Full time job? Consider yourself lucky

[Valmy]

What should we do when one of our cousins loafs?

Well sometimes helping your cousin may mean being tough love

[Valmy]

It's a balance.  Sometimes people do need to be able to fail in order to learn their lesson.

You need both a carrot and a stick.

Yep.  Being an enabler is not helping.

[Berkut]

What should we do when one of our cousins loafs?

Well sometimes helping your cousin may mean being tough love

What does that mean?

What is wrong with loafing? Working hard doesn't get you anything anyway - it is mostly just luck. Might as well loaf. If things work out, awesome. If not, hey, you just can't catch a break, whaddya gonna do?

[garbon]

What should we do when one of our cousins loafs?

Well sometimes helping your cousin may mean being tough love

What does that mean?

What is wrong with loafing? Working hard doesn't get you anything anyway - it is mostly just luck. Might as well loaf. If things work out, awesome. If not, hey, you just can't catch a break, whaddya gonna do?

Well actually its all shitty at the end of the day.

[Jacob]

Well actually its all shitty at the end of the day.

Exactly. Your philosophy of "everyone for himself, grab your happiness and fuck the world" leads to shittiness, especially for yourself.

[garbon]

Well actually its all shitty at the end of the day.

Exactly. Your philosophy of "everyone for himself, grab your happiness and fuck the world" leads to shittiness, especially for yourself.

That isn't my philosophy but rather what it seems like makes more sense in Ide's posited world.

Personally, I don't think of the world as a horrible, shitty place. And really a great reason to help others is that you can effect change and make it an even better place.

[Strix]

What is wrong with loafing? Working hard doesn't get you anything anyway - it is mostly just luck. Might as well loaf. If things work out, awesome. If not, hey, you just can't catch a break, whaddya gonna do?

If I knew you weren't kidding I'd have to say you just got a Union job. 

[Ideologue]

Therefore it makes more sense to suppose that we're all in this shitty, chaotic world together and to help each other to the best of our abilities, not to cry "personal responsibility!" when one of our cousins stumbles, or--as is at least as often the case--pushed.

What should we do when one of our cousins loafs?

Be content that he has relaxed some of the pressure on a very tight job market?

But you can only control one of those, so it makes sense to focus on the thing you can control, rather than the things you cannot.

On an individual basis, I agree.  But on a societal basis, that is a high-level policy basis, you suggest a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Not really as I'm not saying that other people can't also have happiness, it just seems like in such a shitty world, people would be inured to the pain of their cousins as its a common occurrence. So why feel compelled to help each other out if the world is still going to be shitty at the end of the day?

One day, it wouldn't be.  That's the point.

Personally, I don't think of the world as a horrible, shitty place. And really a great reason to help others is that you can effect change and make it an even better place.

[DontSayBanana]

I'd be happier with a full-time job right now.  Of course, I'd also be happier with a job that paid more than the one I've got now.