As the titled mentioned, is there anything that we should do to avoid undesirable life consequences?
Sure: never go anywhere or do anything of substance or interact with anyone in any meaningful way. Avoid the potential for consequences.
Exist, but don't live.
Avoid relying on a single failure point, especially when it’s a person or group of people, when the consequences are anything of substantial value or importance to you.
Instead, when such a failure point exists (which is more or less inevitable in life), before committing, have an alternative exit plan prepared and thought out, including the trigger point for when it’s time to bail, and preferably have the exit plan already begun in some way so that starting it up when necessary isn’t too hard.
Getting trapped in a situation where people have power over you or your situation, but are letting you down, and you have no clear recourse, is a mind fuck and gets plenty of people. The exit plan is there to protect you and provide perspective as much as giving you “an out”.
A corollary of this is that if you can’t setup a satisfactory alternative/exit plan before you commit, then you shouldn’t commit, unless you’re absolutely certain that you can live with the worst case scenario. Which is dangerous though, because it’s easy to convince yourself that things will be fine and that the worst case scenario is actually better than it will turn out to be … better to stay agile and have the exit plan.
Started a daily stretching routine recently. I read one of those 'things you wish your younger self did' posts and stretching came up a lot so I thought I'd give it a go. I guess there's some pretty irreversible consequences that come from aging so doing what you can to limit that seems like a good idea.
Do you do the same routine every day? I've been interested in trying this but I don't know where to start.
Honestly I just started by winging it. I played a lot of sport as a kid and just started by doing some of the stretches I learnt growing up. Then you can kind of figure out which stretches you like most and what order you like doing them in. The key thing for me was really just inserting it into my existing routine. So if you already have a workout routine you can just add it to that. If you don't then you could try doing it first thing in the morning when you get out of bed, or last thing at night before you go to bed.
There are some great yoga videos online. Find a beginner, 15-20 minute wake-up one. You'll be shocked at how much better you feel.
If you feel in your gut that she’s not the one, you have to trust that feeling. Going into a marriage you know is going to leave a part of your soul behind, reasoning that you’ll just give it a chance for a few years, that’s lost time. It never comes back.
You have to trust your gut. If you have a bad gut feeling but don’t want to tell others because of goals your mind is afraid of sacrificing, you need to trust your gut over your mind.
If that’s where you are, just know that there is a better life than you can imagine waiting for you, if you truly decide to feed your true self. Everything you think about losing is nothing compared to the continual warm glow of knowing you’ve got your own back.
Don’t give that up for someone else. Don’t be with someone who makes you betray yourself.
I truly wish I'd known this when I was 21. Got married super young and went through 20 years (4 years of dating, 16 of marriage) of hell. I had so many reservations that I refused to admit to myself, let alone others, because I didn't believe i was worth loving, that I'd never find love again, etc.
My family actually celebrated when I left my ex. They'd apparently seen it the whole time.
Seriously, young people. Trust your gut.
I stayed with a woman for about five years after my gut knew.
One of the things that helped me start realizing I had to get out and make my own life was this line from a psychology course I listened to on youtube, talking about intuition:
If you ignore that thing that’s calling you forth, you will pay for it like you cannot possibly imagine.
