Essentially what you said, but I’d like to phrase it the way a counselor said it to me when I was under a lot of stress at work. Stress is the gap between our expectation and reality. Say you expect to be/produce/achieve/whatever 100%, but you are only capable of achieving 80%. The stress you experience is that 20% gap. Change your expectations to meet your reality and that stress will be resolved.

Now, it may still be that others might still want or expect that 20% from you, but that’s their problem and their stress. If you cannot produce it anyway (which created your stress in the first place), existing in the stress-gap clearly won’t make you able to do it anyway.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but he did not love you. You don’t threaten to break up with someone you love, that is an abuse tactic, and you just do not abuse people you love. That is not your fault. That is a reflection of who he is, not who you are. You are only responsible for your own actions, not his.

Really, I mean it, read up on love bombing, DARVO, and if you can get a copy, a book called _Why does he do that? _ I think these will help you understand and process what you’ve experienced.

Good for you. You did the right thing for yourself. But you’re asking the wrong question; this wasn’t a you thing, this was a him thing. By what you’ve said, he’s a selfish and emotionally immature person. What good was he actually for you?

An important lesson to learn in life in general is that you cannot change another person. Only a person can choose to change for themselves, not for anyone else. The whole thing about leading a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. His selfishness has nothing to do with you, except that you suffered for it. He was selfish before you, and he’ll continue to be selfish after you. Maybe one day he’ll choose to change, but that will have to come from inside him, not for anyone else. This is true for all the kinds of ways people need “fixing” (in quotes), big and small ways, from drug addictions to simple things like pet-peeve type habits.

Look up the terms “love bombing” and DARVO. I think you will find descriptions of your ex, and I hope your eyes will be opened to the fact that he was emotionally abusive, and that you were the victim of his abuse. I hope this can set you in the right direction to put him behind you.

Platitudes like “it gets better with time” are both true, but also not very helpful in the moment. The truth is, like any injury, this kind of pain does take time to heal, and it sucks in the meantime. I’m sorry. Till then, you have to keep yourself and your life moving on, even if you don’t feel like it. Don’t let yourself get stuck where you are. You need to give yourself the opportunity to reorient yourself and your life to this change.

For me, the deepest heartbreak I experienced was not a breakup, but the death of a very dear friend. I watched a *lot *of Doctor Who (David Tennant, the first? time). I stopped watching Doctor Who years ago, but I’ll always appreciate the show and David Tennant for bringing me tiny bits of fun in those sad days. It’s been more than a decade; I still miss that friend and feel sad when I think about him. But it’s not a sharp, immediate pain, it’s more like wistfulness. And I can think about and appreciate the good times we enjoyed together.

As for an actual breakup after a not-great relationship (which yours sounds like, from your description in another thread), what I can say is that it is way better to be single than to be with someone who doesn’t love you. Nor does it seem he even liked you even as a friend. Would you ever treat a friend, even an acquaintance, the way he treated you? Honestly, it sounds like he finally did the right thing by ending it rather than continuing to drag it out. I hope you will understand this with clarity later. Don’t settle for that kind of nonsense in the future. Look for someone who is of good character all the time because that’s just who they are, not someone who turns it on and off as he pleases.

Hmm, I see what you’re putting down. I may have to revise my thoughts on the matter. Thanks.

While I agree those ladies were a bunch of loonies, I don’t think the test is supposed to be predictive (this is how you will be), rather descriptive (this is how you are).

Although I’ve had this same argument with people over the function of dictionaries being descriptive (this is how words are used) rather than prescriptive (this is how you should use words).

A tenet of Taoism is that nothing is constant and everything changes. We can have peace and be clear-minded by moving with, around, even redirecting the changes, rather than directly resisting them.

I’m not a taoist, but I think that’s pretty damn wise.

FYI, the wait for processing is now years-long, due to the large influx of applications and the lack of foresight to increase staffing to manage that. Also, if you don’t already have the documentation to prove who your grandfather is, his citizenship, and who you are in relation to him, archives across the country have been inundated with requests for this kind of genealogical information, and they, too, are under-resource to handle it. (And not only so, but arts, culture, and heritage institutions have had budget slashed all across the country, so there are actually fewer people now to handle these requests.)

Exec was committing fraud and self-enrichment thru work. Snitched to the board with evidence, they did nothing. One even told me he wasn’t concerned. Noped outta there and snitched to the government instead.

Are you familiar with the reputation of sabreurs being the crazy people among fencers? 😂

The problem is they called them light sabres, so, naturally, they must be wielded maniacally.

Since we’re guessing, I’d guess lymph is part of it. It’s part of our immune systems, but, unlike blood which has its own pumping mechanism (the heart), lymph gets moved along passively.

Telling a conservative they’re incorrect is oppression to them.

A generation ago, Iran was not like this. Islam itself does not require any of this. An important part if Islam is that the Qur’an cannot be translated, so it is in a form of Arabic few people can really understand. People must depend on the mullahs to tell them what it says. (Which was once also what Christians said about the Latin Bible, though that makes even less sense than the Qur’an because the Bible was translated into Latin.) This is anti-women conservatives using the guise of religion to push their hatred on women and control the population as a whole. As you say, Christianity was once used in the same way, but it still is now, isn’t it?

In the US, abortion is a bogeyman used to threaten women from getting healthcare (even to the point of death), and monitor and control their movements. It’s being done under the guide of “Christianity”. “Christianity” is used against people of different races (because they can’t really be Christian if they’re not white), actually other religions, sexuality, and gender. Yet, how much did Christ ever talk about these things?

I make the argument that Star Wars is not science fiction, rather a fantasy that takes place in space. Science and technology do not drive the stories, nor are they the solutions to the problems that arise. They are incidental and could just as well be replaced with actual magic. They tried to go the other way by explaining the force with midiclorians… Which was accepted by basically no one.

You can see it in Mamdani’s smile; the man radiates joy from the inside out. His smile says he loves New York, he loves New Yorkers, and he loves serving them. I wish the world had more Mamdanis.

And who or what exactly is going to stop him?

When no one (who is in a position to enforce) cares what is legal or constitutional, he can do anything he wants. Just look at the current state of the US and tell me anyone in any power or authority cares. Do you really think “third term” is where they’ll draw the line? I’d put every dollar I have that is not actually about not carrying, but that this is the desired outcome, to enrich themselves.

I only see one way to stop him, and it’s certainly not by law or votes.

I am not a programmer, but related to a few. My cousin said his workplace actively evaluates people on token usage, where more is better. He has refined his prompts to burn as many tokens as possible.

Another relative said they only hire seniors now, and use AI for junior work. I told him there will be no more seniors in five years, doing things that way. Well, that’s a problem for later.

Truly, I am shocked he is alive and looks as well as he does.

These situations objectively suck. One thing that’s stuck with me is asking: will this still matter in 10 years?

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with it, but it does mean “this, too, shall pass”, and you’ll still be okay on the other side of it.