Posts by Ronald Price3

It is a harsh reality, I suppose, but we live in a relentless dog-eat-dog world where any individual showing even a hint of weakness is practically begging to be devoured. It’s much like how a single weak link in a supply chain can bring down an entire logistics operation; once that vulnerability is spotted, the vultures descend. As someone else pointed out earlier, it isn't just the predators who strike—it’s often the people who are themselves struggling, those who feel like perpetual victims of the system, suddenly finding their footing by stepping on someone else. It becomes this desperate, almost frantic scramble of, "Well, if I finally get a chance to grab a piece of the pie, why shouldn't it be at your expense?"

Look, you simply cannot sell property that isn't yours; you might suggest leaving those items for the building superintendent to collect, or perhaps you could reach out to the super yourself to arrange a pickup, but selling them is strictly off-limits.

The gentleman failed to mention the actual condition of that television, the refrigerator, or the bed, but clearly, they weren't headed straight for the landfill if someone actually went through the trouble of buying them.

This situation has escalated into a debate requiring a much higher level of philosophical inquiry, though if you ask me, it really just boils down to an exhausting attempt to please everyone and be a "good person." Take, for instance, a scenario where someone hails from a small town in the Midwest and moves up to New York City. This old acquaintance calls you up, visits the city, and because he’s unfamiliar with the urban jungle, you immediately jump into action—you pick him up at Grand Central, play tour guide while he runs his errands, and eventually, he might even buy you a coffee as a thanks. Then, out of nowhere, his son calls asking for help finding a used car; since most of the decent deals are right here in the city, you naturally agree to help out. You scout locations, snap photos, send them over... then he tells you he's coming in on Sunday because he can't take time off work, so you wait for him again, driving all over to look at vehicles that he ultimately rejects. Meanwhile, a colleague at work asks for advice on airport parking for a family trip; another coworker suggests you're the guy to ask, and you, being helpful, say "sure thing, no problem." In the middle of all this, the first guy is back at it, looking at cars in places like suburban New Jersey or maybe Connecticut. He ends up buying one in a nearby suburb, pays for it, and you end up footing the bill for lunch because he’s short on cash, all while he leaves you with the paperwork to handle the registration since it’s Sunday. You sort everything out, then have to hand the documents off to a friend who happens to be driving through the area, because frankly, you can't fathom why he wouldn't just mail them—though, of course, I realize now he probably felt too cheap to cover the $3.25 shipping costs. And there you are, too tired to complain, even though you spent more time and gas hunting down a messenger than it would have cost to just pay the postage yourself.

And that is the moment you realize that being a "good person" is often just a polite euphemism for being a doormat. At the office, everything seems fine; people are smiling and nodding. But then a third colleague mentions he’s also flying out early Sunday morning and asks if you can help, because word has gotten around that you're the reliable guy who will always drop a teammate off at JFK or LaGuardia without a second thought. But you've reached your limit. You decide you aren't doing it anymore and simply say no. Now, you can't exactly refuse the other two guys, because one of them once asked for a tiny five-minute lift that was already on your route, and he gave you some nonsense excuse about how the side street was too narrow and would waste too much fuel. Essentially, he blew you off. So, you set a boundary. And suddenly, you realize that guy is absolutely livid with you. Because you helped the first two but refused him, he feels slighted. He’ll hold it against you. Sure enough, when the group goes out for drinks, he invites those two but pointedly leaves you out. When you ask him why, he claims he’s "disappointed" in your character because you were willing to help the others but not him. The other two just sit there looking bewildered, wondering how you could be such a "jerk."

As for the guy from the small town, he still calls whenever he needs a favor, sending you on errands across the city for things he could easily order on Amazon, provided he isn't feeling particularly stingy about the $10 delivery fee. After the fortieth time you finally tell him to get lost, he gets offended because he took your servitude for granted. He assumed you’d always be there. In the end, you find yourself isolated; everyone is playing the same game, thinking, "Oh, he'll help eventually, he'll need something from us later." Even though you've spent more time helping others than you have helping yourself, you're left sitting there feeling utterly defeated, wondering what kind of twisted world we actually live in. It's exactly the kind of cynical reality I described in my previous comment.

Christian Wells3 said:Hey, hope this PDF works okay.

If not, feel free to move it.

My question is: How can I be a good person without getting walked all over? People have taken advantage of my kindness and naivety way too many times.

The last time it happened was just a few months ago.

I was living in a small rental apartment. There was this older janitor in the building (he had some special needs). He was a great guy, seriously, he always helped me out, wasn't making much money, and lived in this run-down little shack. Anyway, I suddenly had a death in the family and ended up moving into a much bigger place. Since the old place was furnished, I told my former landlord he could give my stuff (TV, fridge, bed) to the janitor.

A few days ago, I called my old landlord because a coworker needed a place to crash for a couple of nights. Not only did he charge her an insane amount ( $333 for just 3 days, when I used to pay $200 plus utilities), but he actually sold all my stuff and didn't give a single thing to the janitor...

There have been plenty of other times where I've been used and ripped off.

What I want to know is, how do you carry yourself in life so things like this don't happen? I'm the type of person who would give someone the shirt off my back to help them through a hard time, but I almost always end up getting played.

Sent from my Huawei P30 using Reddit

There is no way. Life is a struggle, plain and simple. Even though humanity has progressed to the point where we can achieve more through wordplay and rhetoric than through brute force, at our core, we are still nothing more than animals fighting for survival. A lion that refuses to kill its prey will simply starve to death. A deer that fails to flee from a wolf will be devoured. Ultimately, it turns out we are all playing a zero-sum game; resources are finite, so it’s just a matter of who takes what from whom. Just because you refuse to step on others doesn't mean they won't stomp all over you. They will do it quite happily, too, and they'll likely walk away feeling proud and earning the respect of their peers.

Unfortunately, that is the reality. It has been proven countless times. I try to console myself with the idea that "you did this for your own sake, let happiness be your reward," but honestly, that doesn't work very well.

Honestly, I don't quite grasp the logic here—is it just a given that if you show up, people will assume you're their personal IT department, ready to rip apart Ethernet cables across an entire office building, build them a database from scratch, and launch a website just because you happened to be in the room?

But, much as I hate to admit it, I’ve stumbled upon this exact dilemma myself, which actually makes it a bit easier to bring up. A buddy of mine works as an electrician, currently wiring up this boutique hotel—nothing massive, maybe twenty rooms or so—and they’re looking for someone "to set up the internet." He reached out to me through a mutual friend, even though this isn't my primary lane. I used to tinker with stuff like this years ago, though strictly as a hobby, and it feels like a lifetime ago. My gut instinct was to say no immediately, but there's this nagging little itch in my brain that won't let it go. Right now, he's busy pulling cables, so what I really need to do is tell him where to mount the rack and designate the drop points for the access points.

I was thinking about deploying some Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LITE APs https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016K4GQ..._D3IvCbN8N1H9R

That setup seems reasonable enough to me, but I’d love to hear what you all would recommend.

The electrician would handle the physical mounting; my role would essentially be ensuring the whole ecosystem actually functions. I can't give a definitive count since I haven't stepped foot in the layout yet, and estimating coverage blindly is always a gamble. If we’re talking two per floor, plus reception, the dining area, the gym, the pool... whatever else they've got tucked away, we could easily be looking at fifteen units. I'm currently weighing switch and router options, perhaps a Cisco unit like the CRS125-24G-1S-IN

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I4QJRWE..._RAJvCbCEEE0TE

Or would it be wiser to opt for something more streamlined? I am genuinely open to suggestions here. For instance, https://www.ui.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-poe/

What specific technical hurdles should I be looking out for, and more importantly, how does one actually price these kinds of gigs? There isn't much heavy lifting involved on my end—maybe some crimping or punching down cables into a patch panel, though I'll likely skip the grunt work. I assume charging by the hour is a fool's errand, otherwise, you'd be swimming in cash, but I plan to present a firm quote upfront and request a deposit. It's better to secure payment ahead of time; if I try to play it loose and then realize I underbid, I don't want to be stuck in that awkward position of saying, "My apologies, I miscalculated, you owe me more money."

40.

I appreciate you taking the time to listen. Since you brought it up, I’ve been attempting to nudge my mother toward actually addressing her own issues, but she refuses to acknowledge anything is wrong; she treats my every suggestion like a personal affront—as if I’m implying she needs to be locked away in a mental ward, though I would never dream of being quite so blunt. In her case, I don't see signs of bipolar disorder so much as a profound, escalating anxiety that has become overwhelming over the last few years. She lives in a state of perpetual dread; the very moment I pick up the phone, her first panicked inquiry is "what happened?", and if I don't respond to a text immediately, she spirals into a full-blown panic thinking I’ve been in a wreck, calling anyone and everyone in her contact list to check on me. Even during a simple drive, she’ll start screaming at me to watch out when there isn't even a shadow of a threat—say, a car pulling out of a driveway a hundred yards ahead. Whether it's clinical depression or bipolarity, I honestly can't say. My father, however, was an entirely different story, though looking back now, I see he was essentially self-medicating his struggles with heavy drinking. Because we didn't live under the same roof, I didn't pay as much attention to it then, even though his withdrawal and deep-seated insecurity were becoming obvious in recent years... but that's just how it goes in this country, isn't it? Until a doctor hands you a formal diagnosis, you're perfectly fine. But the second you step foot in a psychologist's office, suddenly you're considered "crazy," and in American culture, nobody wants to carry that stigma.

Why bother fighting against the inevitable? Perhaps there is some hidden merit in just letting it happen. You really ought to give it a shot yourself.

mellowwolf30 said:If you’re telling me you feel better out there in the world, then honestly, there isn't much point in overthinking it.
Life becomes a whole lot more manageable when you aren't actively working against yourself at every turn.
But I have to wonder—how exactly does moving to a new place stop that self-destructive streak? What’s actually driving the change?

It appears I successfully convinced myself that my surroundings were the sole architect of all my misery.

It strikes me as odd, frankly, because I make such a concerted effort to perceive reality through a clear lens, stripped of any self-imposed delusions. If someone were to tell me they were leaving a job because they were bored, I’d probably ask them when they last did anything remotely stimulating—maybe picked up a hobby or went skydiving (which, by the way, is plenty popular here in the States). Most people just sit on their couches, lamenting how bleak their existence is due to their environment, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that everyone around them is living a remarkably full and vibrant life.

And yet, clearly, even I succumbed to that same fallacy, though I find myself caught in a bit of a quandary: should I fight this impulse or simply lean into it? I have no idea what tomorrow holds; perhaps life will finally let its guard down for me there. My previous stint was brief, everything felt fresh and electric back then.

Look, you might want to try sweet-talking the property owner since they really need to get that drilling done; the trench is clearly visible now. If the boss gives you the green light, just be prepared to lean on the installers and those folks over at ExxonMobil to fix whatever mess the contractors made in the first place.

Since this thread is already active, there’s no reason to let it sit idle and gather dust. To put it bluntly, after years—perhaps even decades—of enduring constant, crushing gloom (true, heavy clinical depression, though I could never quite muster the courage to see a doctor because I am terrified of what my neighbors or colleagues might whisper if they found out), the last few years have seen the emergence of periods I can only describe as manic phases of bipolar disorder. Looking back, I suppose they surfaced before; sometimes they were mild ripples, other times full-blown waves, but it feels as though they have intensified into a genuine crisis lately. It is an agonizing task to describe one's own psyche, let alone diagnose its malfunctions; at times, these shifts felt like nothing more than a reprieve from the depths of depression, yet when I reflect on the sheer idiocy of my actions, I realize how much trouble they've caused, and recently, those lapses in judgment have become far too frequent. A surge of euphoria takes hold, and suddenly I am making reckless decisions, like buying a car I have absolutely no use for, only to sell it off for pennies on the dollar. Sometimes these episodes linger, sometimes they pass quickly, and sometimes they begin to recede, but the momentum of this madness has grown so great that I find myself unable to pull the emergency brake. During one particular cocktail of emotions—how can one even explain it?—I reached a point of such profound despair and hopelessness that I decided to simply run away. I was chasing the delusion that somewhere else, life would be better, even though deep down in my gut, I knew that running is a futile endeavor because you cannot escape yourself. Whether you find yourself in Nicaragua, Canada, Australia... or right here in the States, the mind remains the same. Perhaps it was just a "honeymoon phase," because for a moment there, I actually felt a sense of relief. Everything felt fresh, and I felt a fleeting happiness, believing I had finally turned a new leaf that I could write in bright, vibrant colors. Believing I was finally in the process of fixing my life, having glimpsed light at the end of the tunnel, I convinced myself I had to settle my affairs back home first; it seemed foolish to leave an empty apartment or a car sitting abandoned in a parking lot. So, I returned to tie up loose ends, only to fall straight back into the old vortex: the depression, the binge eating, the dissatisfaction, the bitter resentment...

And now, I find myself standing there, utterly clueless as to what I am fighting against, what the root cause truly is, or whether I should once again attempt to flee.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I simply must scrub this entire thing from existence, but since the system won't let me delete the thread myself, I suppose my only recourse is to go ahead and click the report icon. 👍

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