My thoughts

[Bankai]

Eye contact is the cornerstone of communication in our culture. If you're not comfortable holding eye contact with anyone for extended period, that might partially explain communication issues you're having. Fortunately, it can be learned. The best way to start is where stakes are low - i.e. holding eye contact with sales assistant when buying something is store. You can start with couple of seconds and gradually increase duration as you get more comfortable. You can also start throwing some small talk to the mix. But don't forget to (gently) smile - just starring makes ppl uncomfortable.

[Stahlmann]

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[Gilberto de Piento]

I like Bankai's advice. If that is too much you can try looking between their eyes or at their nose or something. It feels less awkward and the other person generally can't tell that you aren't making eye contact.

[Stahlmann]

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[Mister Imperceptible]

Did you speak with that representative of the other company about an opportunity with them? Why not? Are you afraid that someone at your existing company will find out? Do it NOW and if I get to Poland you will owe me a pierogi. Didn’t you know this is a numbers game? Ask for a million euros from 100 fools and 99 rejections have no bearing on whether Fool #100 opens his purse. Imagine you redirected the mental energy you put into purposefully dehydrating yourself into actually learning a marketable skill or networking. It’s not as though I were lower in the global supply chain that I would be in the same boat as you. Just stand atop a chimney in Warsaw and shout “I’M FREE” and the gods will smile upon you, you ignorant-of-history Marxist BEARDY MAN loving dolt.

[Stahlmann]

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[Stahlmann]

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[Bankai]

Bump health/sports to #1 and focus on this. Start small, in fact so small that you cannot fail - something like 10 pushups or 2k walk or whatever the minimum is for you. But do it every day, no excuses. You're not allowed to go sleep until you do your 10 pushups. Mark each day of exercise in the calendar - hopefully you won't miss a day and you'll create a chain which will grow every day, making it more and more difficult to stop exercising (who'd like to break 200-day long chain due to being too lazy for 10minutes workout). Once daily exercise becomes a habit, you can slowly increase volume and type of exercises. But only then, don't start with 2h session in the gym to get so sore as to never come back there.

Now, one you habituated exercise, you'll see positive effects in all other areas of your life. But start with this one thing. Don't try to do too much too quickly. You only have limited energy/willpower/motivation. In fact, you'll probably benefit if you ban yourself from any other 'productive' activity until you exercises for 100 days in a row.

[Stahlmann]

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[Bankai]

Everything is relative. If you have nice set up with living at home and walking everywhere, your SR even on average salary must be pretty good (>50%). On the other hand, living abroad even if only for a short time, opens eyes, fills with confidence and has potential to change life forever.

[Riggerjack]

But in meantime reading some @RJ posts critising unions was rather exercis in keeping being calm and... learning to deal wih my shit.

Glad I can help!

You seem oddly status (white collar vs blue) oriented in your career thinking.

I would argue that white collar tends to be better paid at the upper end, because they are more valuable to capitalists. And less so at the low end, for the same reason. The transition comes with a price, and that price doesn't seem to be one you are willing to pay.

I don't blame you, I didn't pay it either.

I would again advise you that in an environment of low wages, you would do better to develop a side business. It's not easy, but there is richer ore there, and the prices you have to pay are more clear.

[FIRE 2018]

White collar vs blue collar , been there done that. White collar may get paid more but one must deal more with the BS corporate culture and in layoffs, usually the first to go. Blue collar may get paid less but don't need to deal with the more stress and politics of white collar. Blue collar are the grunts making $$ for the company so white collar at times tries to keep them motivated and happy. ( not always in the real world). And white collar is salaried pay so your life at times is your job. Blue collar can be very lucrative with overtime pay.

[Jean]

I know two polish Girls working 4 month a year in switzerland in agriculture they earn at least 3000 chf per month.

[2Birds1Stone]

Jean, similar to what my parents did in the 70's. They picked strawberries in Norway and made more in 3 months than they could in Poland the remaining 9.

[Stahlmann]

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[Stahlmann]

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[Stahlmann]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UgpgZApLs4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PilieiFdXw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGh3KDkonQE

[Stahlmann]

backing to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrNozD10zZg
this is interesting as some delusions are instutionalized and for some you can even get paid with nice retirement on gov's dime.

[Stahlmann]

I agree that a reasonably predictable life under communism will always lose to the mirages of capitalism, even if many people literally die during get rich or die tryin 'and most simply do not achieve anything special. In the era of the success story, we all admire Musks and Jobs, but we are unable to cover how many corpses (metaphorical or literal) have not even achieved mediocrity, let alone a fraction of this success.

This is how the human psyche is constructed, simply if you tell people: you will live your life very well together with millions of countrymen, intellectual, technological, scientific progress awaits you, but (for example) you will never have the possibility of having a media concern, three villas, fifty Lamborghinis and the treasury of Scrooge McDuck. Indeed, there are few people who will consciously accept it, after all, one can be broke with such awareness. This is undoubtedly the Achilles' heel of mankind.

Oh yes? Who will admit that the "american dream" for which he escaped from this dirty PRL is tearing off asbestos and dying of pneumoconiosis? Is it being as shabbos goy in Detroit? Is it being passed over in byznys even by the Irish, who in the 19th century were perceived worse in the US than shit? As they say, there are no atheists on their deathbeds. I prefer: there are no capitalists on their deathbeds, because who will say:

Hey, I'm dying in debt to atherosclerosis at 54 because I can't pay the hospital bill, with five loans on the back of my neck which my family will get inherited, I wasted my life on physical work, my wife left me and my children don't want to know me, but hey, at least I have tried, capitalism is beautiful because it has given me such an opportunity!

[Alphaville]

hahaha yeah ok but why pit extremes only? this is why i like social democracies, which strike a balance between the ability to get lucky in the market and the safety of statistical mediocristan where no extreme misfortune happens.

you need to allow for wealth creation if you want to spread it.