire me anyways. There are no jobs that want to hire someone with no work history, education, driver's license or car, and doesn't like talking to strangers. I literally can't think of any places to apply except for fast food places and those wouldn't ven hire me when I was young.

Money. The ability to not be a burden on others.

If you CAN work and just CHOOSE to live off others because oh no, you couldn't possibly do something boring to earn your keep, I have no sympathy whatsoever for you.

If you can't work because of disabilities, that's different.

Um yeah, that wasn't the point of my post at all. I was responding to people who were actually saying that they didn't want to take jobs that they could take, because they wouldn't get anything out of them (except money). The word "unemployment" was not even mentioned. Nowhere was I blaming the unemployment rate on millennials. Not sure where you got that. Let me tell you right now, that you clearly have NO idea of my opinion on unemployment in this country, and how it has affected my generation. I graduated school and started looking for a full-time job in August 2008. Know what was going on then? And you think I don't know how millennials have gotten the short end of the stick in this economy? I have much more intimate knowledge of it than you do. Your interpretation of my post was completely off the mark. I wasn't addressing the issue of unemployment at all.

My post was talking about the different attitudes my generation takes towards work, versus the attitudes of older generations like the boomers. And as someone who is part of my generation, who interacts socially mainly with people of my generation, I think I have a fairly decent idea of how people my age approach a job/career versus how someone of my parents' generation (boomers) would. Everything I said about how millennials view jobs has been true in my experience both for myself and for all the many people I know of a similar age. I have no idea about Gen X.

And what happens to the people who can't work due to their disability if they got rid of disability?

I'm not part of the millennial generation.

Why does it matter if other people have a job or not? Or was this thread started because the OP was "trying to help"? I don't understand how someone else having, or not having a job, effects the OP?

People on this board have thought about it.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt250596.html
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt246387.html

As has been said it was not as difficult to get a job. There were just more jobs. If you did not have one you were lazy or very incapacitated. Employers were more concerned with merit then social ability for certain jobs. If you were a programmer or scientist your employer expected you to be odd. If he did not like you and you produced you stayed . You were put in a corner, given basic guidelines and that was that. A few years ago I was watching a DVD special feature for the show Mad Men set at an advertising agency in the early 1960's. In the show the lead character without notice took off to California for a couple of weeks to clear his head. What was explained in the special feature was that this behavior happened all the time in creative jobs during that era. This would not be accepted in most jobs then but in that type of work it was.

For those that could not hold a regular job your family was likely to throw you into the streets because they thought you brought shame to the family or because they believed you needed tough love. A lot of these people are dead. there stories will never be told. Others as has been mentioned were misdiagnosed and institutionalized. And those "warehouses" were big and nasty. If you needed to going to a psychiatrist or psychologist you were considered and you considered your self the ultimate failure. Especially if you were a man or were middle class or lower. You see a lot of us diagnosed in our 50's or later. That means we might have been been diagnosed 10-15 years earlier if we had gone to a shrink but we would never want to give in admit that we were a "failure".

As for our generation the attitude was we expected our first jobs to stink and to be treated like dirt. The phrase used was "paying your dues" . Then after awhile you would earn more pay, respect and perks. Problem for a lot of us is that we never got past the 'paying our dues" stage. While our peers were getting married, having a family buying a house (or getting a luxury apartment and being a bachelor playboy) we were stuck in neutral or going backward.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 07 Feb 2014, 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

*sigh*

You miss my point completely by not fully reading everything I've said. Actually, you're sorta also PROVING my point. You're making assumptions, which lead to incorrect info.

When I said that a job at a grocery store... or basically anywhere else.... wouldnt benefit me, I really, honestly meant it. As I stated in the very same post you quoted from, my situation is a little different. Money? Dont need it. Why? Have it already. Wealthy family, you see. I typically have enough to do whatever I want within the contexts of my main interests (gaming, and anime conventions & cosplay). If I feel like buying something, I just go buy it. Doesnt dent the funds. And I'm a total impulse buyer too, so I make purchases frequently. So yeah.... I aint short on money. That effect of having a job is meaningless in my case.

As is the bit about living off of others. That again assumes that my living where I am is some sort of burden to begin with. When it's a family with more of a normal amount of income, and with a normal sized house.... which can feel crowded easily.... then yes, this can become an issue. In my case? No. It's easy to keep out of everyone's way when I feel the need to, in this bloated whale of a house.... heck, if this place WAS feeling crowded, something would have to be very wrong. It's too damn enormous for that. And even if I was in the way, there's a second house, I could just stay there seperately if need be. So the issue of space isnt a problem whatsoever. And the money, again, not even an issue. Nobody cares about that part.

So, regardless of my reasons for not having a job..... there's no negative effect being had. Instead, there is positive effects. I have alot of free time.... I have nothing BUT free time.... so I'm able to do things like drive out towards my mom's place every day and visit with them for awhile, which keeps her from getting too depressive, and visit my grandmother many days as well, and I'm free to give rides to my friend that lives nearby if need be, and other things like that. And I'm probably going to start taking a class of some sort soon, because boredom. And learning new stuff is never a bad idea, I think. Havent fully decided what yet.


And that's just my own situation. Who knows what others may have? What their reasons may or may not be, REGARDLESS of wether they're disabled or not? This sort of thing is why it always bugs the funky hell outta me when I see someone pestering someone else with lines like "Why arent you earning your way on your own? You still live with family and you dont get a job, this means you're a loser! You have to shape up!". They dont stop to think, wait a minute, maybe this guy's situation is something that I havent thought of that changes the arguement a bit... Someone says it to me, and all I think of is "Good grief.... this AGAIN? There's no POINT in me getting a job!". All I'd do if I got a job is take up a valuable employment position that could be given to someone who DOES need the money.

I thought it was actually easy to get a job then, not because there were more jobs. Now today work places want experience and references and other stuff before they hire you and they even require some college education. People have just gotten less trusting over the years because they wouldn't want to hire a criminal or someone who will steal from them. But then that makes it harder for people like us to get a job so that is why so many of us are on disability and some of us give up looking for work because you keep trying to find a job and no one hires you and you lose hope so you give up.

Where I am now, if I was always this way my whole life, I probably would have made it in the days and live normally and have no problem and would just be seen as shy or quirky or quiet and asocial and no one would ever guess I have something wrong with me. But the way I was when I was little, I probably would have been in an institution and not be where I am now. Disabled kids were locked away and forgotten and their parents moved on living their normal lives raising their normal kids forgetting about their disabled child. That is if my parents decided to have me sent away and forget about me.

When we're young, the question that was asked to all of us was "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and we were supposed to say a career like a "firefighter" or "astronaut". This means that we're told from the beginning, that our being, our sense of self, will be our career. Which is extremely sad. I can't wait for the day that kids start answering that question with "When I grow up, I want to be a nice person" or "When I grow up, I want to happy". It's a genuine concern of mine that we aren't focusing on peoples happiness and well being before we focus on a career.

So true! That reminds me of this quote:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” ― John Lennon

Love that quote! It really does sum up exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks for sharing it with me!

(Lediggang som saadan er ingenlunde Roden til alt Ondt, tværtimod, den er et sandt guddommeligt Liv, naar man ikke keder sig).

"Laziness as such is by no means the root of all evil. On the contrary, it is a truly devine life, given you´re not bored!"
(Soren Aaby Kierkegaard)