Posts by Ronald Hall5

I’ve been watching a lot of preseason stuff lately, and I can’t help but feel like we’re in a weird transitional era for sports in general. There’s always that tension between wanting to see the next generation step up and the gut instinct to just stick with the veterans who actually know how to close out a game.

It feels like every club is obsessed with "potential" right now. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing a kid show some backbone, but there's a fine line between building for the future and just losing games because you're too impatient to play your established talent. I remember back in my local club days, we pushed a bunch of teenagers into the starting lineup mid-season because the "prospects" looked good in training. We got absolutely hammered because they lacked the tactical discipline that only comes with age.

Do you guys think teams are leaning too hard into the "youth revolution" lately, or is this just the inevitable way the game is going?

Jerry Wilson13 said:Thanks to everyone for the comments.
You're totally right.

All of those things are completely out of my hands...

It's just... the world is such a mess precisely because everyone feels too powerless to actually step up and change anything... Sometimes my conscience pricks me, making me wonder what I *should* be doing to make things better instead of just sitting here...

I wasn't talking about being powerless in my own life. In my own world, I am incredibly capable and meaningful to my family... I was talking about looking at everything from a global perspective.

I ended up logging off Facebook. I just don't have the stomach for hanging out around that kind of stuff anymore. Maybe I'm a coward, maybe I'm just taking the easy way out... but it is incredibly hard to find joy in a day when you've spent it watching so many ruined, broken lives.

Let's see what time it is... Big Brother is about to start on my channel 😁🤦 And I am going to watch it! Me, the person who used to look down on reality TV, will be glued to the screen for once. And Stephanie 🤣 I seriously need some crackers and spread to go with this...

People feel powerless because they're out of sync with how they perceive themselves versus the world. We get bombarded every single day by propaganda telling us we're huge, powerful, and invincible, when in reality, compared to everyone else, we're practically invisible. When you walk down a street in New York, nobody knows you; people pass you by like you're part of the scenery, and that's how little our power is to influence others or change the world. Kids live in that illusion of greatness, but as we grow up, we realize how tiny our lives actually are compared to the rest of the planet.
But we can't let that feeling of helplessness or insignificance crush us just because we set the wrong goals and built illusions around our lives..

What we *can* change—which takes a massive amount of effort, work, and soul-searching—is ourselves. Everyone is way too focused on others and not enough on themselves, and even when we are, it's usually just out of narcissism and ego. What we really need is to be able to feel the power and beauty in our own lives, our own experiences and feelings. We need to accept the reality of life: the helplessness, the sickness, our own limitations, and the fact that we can do very little to control other people. Our greatest strength lies in our own little corner of the universe. Locally, it might seem insignificant, but it isn't. Our happiness, our satisfaction, our ability to accept others—both the good and the bad—and our capacity to live positively despite how heavy life gets, is the highest value we can achieve on a local level. If we were all capable of working on ourselves like that globally, it would create a massive wave of positive energy that generates real change. After every war, there is hope, a desire, a will for positive change, growth, and acceptance—a longing to choose a better, different path... and that starts at the individual level and works its way up to the global one...😉

Like I said, none of us should miss the chance to realize we've been taught wrong our whole lives. We've been targets of propaganda, and there is another way to live a better, happier life—one that involves self-respect and searching for happiness in an emotional and creative sense, not just a material one...

Jerry Wilson13 said:So, I’m starting this thread in the hope that maybe—just maybe—the little coping mechanisms you all use in your daily "struggle against reality" might offer some inspiration or a bit of encouragement to me.

It’s happening to me again... I log onto Facebook just to check a quick notification or finish some paperwork, and then—boom—the avalanche hits. It’s like this endless flood of news about everything going on in the world, and it just leaves me feeling bitter. It’s that heavy sense of helplessness... and more often than not, it just turns into pure sadness.

Whether I’m scrolling through some news site, flipping through channels on the TV, or just catching up with my neighbor on the sidewalk... it doesn't matter. Anywhere, anytime, with anyone—the conversation always hits the same wall. It's just the same endless cycle of daily or weekly horrors unfolding across the world.

Since I’m someone who wears my heart on my sleeve—honestly, I’ve always been pretty emotional and high-strung—it hits me so hard sometimes that I just can't seem to pull myself together. It leaves me feeling totally shaken. I keep asking myself: Have I taken things too far? Is this all weighing on me because I’m overthinking everything, or am I just struggling to handle this massive tidal wave of emotion hitting my psyche? 🙂

It’s honestly so hard for me to come to terms with living in a world like this.
I’m not depressed. Honestly, I still find plenty of joy in the little things that happen every single day... I’m fully aware that there’s a silver lining to everything. But, you know, there are just those days where everything feels heavy and I just shut down.

I recently came across this beautiful poem by Jack Gilbert, and I have to say, it actually helped me see things through a slightly more optimistic lens—even if that lingering sense of helplessness hasn't quite faded away yet...

How much does the daily flood of news about all those horrors happening around the world actually weigh on you? Honestly, I find myself wondering how everyone else manages to process it all. How do you even begin to control that influx, or find some way to accept the sheer weight of it?

Thanks in advance for every single post.

Yeah, maybe some people would actually find comfort in reading this poem:

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies...
It isn’t that people are starving somewhere else—it’s that they are starving right here.
Somewhere else entirely. Just drifting through life with flies stuck in their nostrils.
But honestly, we find joy in our lives because that's exactly what God intends for us.
If things were any different, those quiet mornings right before the summer sun starts to peek over the horizon just wouldn't feel the same.
It’s just been crafted so perfectly. Even The Bengal tiger wouldn't be able to resist it.
It’s just been crafted so incredibly well. The poor Women AT The fountain ara laughing together between The suffering They have known and The awfulness in their futur.
The poor Women AT The fountain ara laughing together between The suffering They have known and The awfulness in their futur
The poor Women AT The fountain ara laughing together between The suffering They have known and The awfulness in their futur.
In their future, they're just there, smiling and laughing even while someone else...
The whole town feels like it’s falling ill. Everything is just... heavy. But even then, there is laughter.
There is Laughter every day in The terrible streets of Calcutta , and The Women laugh in The cages of Bombay
There is Laughter every day in The terrible streets of Calcutta , and The Women laugh in The cages of Bombay.
If we choose to turn our backs on our own happiness—if we actively push away any sense of fulfillment or satisfaction—what are we actually gaining? It feels like a hollow victory, doesn't it? We spend so much energy fighting against the good things, almost as if we're afraid that enjoying ourselves will somehow invite trouble. But resisting joy isn't some kind of moral high ground; it’s just self-sabotage. I can't help but wonder why we do this to ourselves. Is it fear? Or is it just a habit of staying in the struggle because it's all we know?
We tend to downplay just how much they’re actually losing.
We have to be willing to gamble on delight. Sure, we can survive without pleasure, but what's the point?
It isn't about finding some fleeting moment of pure delight or simple enjoyment. That’s not the point at all. What we actually need—what we truly must have—is something much deeper than that.
It takes a certain kind of stubbornness, doesn't it? That refusal to let go of our own joy, even when we're surrounded by something completely ruthless. It’s like a quiet act of rebellion against a world that just wants to grind us down.
The furnace of this world. To make injustice the only...
It seems like we’re all just measuring our own focus by how much we end up praising the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
Honestly, we really ought to be grateful that when the end finally comes, it actually carries some weight. It shouldn't just fade out into nothingness; it needs that sense of scale.
We really have to face the fact that, even when everything else is falling apart, there’s still going to be music.
Once more, we find ourselves standing right at the edge, peering out from the bow of a tiny little vessel.
Anchored deep in the night within that cramped little harbor.
Gazing out toward that sleeping island: the waterfront.
It’s just three boarded-up coffee shops and a single, lonely streetlamp flickering in the dark.
To catch that faint, rhythmic splash of oars cutting through the absolute silence... just you and the rowboat.
It’s that slow, agonizing crawl toward something meaningful—reaching out, getting just close enough to touch, only to have it pull back again. You have to wonder: is that hesitation actually worth the wait? Is there value in that rhythmic coming and going, or are we just spinning our wheels?
All those upcoming years of pure heartache.

Let’s be real for a second here.
How much does it actually matter to you that 200 families lost loved ones in Paris a few days ago? How much does a refugee crisis impact your day-to-day existence? What's the point of letting yourself be bombarded by bad news that has zero impact on your mood and absolutely nothing you can do about it? When you're carrying the weight of bad thoughts, info, and associations—especially during a rough patch in life—you simply lose the ability to feel in control of your own fate. That sense of POWERLESSNESS is a straight shot to depression. A depressed person is someone who feels like all their ships have sunk; they've lost any sense of agency over their destiny. You need to ask yourself if that feeling of helplessness comes from actual, heavy life circumstances, or if it's coming from irrational fears where you shift your focus from your own life—the only thing you can actually influence right here, right now—onto a massive global scale that you can't control.

If news stories that are basically irrelevant to your life are upsetting you, weighing you down, and draining your energy, then just turn off the TV. Switch the channel. Take back control over what you want, over what uplifts you and makes you happy. Skip the politics and the economic junk; nobody is forcing you to talk about it. You choose which people and what information you let into your space. You are the boss of your own feelings and your own life. You decide. You are free, and that is where true strength, self-confidence, and happiness come from.
Stop stressing over windmills, the whole world, and everyone else. Turn inward. Listen to yourself. Love yourself. Express yourself and do something nice for yourself. Only a person who is satisfied with themselves and full of positive energy can share that energy with others—their kids, their family, their friends. Depressed people, victims, and the desperate can't even help themselves, let alone give anything to others. Those types of people actually need victims to feed on so they can suck out positive energy. They crave tragedy and bad vibes because they feel the need to justify why their lives are so heavy, and they can't stand seeing someone else happy—it clashes with their whole definition of life. Such people feed on bad news, wars, politics, and tragedies. Without that stuff, their lives wouldn't even make sense to them...😉

Look, don't get me wrong—I’m not saying anyone should live in some pink-tinted bubble. Reality sucks. But you have to accept that life is hard and fundamentally unfair. It's a constant grind. If you hear about some tragedy and there isn't a damn thing you can actually do to fix it, just realize that your feelings and your frantic reactions are completely irrelevant. So, stop weighing yourself down with it.