Worrying about being a failure

Seize the day always seemed fascist to me, perfect for those who pilot high powered company cars at excessive speeds on the motorway because they are seizing the day... regardless of the consequences to others.  PLAN the day "cogitas diem" seems a better approach.

like I said many meanings

for me most of time it's:

Be consistent in your convictions, because you do not know the day or the hour, and you do not want to be ashamed of yourself on the other side

But I do it as 'fridge magnet' as well sometimes, rarely

Wait, wait! I thought carpe diem translated to "Seize the day"?

I always took that to mean "get wise enough and brave enough so that when your particular big day arrives you don't fluff it up!" 

I took it as a call to action, and exactly the opposite of "turning away from the issue".

In fact, I can't quite get my head round how you read it yet... 

Carpe Diem sucks..... Its just a way of pretending you can turn away from the issue, that it doesn't really matter or you have a plan B.  Seizing the day isn't a strategy, its a fridge magnet...

It just came to me, that there is an old latin phrase, that could be used to tell someone to stop worrying

Carpe diem 

Irony is. no matter what you do it always describes it best

I always liked it, and all things with many meanings or purposes, 

I Sperg said:

fill up this guys thread with chit chat, my bad, it's not good internet manners.

good point

appropriateness always eludes me

Measured  conventionally you couldn't get much more of a failure than me. I'm 65, and have never had a paid job. Apparently just over 8% of people have never  had a job if casual or holiday work is excluded. That was via a Google search.

I have a stepfamily that loves me, and does its best to make sure I'm OK.

I have not. best not fill up this guys thread with chit chat, my bad, it's not good internet manners.

I do 8pm Saturday, because it was a "big saturday night out" for me when I was young and zoom allows people to share an activity and socialise as much or as little as they want. I've got technical and structural problems with my broadcast station and equipment (the shelf is collapsing under the weight of just some of the equipment I need to use to do it half properly...

Me too. last time 21 years ago. you need at least 3 to play

sport bridge and 3-5-8 are the only card games I was willing to play as kid, no luck involved

I start work 8pm UK time, so not this time. but It's either Sunday or Saturday every week. so maybe next time

i've seen Lord of War, good movie, and I like that actor, of course I can't recall his name. Have you seen Face Off ?

Probably not, it's been30 + years since I last played. 

(Zoom film nite this Saturday if you are interested, probably going to be "Lord of war"...)

I Sperg said:

Bridge

do you play sport version?

Yep, that's been me. Guess what?

I am a failure! (In some areas. and it turns out quite the winner in others)

LIfe is like a hand of cards in a thinky serious sort of game like Bridge rather than snap or pontoon, as the neurotypicals seem to play their life games. you have strengths and weaknesses just like you get good and rubbish cards in a bridge hand. 

Learn how to play your skills and characteristics in the right order and you'll either play a good game and win that way or you'll actually win the game. If you get my drift....

I didn't hit may of the conventional success milestones, and the societal programming made me feel really, really *** about that for years, until I realised that I had lead a bloody interesting and rewarding life, all the time whilst feeling myself to be a failure... Now I get to relive some of those moments for a completely different perspective (Older and wiser) and some of that stuff I now realise I never was going to win, but boy, did I try! And it created interesting memories, and the breadth of my experience is definitely wider than most NT's admit to, so IT AIN'T ALL BAD NEWS, this Autismo stuff. 

For a very long time I assumed that I was a ‘normie’ who failed and made everything way harder than it needed to be. It turns out, it’s probably not that. Rather, I did the best I could under difficult circumstances, without a diagnosis or management plan to help.

We shouldn’t measure ourselves by the invented standards of the society we just happen to be born into.  

I don't think you're a failure.  It sounds like you're doing a lot (distance learning, voluntary work).  I didn't get a paid job until I was in my thirties, and even then I've had long periods of unemployment and I still only work part-time, as I can't cope with full-time (hoping to find some extra work I can do from home).  So you aren't alone.  Anyway, I don't think anyone should define themselves by their job.  You are a person with worth regardless of your employment status.

it took me 15 years of slavery to realise that

btw I did not get my first paid job until 25

it's hard to compete against NTs in 'popularity contests'

But the need to do something meaningful is still bothering me

I'm aiming for apprenticeships now, no experience in a field is a big 'NO'

Work to live, don't live to work.

Most of society is one monkey giving another monkey something said monkey thinks it needs and usually doesnt...and giving some percieved value to it....we are the smartest life form because we found alot of ways to make simple living very hard...ask yourself what is really needed in life and why you have to give half your life to it. 

Hello Daniel, 

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your reassurance. It is very true that (without delving into a territory that is too political) there does seem to be an imperative presented by society that you must be self sufficient and earn lots of money and possess material wealth to be “successful” or “normal”. I really do try to remember that this is ultimately baseless, as I have been aware of this kind of capitalist ideology for a long time.

I do find that thanks to my past trauma from being abused in school at the hands of the degenerate idiots I was forced to be with in my classes that I struggle to see alternatives to that point of view. This is because, one way or another, seemingly many of these utter demons I had to be in school with have seemingly comfortable lives and good jobs since school finished for those people and myself those years ago.

Because of my trauma, this angers me immensely, as I actually paid attention in my classes and achieved good grades (well, until my last year of sixth form college; that was when years of this abuse and torment started to genuinely weigh on me) while these idiots were loud and obnoxious and only cared about getting into the underwear of the nearest person of the opposite sex and constantly abused me for being “weird” and liking “stupid” things that weren’t sports and explicit tv shows that they were too young to be watching at the time.

I realise I have digressed quite significantly but hopefully that provides a bit more context for why I feel the way I do and feel so much pressure to be “successful”. 

If you read all of the above, thank you for doing so and I apologise for rambling.

Hi Myrmeleon,

First of all know that you’re not a failure, I’m in my 30 and don’t have a job, that doesn’t make me a failure.

Try and see through the political ideology that success and healthy development is all about self sufficiency, most of pathology has no valid scientific basis as it’s a social science diluted in a natural science due to the concept of “normal”. Don’t compare your life to the lives of others.

Remember the things that you have achieved.