You have a choice

[MadMadge43]

TeriblePun,

I think that having a bad experience on your way to a good one is pretty typical and something you persevere through, it makes you a better person.

I don't think MerryRaven is talking about situations such as these. She is talking about people who complain and whine about situations and take no actions to put it to an end.

Your case: When you graduated you'd be done with them and have a great perk in life.
Other case: Gets nothing out of roommate, is miserable and won't look for a new place because it's "too hard" or says it's too expensive while buying Starbucks Venti's instead of saving up to get out.

There's a big difference. I've had plenty of tough situations in my life, and either worked to get away from it, or knew that the trade off of what I was getting compensated for it.

My coordinator at work was talking about her friend who had a horrible job and was treated terribly. My advice: go to college become really good at what you do and save money, you will then never have to be stuck in a position where people treat you poorly. You will always have the option to leave when you want to. But until then you have to stick out a lot of bad things to get to that goal.

[Mrs. Eclipse]

Well, I don't always understand things very well.

Sorry

[MadMadge43]

Well, I don't always understand things very well.

Sorry

There's nothing to be sorry for darlin, just explaining.

[Evil Duckie]

My understanding of what MerryRaven was saying.

You might not be in the situation you want, but nothing will change until you do something to change. Sometimes it might be you can't change the situation, but you can make your mind up on how you are going to handle it even if only with a change in your attitude towards it.

As to putting up with the college roommate from h@ll and such things. You know that this will end and you are going on to something better. You are doing something by going after the more important in the long run than the roommate. The roommate is a pain but only a temporary pain in the long run.

I sometimes have to remind my sons when they get frustrated. Remember the bigger picture.

[freakyfemme]

This is the part I don't agree with. I HATED some of my roommates with a passion. But if I refused to live with them, I wouldn't have a place to live. Not much of a solution. So I put up with them while I was there.

Ultimate bad roommate.  I was married to him.  It took me a year and a half to get out of the situation.  I am not saying you can necessarily just up and leave a bad roommate or bad family member.  I think you have to make a goal to work toward getting out of a situation. 

It is true you have to pay rent so you just can't quit a bad job, but you can make a goal to find another and redo your resume, start making contacts, answering ads etc.  In other words take positive steps to improve the situation.   

It is not just attitude.  It is action.

I agree with that, in THEORY, but on the other hand......why should the person who's obviously in the right have to suffer the consequences of other people's bad behaviour?  I had a bad roommate situation last semester, in which the other three girls had known each other before, and basically decided that they were a clique of three, and I was not part of their "inner circle," and therefore, I wasn't entitled to be treated the same way they treated each other.  So, they were allowed to leave huge messes all over the apartment (dirty dishes, alcohol bottles, and bacon-greasy paper towels all over every horizontal surface, *my* DVD's on the floor, etc), play their music until the walls shook, not clean up after themselves if they were too busy/drunk/hungover/just plain lazy, but if I dared to walk with shoes on on a weekday morning, not close the door SILENTLY, speak when the TV was on (which was always), accidentally spill something, or express an opinion that was opposite to theirs, they'd read me the riot act.  So, I moved out by the end of September, but it really wasn't entirely my decision.  In fact, the old roommates left a "Freaky, this isn't working, you need to move" note on my door the day I was scheduled to move anyway.....so, I had to deal with all the hassle of packing up and setting up house all over again in the new apartment, while they got to just stay put...then later, they told me that they'd talked to the Rez Gods before I had, described ME as a horrible roommate, and they'd been trying to get me kicked out the whole time.  So, if the Rez Gods have moved a fourth girl in there since then, I feel *so* sorry for her.  But still, even though the situation got rectified in the end (I'm living with nice girls now, and one of them's in painting class with me), it's still not fair or ideal, because I ended up bearing ALL of the consequences, while my horrible roommates bore none of them.

(Edited to change "weekend morning" to "weekDAY" morning, when they should have been awake and getting ready for classes anyway).

[MerryRaven]

What I was saying is you can change your situation or accept your situation.

My Dad has Parkinson's and is going to die from it.  That is rotten and I can do nothing to fix it or change it.  I can accept it and help him the have the best of years he has left. 

I am fat.  No one made me that way and I can either try to eat better and get more exercise or I can accept myself.  Or better yet, I can accept myself while I eat better and do exercise.
Sitting around in front of the TV eating chocolate chip cookies complaining that I am sooooooo fat.  Doesn't do any good at all.

As for freaky's roommate situation.  You could have accepted that they would be horrible and stayed.  People do choose to stay in worse situations than that everyday. 

But I think being an adult means taking responsiblity for your own life, circumstances and happiness by the choices you make.  You got out of the bad roommate situation and are in a better one. 

No it is not fair or ideal.

Sorry, people don't always get fair or ideal they just get situations they have to choose how to cope with as best they can.

[freakyfemme]

What I was saying is you can change your situation or accept your situation.

My Dad has Parkinson's and is going to die from it.  That is rotten and I can do nothing to fix it or change it.  I can accept it and help him the have the best of years he has left. 

I am fat.  No one made me that way and I can either try to eat better and get more exercise or I can accept myself.  Or better yet, I can accept myself while I eat better and do exercise.
Sitting around in front of the TV eating chocolate chip cookies complaining that I am sooooooo fat.  Doesn't do any good at all.

As for freaky's roommate situation.  You could have accepted that they would be horrible and stayed.  People do choose to stay in worse situations than that everyday. 

But I think being an adult means taking responsiblity for your own life, circumstances and happiness by the choices you make.  You got out of the bad roommate situation and are in a better one. 

No it is not fair or ideal.

Sorry, people don't always get fair or ideal they just get situations they have to choose how to cope with as best they can.

Well, I moved.....did I do okay?

[JoyinVirginia]

I really believe that people for the most part choose their situations.  I realize that fate, luck and terrible accidents take choices out of our hands.  Aside from these things I just don't understand why some people put up with stuff...
If you choose to say nothing then you are choosing to stay in the stituation...
But life is too short in my opinion to do stuff you do not actually like to do. 
You can either accept situations or change them.  Those are the only choices. 
Any way when I say get over it or get real that is what I mean.  And when I would rather not do something I just say "I don't think so." and move on.
And yes I do have friends and family that seem to like me.

I think your philosophy is a good one! It takes some people a bit longer than others to learn that the world will not fall apart or stop spinning if you 1) say "NO" to someone, or 2) stand up for yourself, or 3) state clearly what you want. I think I was in my late twenties before I realized that if I didn't do something my mother wanted me to do (come home every weekend was the usual demand), and if she cried and pouted, it would NOT kill her! WOW! She had conditioned me for many years that the worst thing in the world was to refuse a mother's demands. My life got SOOO much easier and I got so much happier when I realized I was the one with the control! Once you have enjoyed making your own decisions, you can never go back.

I admire your good sense!
Joy in Virginia

[MerryRaven]

Freakyfemme you did great in dealing with a very difficult situation.  It sounds to me in all your writings that when there is pressure, your grace comes through.  I mean that honestly. 

As I said, accident and circumstances can conspire against us and sometimes it feels like the whole world is conspiring against us.  And we all have days and times in our lives when we cope better than others.

I promise you, give me a bad cold, snarky co-workers, and a printer at work that keeps jamming, not to mention dropping and breaking a glass on the kitchen floor and getting notice of a bill I thought I paid, I will rail against the world, whine more than any 4 people in the universe. 

I could let it ruin/worry my whole week.  Or I can whine for a bit, order pizza in, take a bubble bath and choose that tomorrow will be better because I am going to call in sick.

I think accepting things you cannot change is more than just 'putting up with stuff'.  If you really accept it, I no longer bothers you.  I agree that is hard to do.  Or if you cannot accept the situation you have to change your situation.  Again, not always easy to do. 

JoyinVirginia - I am glad you learned this in your 20's.  It took me into my 30's to get the point that blaming my parents or my situation was not getting me anywhere but stuck.  I notice my daughters got the idea much earlier than I ever did.

I have a lot of hope for the younger generation.

[housewife2k]

I think there is nothing wrong with being honest and blunt when ASKED for advice. If I ask someone, I want the truth, even if it's "Stop whining, get off your butt and do something." or "For the love of Pete, woman, stand up for yourself!". I take no offense to someone telling me like it is when I am fishing for an answer. The only way I take offense to bluntness, and brutal honesty, is when it is not asked for. If I am having a conversation that has nothing at all to do with my weight, having someone say "to be totally honest, you really need to put down the icecream and excersize more, your a fat slob!" would upset me, because even though I know that it might be true, I didn't ask, it isn't their place.

I appreciate that you tell it like it is, but when asked.

[fklwmn]

I read this when it was first posted, and  I had to step away from it for a few days before I could reply.

I am firmly of the opinion that Life Sucks. Period. And that you have to muddle through the 90% of life that sucks to get to the 10% that's actually worth living. And most of the time I'm pretty good at just doing what I have to do and focusing more on the good stuff that is the reward for surviving the bad.

Most of the time. But you know what? Sometimes I need a good whine. A REALLY good whine. And at those times the good parts of life are so tainted by the bad parts that they aren't even good. And when I NEED a good whine, NOTHING that anyone says to me is going to seem possible as a solution to change things. It's not a permenant state for me, but it is a recurring one.

And, I'm sorry but you DON'T always have a choice. because life involves interractions with other people and sometimes those people make choices themselves that profoundly affect our lives. And sometimes not a thing that we can do will make the effect of someone else's choices any easier for us to deal with. It happens. Or we DO have a choice, but it's a choice between surviving with something that makes us unhappy or not surviving with something we enjoy. That, IMO, is not REALLY a choice. But it is life.

I just think it's not fair for us to be expected to ALWAYS be able to make changes to improve the things we dislike about our lives. Some things we CAN'T change. Some things we CAN change, but changing it to something we'd like better would overall have a negative impact on our life. And sometimes we are just so mired down by everything piling up that it's impossible to see a way out, regardless of how apparent to everyone who is looking in from the outside.

I just think when someone is in that kind of situation it calls for a lot more understanding than I have seen in the majority of this thread. And maybe it calls for an atitude of empathy, rather than a solution-focused response.

[hobish]

I am putting this in "Coffee Break" because it is not really etiquette related and there have been a few threads on phrases that bother you or advice etiquette and I think I would probably just make some of you mad at me if I spoke to you about advice IRL.

I really believe that people for the most part choose their situations.  I realize that fate, luck and terrible accidents take choices out of our hands.  Aside from these things I just don't understand why some people put up with stuff.

Your roommate doesn't clean up after themself?  Tell them what you expect from them.  If they don't do it get another roommate.  People tell me it isn't that easy, well yes it is.  It might not be comfortable but it is just that easy.

Your mother in law is rude to you?  Why not just tell her she is being rude and you won't tolerate it any more.  I mean really, what is she going to do?  Dis-invite you from family gatherings?  Good.  Then you won't have to put up with it.  If you choose to say nothing then you are choosing to stay in the stituation.

You hate your job.  Well look around for another one.  I once told my DH that I was looking for another job but whether I found one or not I would be leaving my current job in six months.  And I did find another job.  But life is too short in my opinion to do stuff you do not actually like to do. 

You can either accept situations or change them.  Those are the only choices. 

Any way when I say get over it or get real that is what I mean.  And when I would rather not do something I just say "I don't think so." and move on.

And yes I do have friends and family that seem to like me.

I am happy to say i have done this. My last job was just plain awful. There was absolutely nothing good about it & i hated every second of every minute there. On the last day of the month i couldn't take it another second, so i called my sister for a ride home & i left. One of my friends at the job convinced me that it was a good idea to let them know about it, and he was right. I talked to the VP & told him simply, "this place isn't for me and i just can't take it anymore." His response? "Well, it isn't for everybody; but i'm sorry it didn't work out. Remember our phone number in case you ever want to come back." I was shocked.
I had just enough $ to pay my rent for the next month, and it turned out i didn't even need it. I was picked up by a temp agency & sent to the company i work for now - the company with whom i had been trying to get hired for months. Within four years i have been promoted twice and made another lateral move to the department i'm in now. I make a lot more money AND they treat us so well that Mr. HGish took a $10k a year pay cut (initially) to work here.
Sorry to ramble ... i'm a little proud of myself, i have to admit.  Point is ... i spent so much time whining about hating my job; but when i did something about it, drastic as it was - well, you wouldn't believe how much my life has improved.
 

[ShadesOfGrey]

And, I'm sorry but you DON'T always have a choice. because life involves interractions with other people and sometimes those people make choices themselves that profoundly affect our lives. And sometimes not a thing that we can do will make the effect of someone else's choices any easier for us to deal with. It happens. Or we DO have a choice, but it's a choice between surviving with something that makes us unhappy or not surviving with something we enjoy. That, IMO, is not REALLY a choice. But it is life.

fklwmn, I understand where you are coming from, it sounds like you have faced some troubles in your life.  I think we've been over the issue that when you truly dont have a choice, it is about how you deal with that situation in life (positively or negatively), no matter what that situation is. 

The only thing that I really take exception to is the sentence about your definition of not having a choice - it sounds to me more like you think it's not a choice when you just dont like the options presented (ie they both represent something negative).  I think that is a fundamental difference. 

Not trying to convince you to change your life philosophy here, just want to clarify the issue.  There will always be people on both sides of the spectrum. 

[fklwmn]

And, I'm sorry but you DON'T always have a choice. because life involves interractions with other people and sometimes those people make choices themselves that profoundly affect our lives. And sometimes not a thing that we can do will make the effect of someone else's choices any easier for us to deal with. It happens. Or we DO have a choice, but it's a choice between surviving with something that makes us unhappy or not surviving with something we enjoy. That, IMO, is not REALLY a choice. But it is life.

fklwmn, I understand where you are coming from, it sounds like you have faced some troubles in your life.  I think we've been over the issue that when you truly dont have a choice, it is about how you deal with that situation in life (positively or negatively), no matter what that situation is. 

The only thing that I really take exception to is the sentence about your definition of not having a choice - it sounds to me more like you think it's not a choice when you just dont like the options presented (ie they both represent something negative).  I think that is a fundamental difference. 

Not trying to convince you to change your life philosophy here, just want to clarify the issue.  There will always be people on both sides of the spectrum. 

I just want to clarify... I think it's not a choice when one of the options is not realistic for survival, ie... I hate my job. but it pays enough that I can pay the bills, feed and clothe my kids, etc... The kinds of job I would REALLY like to be working in is one that pays 1/2 to *maybe* 2/3 (on a high scale) of what I'm making now, which is not even enough to scrape by. So I can choose to work in a job I enjoy, but would not be able to provide for my family. IMO, that's not really a choice b/c I HAVE to provide for my family. So, I work in a job I don't like.

And yes, I have applied for many other jobs. I have been offered jobs I KNOW I'd like much more than I like the one that I have. But they just don't pay enough for me to survive if I accept them. So yeah, I don't think I had a choice b/c providing for my family is not something I can choose not to do just b/c my job sucks.

[ShadesOfGrey]

And, I'm sorry but you DON'T always have a choice. because life involves interractions with other people and sometimes those people make choices themselves that profoundly affect our lives. And sometimes not a thing that we can do will make the effect of someone else's choices any easier for us to deal with. It happens. Or we DO have a choice, but it's a choice between surviving with something that makes us unhappy or not surviving with something we enjoy. That, IMO, is not REALLY a choice. But it is life.

fklwmn, I understand where you are coming from, it sounds like you have faced some troubles in your life.  I think we've been over the issue that when you truly dont have a choice, it is about how you deal with that situation in life (positively or negatively), no matter what that situation is. 

The only thing that I really take exception to is the sentence about your definition of not having a choice - it sounds to me more like you think it's not a choice when you just dont like the options presented (ie they both represent something negative).  I think that is a fundamental difference. 

Not trying to convince you to change your life philosophy here, just want to clarify the issue.  There will always be people on both sides of the spectrum. 

I just want to clarify... I think it's not a choice when one of the options is not realistic for survival, ie... I hate my job. but it pays enough that I can pay the bills, feed and clothe my kids, etc... The kinds of job I would REALLY like to be working in is one that pays 1/2 to *maybe* 2/3 (on a high scale) of what I'm making now, which is not even enough to scrape by. So I can choose to work in a job I enjoy, but would not be able to provide for my family. IMO, that's not really a choice b/c I HAVE to provide for my family. So, I work in a job I don't like. 

ok, again, not trying to be belligerent here (I know it's tough to tell online) but it was your choice to have a family, and the consequences of that decision are yours to bear - both the positive and the negative.  Also, you have chosen that supporting your family financially is more important than being a job that you love, thus you stay in a job that you hate.  I admire that choice, and I know many people who have NOT made that choice and their resulting home life reflects that choice.

My point is that you have set your priorities, and you  have made your decisions according to those priorites.  But those priorities were your choice.  So how you deal with them is up to you.  And how you deal with them impacts your life.  (For example, you choose how you see your job - you may hate the work, but you can choose to see it as the vehicle through which you provide for your family, rather than something that you hate about your life.  No, it doesnt make it better, but it is about how you choose to see it).

I have done the same, along with everyone else on this board (and everyone in general).