[chaircher]

1.Curate your relationships more harshly.

2.Ready meals are better than no meals.

3.It is not your responsibility to rescure people from situations they put themselves in because they want to be rescued.

4.You don't have to pay your dues by working shit low wage dead end jobs for no reason - just apply for what you actually want to do.

5.Job stability is an illusion.

6.Be wary of people who encroach on your goals and achievements.

7.You are not a side character or an audience, and your life is not a stage for other people to trample across.

8.Wash your damn hands and don't hang out in enclosed spaces with people with contageous illnesses.

9.Buy non-synthetic clothes only.

[AnimalMuppet]

Re 7: But other people also aren't side characters. Especially, your children aren't. (Your wife isn't, either, and neither are your co-workers.)

I needed that to some degree ten years ago. I needed it a lot worse 20 years ago.

[chaircher]

Yes and there's a trap where once you learn one version of this you can go too far the other way trying to balance your personality out.

And it can also be the case that you're doing both at the same time - thinking about the community I am from, people treated other people like that because they were being treated like that themselves.

[CrimsonRain]

Can you explain 9?

[chaircher]

A few points:

Synthetic clothes (ie manmade fibres like polyester) are mostly made of plastic which is really really bad for your skin and your hair, especially if you have eczema.

Non-synthetic clothes pack more bang for their buck when it comes to protecting you from the weather - a thin wool jumper does so much more than a bulky polyester one, a cotton top will let your sweat out which is so much better for both summer and winter, and so on.

Synthetic materials are often used because they are cheap so it serves as a good (but heavy handed) litmus test about the quality of garment, because if they've cheaped out on the material they have probably cheaped out elsewhere in the process.

Fire resistance - I wore a synthetic dress near a fire recently and as embers fell on me it literally just melted holes into it.

If you're interested do what I did - find all the cotton, linen and silk in your wardrobe and priortise wearing those clothes for a month. Then you will start noticing the synthetic clothes feel uncomfortable. Wool is also non-synthetic but a lot of people find it difficult to tolerate. Don't forget it's not just clothes, it's bedsheets too

[Dracophoenix]

What about blends? Pure wool is pretty itchy, pure cotton shrinks, pure silk is time-consuming to launder, and pure linen is very prone to wrinkles.

[chaircher]

For me I mostly avoid blends for the same reasons outlined above but they are a good compromise, and sometimes you do just have to compromise. It's great when you can find items with non-synthetic blends like a silk/linen knit jumper I have which is the best of both worlds.

Good quality silk can go in the washing machine at 40 degrees in wash bags (although where I live it is not normal to use tumble driers, we just hang clothes outside or on radiators. So I do not lose any time by hang drying silk because I do it with all my clothes anyway). Never had the shrinking issue with cotton interestingly, but do find cotton/elastic blends are not as durable as more synthetic options. Cotton is something that can have wildly varying qualities and be constructed in completely different ways. I hate wool to be honest. And most linen I have come across has been weirdly see-through? Although linen is good upholstery material in my opinion.

[Dracophoenix]

Are there any blends you find bearable or necessary? Any that you avoid entirely?

If you dislike wool and linen then what natural materials do you, respectively wear in winter and summer?

With regards to cotton, while it can have wildly varying qualities depending on structure and weave, there are plenty of properties that remain the same. Raw denim, a cotton twill fabric, shrinks drastically.