To feel pissed off with the way things are

[AprilTheGiraffe]

I probably am. I feel angry just now. This will probably be inarticulate nonsense because I'm tired but I know what I'm trying to say...

I have a growing bugbear about work being such a dominant aspect of my life and the lives of people in general. We spend so much of our time there. Not enough holidays, not enough time, not enough hours in the day.

I feel like everyone I know is stressed out, skint, unhappy. Life is just dominated by work. Shite bosses who don't want to understand. Commuting in bad traffic. Unpaid overtime (or being penalised and put at the bottom of the pile because you have kids in nursery and can't do it, like me). Not being able to stop worrying or thinking about it when you get home.

Housework when you can squeeze it in. Drudgery on top of fucking drudgery. Not enough hours in the day. Brexit. Independence. Just pressure and worry from everywhere. I wish it would all just fuck off and leave me alone.

Of course I'm sure not everyone feels this way and it's just me. I'm going through a phase just now where I'm very unhappy in my job. I am going on mat leave in a few months and I don't want to go back. But for various reasons I am utterly trapped with nowhere else to go and we can't afford for me to stay at home. So I have no option but to stay put and keep going.

I want to start up my own business but I can't because I simply don't have time. Workload at actual work is so heavy that I need to work a lot of nights once DD is asleep to keep up (I reduced my hours when I had DD and whilst my time in the office and lay reduced accordingly, my workload didn't). If I'm not doing that, I'm doing housework.

Ugh, some people just don't want to entertain other people's troubles, like they must be all be either self-made or self-indulgent. It's so "I'm alright, Jack!".

I hear ya' OP.

'We're allowed to express that and wonder aloud if perhaps things shouldn't be easier for citizens of a civilised society - got it?'

I do get it, but what bothers me is the implication that someone should be making it easier for you, that there's nothing you can do yourself to make it better. Some people are genuinely stuck, due to extreme poverty or dictatorial governments. People in the UK don't have it easy but they have an absolutely enormous amount of freedom to change things. So if you're not happy, change it, don't moan and wait for someone else to fix it for you.

It's not just you. The small child stage makes it harder I think.

My goal is to get a cleaner again once my youngest gets her nursery funding so that's one less thing hanging over us. Always have a holiday plan, even if it's a cheap as chips tent in a field. Make time at the weekend for things that make you happy - get outdoors with the kids, do your hobbies. Even if the house needs work, you can cut the pace on that to maintain sanity in the short term.

Do you have any degree of PND? It might be worth investigating, as while medication doesn't remove the shit from life, it makes it slightly easier to cope with.

To add, I can understand a feeling of hopelessness if you're not well, if you have difficult challenges like ill parents or children etc. But you can leave a stressful job, you can start a business if you really want to. Sometimes I think people like believing that they're stuck because that prevents them from having to take a chance in order to change things.

I do get it, but what bothers me is the implication that someone should be making it easier for you, that there's nothing you can do yourself to make it better. Some people are genuinely stuck, due to extreme poverty or dictatorial governments. People in the UK don't have it easy but they have an absolutely enormous amount of freedom to change things. So if you're not happy, change it, don't moan and wait for someone else to fix it for you.

Just say "bootstrap", saves quite a few keystrokes.

I do get it, but what bothers me is the implication that someone should be making it easier for you, that there's nothing you can do yourself to make it better.

I don't think that IS the direct implication, but it's a common (and convenient) interpretation if you want to push responsibility back onto the victim. You don't have to be at the extremes of sufferance to have a legitimate gripe, and maybe you need to demonstrate that to people in order to raise their awareness of the inequality - the unnecessary struggle - of so many people in this county. Yes, by comparison we have it "easy", but it could be BETTER; it should be SO MUCH BETTER for so many people! And when people speak out and say "why the hell is life so shit? Aren't we Britain? Aren't we world leaders?? Why the fuck are so many of us miserable??" we should all turn on our empathy and think "yeah, what the hell is this? IS there something I can do?". Like maybe we should all take a long hard look at our voting intentions for a start.

The vast, VAST majority of people in this country work exceptionally hard every single day to better their lives; it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise; of course they do. They work for their children, their loved ones, and for themselves. So when they speak up and say "is it right that I feel so shafted?" we should all think very carefully about it before we say "everything's absolutely fine".

I genuinely don't understand your post make.

I never said 'everything's absolutely fine' Epoxy. My point is that when people say 'why am I so miserable?' the response should be 'and what can I do to change it?'

I find the term 'victim' strange - victim of what?

I totally agree.

When I had my 2 DC (now aged 5 and nearly 3) I was working in a hard and stressful environment with long working hours (which meant working after DC were in bed). I look back now and wonder how the hell I coped with non-sleeping (severe reflux until aged 5) DC and work - the answer is I didn't really. I just plodded on, never really living, just barely surviving.

Eventually I changed jobs (bloody hard to do when you're so worn down and under pressure at work) and now things are slightly better. My hours are fewer but I still feel that I don't see enough of the DC. I'm planning on going to a 4 day week next year although I'd actually love to stop altogether.

Part of me regrets not doing that when DC were born (we could have afforded to though we'd have had to move to a cheaper area) but on the other hand, staying in the job meant I earn more today and if anything happens to DH's job we've got a safety net.

I've spent the last few weeks wondering how I can improve my life and be happier and I think the answer for me (in the short term) is to try to do more at the weekend with the DC. We're very routine based and I'm just bored now of always going to the same park etc.

Is there anything small that you can change to make your life more pleasant?

I find the term 'victim' strange - victim of what?

The "victim" of a perceived inequality for example, that sort of victim.

I don't agree that you can tell the whole wide world what their response to adversity "should" be, although it would be awfully convenient if everyone who was (or felt) in any way wronged just kept nice and quite about it and turned the issue around on themselves rather than bothering the rest of us with it; right?

*quiet not quite

Don't you feel any social reposnsibility, Sparrow? Because I do agree in part with you, on a personal level, it is useful to ask oneself "what of this can I change?". I do it all the time myself, it's a practical life skill. But there is also a time and a place to say, "look here, this is fucked. I'm being screwed. You all need to know how pants this is - this can't be right!!".

'I don't agree that you can tell the whole wide world what their response to adversity "should" be, although it would be awfully convenient if everyone who was (or felt) in any way wronged just kept nice and quite about it and turned the issue around on themselves rather than bothering the rest of us with it; right?'

I'm not saying to keep quiet, I'm saying to do something! It's actually far more 'convenient' for people who feel wronged to sit around and moan and reassure each other that it's just all shit. It's a far greater threat to the status quo to have a bunch of people who say 'we're fed up, we're not putting up with this, we're going to change it' surely?

I hear you op. I have just returned to work after being a sahp but it's only 16 hours a week. Dh wants me to look for full time work but the childcare will cripple us.

Dh spoke to our bank yesterday about honouring our direct debits and standing orders this month. They agreed they would but we need to pay money in asap. I don't know where they think we'll get the money from! We'll have to use a credit card for any fuel and bits of food we need meaning our outstanding balance won't reduce. We're both just so tired of it.

'Don't you feel any social reposnsibility, Sparrow? Because I do agree in part with you, on a personal level, it is useful to ask oneself "what of this can I change?". I do it all the time myself, it's a practical life skill. But there is also a time and a place to say, "look here, this is fucked. I'm being screwed. You all need to know how pants this is - this can't be right!!".'

Pointing out that thing are wrong isn't social responsibility, it's moaning. Social responsibility is asking 'what can I do to change this'

I hear you OP.

Pointing out that thing are wrong isn't social responsibility, it's moaning. Social responsibility is asking 'what can I do to change this'

No, I mean don't you feel any responsibility to help not only yourself but the other people around you? So when people say something's wrong not only do you think "how can you help yourself" you ALSO think "what, if anything, can I do to help?". That's what I mean by social responsibility. Like, is ANY of the OP's situation something WE contribute to as voters for example? I'm pretty darned sure we all have more power to help EACH OTHER than many people realise.

OP I do apologise for going off on a tangent!

'No, I mean don't you feel any responsibility to help not only yourself but the other people around you? So when people say something's wrong not only do you think "how can you help yourself" you ALSO think "what, if anything, can I do to help?". That's what I mean by social responsibility. Like, is ANY of the OP's situation something WE contribute to as voters for example? I'm pretty darned sure we all have more power to help EACH OTHER than many people realise!'

Yes I do feel responsibility for people around me. I'm not sure why you might think I don't? The fact that I feel responsible for the people and the world around me is why I don't just moan - I change things.

"The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system." - George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier

It is reality for a lot of people. Own business can give more stress and worry though

Can you look for alternative employment. Perhaps maternity leave will give a good chance to regroup and make some changes, esp. as your financial burden is likely to increase after that.

Yes I do feel responsibility for people around me. I'm not sure why you might think I don't?

Well simply because when you read the OP's situation, rather than thinking "is there actually some injustice here, perhaps even something that I indirectly contribute to" you automatically branded it entitled whinging. That's all.

I get it. Every person I speak to tells me they're tired. I'm tired too. I'm also tired of people telling me they're tired. There's no work/life balance and hardly anyone is happy. I think we'll look back at these times and call it a depression.

I think YABU.

Not everyone dislikes work & lot us choose to put ourself through the stress, strains & make choices to find the lifestyle we choose.