Personally 2024 was ok for me even though I was laid off and unemployed for 6 months. Ok maybe it’s a little shitty.
If we’re in the darkest timeline, what was the last point where it felt there was so much hope and joy in the world?
Some options commonly put out.
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The day Pokémon Go released July 2016. So prepandemic and we went outside and and a girl told me where to find Weedles. Yep I’m in a videogame
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The day before 9/11 or when Harambe got killed
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When Endgame released, culmination of 10 years of marvel moments into a single movie, people cheering in the cinema. Still pre pandemic, maybe there’s a trend here
Sometime in 2010. My partner and I got our first pup, work was fine, apartment complex was good. Things were walkable. Pup loved snowpocalypse 2010, we went to the tennis courts and just ran around in the snow.
Obama was promising awesome healthcare reform. I had hope.
My mom hadn’t told me that we were probably the sort of family who should only see each other at funerals. My mom hadn’t yet killed my dad with COVID (she claims she got it at a “mandatory unmasked Christmas work potluck” in December 2020. She retired 2 months later, so it can’t have been that mandatory. She knew he was immunocompetent and also didn’t take him to the hospital as soon as his oxygen dipped below 90%.)
The day before ChatGPT was released
2022-11-29
November 6, 2000
Everything has been downhill since then.
When I got my first actual Job shortly after my 27th bday EDIT: 2022 December. And was convinced I would turn the company around with my hard work.
Well, I sure left an impression, but it broke me, as I realized now that I had a job, how much I lost before I got there, and that money won’t fix that. I started getting worse at my job as a result.
The poor mental health also lead to some poor choice of words on Reddit that got me several suicide care bot messages and a permanent suspension.
I had a pretty good one yesterday
I’m not talking about substances, but things just don’t give the same highs as they used to.
Getting a new Nintendo game as a kid and you’re giddy all the way home, reading the back of the box.
Last time I bought a game I had been looking forward to for years it was lying in a drawer for a month before I even installed it.
I had my first kid this year, and it’s probably the best thing to have happened to me in the last few years. But I don’t think the joy I felt compares to that new NES game as a kid. I wish I still would get that kind of highs.
I’m pretty sure the last good day was sometime in 1996.
as a child we experience everything for the first time. this grows neural paths and releases dopamine. colors are more vibrant, food tastes better.
as we age our brains get used to the dopamine and we look for ways to increase its production. sex, drugs, illicit activities, etc.
you will never recapture the way you felt watching the dinosaurs in JP inside a theater in 1995. you will never stare at a color in bewilderment of its vibrancy again.
find new experiences that could blast your brain with dopamine instead.
buy a hooker. smoke crack once. gamble $10k at one sitting.
buy a hooker. smoke crack once. gamble $10k at one sitting.
Sure, but where do I go from there for my next high?
It’s also just been a tough period to grow up. Depends on region but housing, did and cost of living in many have been significantly harder than in the past.
Every year is harder to get by than the last, despite unprecedented advances in science and tech.
9/10/2001
I would say early 2010 or maybe 2009. live 3 miles from work and regularly walked it. In the morning my wife would walk almost halfway to a park and we had our dog. She would turn around and go back while I would continue on. I could take a bus in incliment weather only having to be in it for a few blocks. Sometimes I would bike up to the lakefront which was nice and scenic and stretched it to 7 miles which was nicer for a bike ride. My wife and I had macbook pros which large powerful laptops with tons of ports and osx was great and applecare was still stellar (it actually went down somewhere around this time). I worked in a research lab and what was accomplished seemed magical.
That sounds awesome.
My last good day is always and forever today. My (or your) circumstances should never impair my (or your) ability to be happy 😁 it sounds weird, but you are allowed (it is your right) to feel happy even as your life is crumbling around you. And if you can’t find that feeling, that’s alright too.
See this way of thinking has actually landed me in a pretty bad place with my mental health.
“I’m in charge of my own emotions” is not something an autistic person with rigid lines of thinking should internalise, but I did.
As a result I never gave myself permission to feel negative emotions, because who wants to feel negative about anything if they don’t have to?
It seemed so smart and healthy, just be happy, that’s what everyone always says about the easy fix to mental health. It was easy too, regardless what was happening around me, if I pictured myself feeling happy, I’d feel happy.
I’m in my 30s and regularly mistake sensations with other sensations (am I tired or do I need to pee? They both cause a headache) and also I think all my negative emotions are skipping my brain entirely and coming out my arse in the form of IBS.
I can’t picture myself feeling sad to experience sad because I …don’t remember what sad feels like.
I remember what vomiting feels like, because that’s how my body has reacted to “sad” recently.
Well if you take the advice of randoms that far, you are just plain stupid and should not be in charge of your own actions
While this is true, I would also add that it’s ok and valid to be sad and unhappy. There is no obligation to put on a smile. You can be happy and not smiling, or you can be unhappy and not smiling, just be you.
I feel like it’s not my right to be happy unless I can impress in some way, like through work or academia. Everyone else has surpassed me and I can’t impress anywhere, so I just feel like I don’t deserve happiness anymore.
Then im sure you don’t deserve it. No reason to not be happy just because you don’t deserve to
This is surprisingly uplifting, thank you for posting this
The best is yet to come
Yesterday. I can’t remember the last bad day I’ve had. 2024 has been one of the best years of my life
Almost same. I’ve had many shitty years and days, but around this time I said something along these lines, and it holds true now as well: This year has been great. And next year is on track to be fuckin awesome.
Not sure of exact date, but it was around 2005-2006 and I had saved up enough money to get me a lego N1 starfighter kit from star wars. Last time remember feeling genuine joy
May 5, 2019. The last chance to avoid a series of mistakes that ruined my life. Yes I put way too much thought into this.
What did you do?
I don’t know about good, but today was an unusual day for me.
With a blizzard setting in, I figured my best chance to get to work was on the bus. So I was walking up to where I could catch it passing various houses with Christmas lights and decorations, only to stop dead in my tracks at one particular house.
It’s sole decoation was an 8-ft tall Krampus on the front lawn. It had a goat head with horns and demonic eyes and sharp claws holding a gnarled staff on one side and chains on the other. It’s dark burgundy cloak had a dusting of snow on its shoulders to complete the look.
Then I was on the bus trying to digest what I had seen when who should walk on but Polar Man! He’s a local superhero with a bushy beard and a mask. He helps people in distress shovel out their driveways. At one point as the bus was passing through a residential area, he got up and yelled “Driver! Stop the bus!” and leapt out dramatically to cheering passengers.
That fateful day in July 2009. Parents were hit by a guy who was fucked up by a shopping list of drugs. Mom dead, the family that was quickly fell apart. She was no longer around to help hide my father’s alcoholism. Not even 6 months after her death, a foul harpy of a female human latched on to him and only encouraged the worst parts of him while slowly doing everything she could to remove or erase his family.
Wrong parent died that day.
Real sorry bro
I think you mean the day before that.
No, the day of. My mom had made a big deal about taking pictures and making a big family brunch before she left. I was alone at my grandfather’s house and getting to watch TV while playing a MMO simultaneously. Amazing day, until the phone call that upended everything.
I’m sorry this happened to you.
