#how great does your tolerance need to get to make your high unfulfilling enough to actually THINK for once?

[ganymedesclock]

kaorusan241 replied to your post: I’ve expressed my frustration before with fanon...

Tbh if you’re gonna make a post like this you ought to mention that they share plenty of negative traits too…. otherwise you’re just a hypocrite for stanning Shiro/ignoring his canon faults whilst accusing Lance stans of doing the same

Hi, friend! That post was pretty tongue-in-cheek, admittedly, it was mostly me expressing frustration.

The intent of the post was not that either Shiro or Lance are perfect or flawless people, but, rather, that Lance is mistakenly given Shiro’s traits, and I wanted to rally against that not only because Shiro deserves recognition for who and what he is, but also because that’s not fair to Lance at all! He’s not Shiro, and he shouldn’t have to be like Shiro to be seen as a worthwhile person.

Because Lance is a very empathetic and open person. If anything, he and Shiro are polar opposites in how they address their feelings. Lance is very inclined to networking and opening up to people, and as seen in s3e6 with Keith, will actively seek people out to talk about his concerns and stresses.

This is a fantastic quality of Lance’s, one of, in my opinion, his greatest character strengths and it’s something Shiro is awful at. Lance actually does the good thing and addresses his feelings. This makes sense because multiple official sources tell us the Blue Lion is the nurturing emotional head of Voltron- the “heart” of the team. And that’s an area where Lance excels.

Conversely this is an area Shiro struggles with profoundly. This poor guy has an obvious undiagnosed anxiety disorder (PTSD) and seems to have been a slightly high-strung overachiever most of his life. Shiro stocks strengths Lance doesn’t- he has an incredible resolve, pain tolerance, and determination. That’s not to say Lance is weak-willed or cowardly, but, consider incidents like in s1e5 where Lance fights awake for a brief period of time to attack Sendak and then rapidly loses consciousness again.

Shiro has the most determination and greatest force of personality out of the team, in general. He has a powerful sense of personal ethics and will live or die, stare into the abyss for his ideals.

Lance, while also a hero, and able to do some amazing things (he was able to get under Shiro’s skin in s2e8 challenging him, he’s no wimp in the willpower department ‘cause none of these kids are) doesn’t have all of Shiro’s strengths and that’s fine. He doesn’t need to. He has all of Lance’s strengths, instead.

Furthermore, you have to consider where Lance was in s1e1 and what that says about Lance. Lance is not a genius or a prodigy. However, he was able to, through basically just diligence and hard work- another major virtue of his- reach Keith’s position. He was able to occupy the slot in the fighter class saved for Keith, their most promising cadet. Iverson phrases it incredibly harshly, but he clearly thinks Lance has potential, and the only problem is he doesn’t think Lance is taking this seriously.

But Lance isn’t happy in s1e1. Because that slot wasn’t meant for him. It was someone else’s role. And there’s something to this once s3e2 comes around and Lance steps up as Red Paladin.

Unlike Allura or Keith, Lance struggles the least, observably, with the Red Lion. His single argument is the controls are tricky, and by s3e3 he’s overwhelmingly worked that out.

Of the paladins, Lance is the most adaptable to an unpredictable or changing situation. This is also reflected in s4e4, when all the paladins are called upon to act contrary to who they really are- notice that Lance is the one who thrives in that environment. Because Lance is a chameleon of a person. He’s able to be what the situation needs of him with a great deal of flexibility.

(Consider that his counterpart on Team Sincline is an almost literal chameleon.)

But ultimately those roles are disappointing and unfulfilling. They don’t work as a permanent arrangement because he knows they’re not for him, and he knows what feels right.

Full disclosure here, I adore Lance. The reason why I get so frustrated at popular fanon Lance is he’s one of my favorite characters and I feel like people really do not give him credit where credit’s due! Especially because my point that he’s given Shiro’s characteristics is that time and time again, I’ve seen fanwork of Lance being utterly destroyed in his own area of expertise.

Again, Lance is the feelings guy out of the team! Shiro, Keith, and Allura are frankly all prone to bottling issues, failing to address them, holding things past the breaking point and snapping at the worst possible time and place. Lance? Lance doesn’t do that. Lance can be basically precision suckerpunched right where it hurts with his own issues- look at s3e1 and the revelation that not only did Shiro actively nominate Keith as leader in his absence but the Black Lion also thinks so right when Lance was still nursing the hurt of being rejected by Black.

Look at how perfectly Lance takes it upon himself to put everything he’s feeling, that he knows, that he acknowledges, that he’s already been venting and communicating- aside, and talk about it in a mature and empathetic manner because he can tell that Keith is suffering in this situation.

This is Lance who says “This isn’t a participation game, this is war,” or who spent s4e6 doing everything he could to make Allura believe she could do what the entire team was counting on. Lance, who with certainty knows that the Blue Lion is the heart of the team and uses that to prop up Allura, but never took that knowledge to aggrandize himself.

Lance is an amazing person. He’s a wonderful, empathetic guy full of love, and he’s got fantastic instincts about people’s emotions. When he gets in trouble, he’s a very proactive force getting out of them and often his saving grace in situations is how good he is at listening to people even if he doesn’t necessarily like them or wants to prove himself against them. He’s so much stronger than his own insecurities.

But Lance isn’t a Black Paladin. He could do it, just like he can work with Red, but it wouldn’t be ideal for him. He’d sure do a lot better than Shiro would do with Blue, because... uh. Consider what happened with Allura, and consider what happened in Beta Traz when Shiro was in a stressful situation and felt like it was out of his control.

I also have great affection for Shiro. But. Dear god, he’s that friend that you knew that was taking all advanced classes and holding down straight A’s and also on a competitive sport team and you see them occasionally at mealtimes and they have never, ever had enough sleep.

Like I said it before, Shiro has the strongest personal ethics and greatest determination out of the paladins and that’s a high damn bar but he pays for that by being stressed the hell out. And he’s spectacularly bad at self-care, because he’s got so much fortitude that he assumes he can make it, and most of the time he’s right, but it has a very heavy cost to him.

Conversely, Lance, as I started this out by saying- Lance is fantastic at self-care. This is actively shown in his grooming habits. In s1e2 when everybody runs to the bridge, Shiro is the guy who was awake way too early and dressed and exercising probably because his sleep routine is fucked up and wasn’t relaxing at all. Lance wanders in late, but rested, pampered, and clearly having taken time and resources to make sure he’s at his best.

Yes, one of them is the one you want on your side during a catastrophe, but, that’s really not anywhere approaching a long-term healthy lifestyle. Even as herculean as Shiro is, he’s gonna burn himself out a long time before Lance does, because Lance understands that while the last-gasp ‘wake up from a coma to shoot the guy hassling your friends and damn your internal injuries’ stunts have a place and a value, if that happens more than once you should look at how many times something blows up on you.

And that’s really important to me, because emotions and nurturing are seen as stereotypically feminine traits- and because of that, a lot of boys and men are denied that. What are you, some kind of wuss who needs emotional care? (Spoiler: you are. Everyone is.) This amazing, important, heroic quality is seen as worthless- and that happens big time with characterizing Lance! I’ve heard people say he did absolutely nothing when it was his intervention and his virtues in s4e6 that let Allura awaken her powers that went on and saved everybody. Lancey Lance did that!

TL;DR Lance and Shiro are both amazing people, and very different people, and as someone who loves both of them, I want the qualities they have to be respected, rather than misattributed to other people or ignored.

[the-scream-of-the-moths]

10 Career Struggles Only INTJs Will Understand

1. Nothing is ever efficient enough

It’s no secret that INTJs live for efficiency, and will always find the best ways to accomplish an outcome. That’s great when you’re the CEO and you can set process standards across the entire organization. It’s not so great when you’re low on the totem pole and are required to follow systems that you know could work better with a bit of restructuring. Because let’s face it, nothing is ever as efficient as it could be.  

What’s frustrating for an INTJ is being told that it’s ‘not our problem’ or ‘not our job’ to fix those inefficiencies that are driving us nuts. In our heads, everything is our problem when it’s not working. If we’re not allowed to fix it ourselves, we want to speak to the person whose job it is – which means we’re frequently butting heads with management.

2. Loving and hating the autopilot

In just about every job, you reach a point where you’ve learned everything there is to know and are auto-piloting yourself through the work. INTJs like reaching this point because it’s – here’s this word again – efficient. It means we can turn out high-quality work with the least amount of effort. Most of us quietly enjoy taking shortcuts on routine tasks because there’s something sweet about resting on old laurels while others are chasing their tails to get a task done.

At the same time, operating on autopilot for too long is stifling for us. It’s the INTJ paradox – we love the efficiency of knowing what we’re doing but we feel constrained when doing it for too long. We’re constantly looking for new ideas and learning experiences, and get bored and restless when everything is just too easy.

3. Kicking back against incompetence

It’s often said that INTJs dislike authority, but that’s not exactly true. Most of us have no problem with following the orders of our superiors – as long as that person knows what they are talking about. It’s not authority that irks us: it's people who are incompetent within that role.

Being in a position of authority does not win someone automatic respect from an INTJ. Respect has to be earned, and that’s achieved by someone demonstrating their competence in the job role. INTJs get pretty frustrated when someone isn’t up to the job, and since we’re more concerned about competence than politeness, we probably won’t mince our words when calling out substandard performance. That can earn us the reputation of being hard to manage.

4. Being too demanding of others

As managers, INTJs can be tough – very tough. On the positive side, we tend to be highly organized, always on top of things, consistent, impartial and skilled at developing strategies for others to follow. We have clear expectations of people and demand competence from the team. If people perform well, we will trust them to get on with things without the nonsense of micromanaging.  

On the negative side, INTJs will not tolerate lackluster or substandard performance, and we set a stupidly high bar. Turning in work that’s only ‘good enough’ – yeah, we don’t do it, and we don’t expect others to do it either. As leaders, we expect our team to meet the high expectations we set for them, even if it’s more than they are capable of. If that’s not working out, the temptation is strong to tell others to just shut up and do exactly what we tell them to do.  

5. Impostor syndrome is real

We don’t talk about INTJs and impostor syndrome as much as we should, because it’s assumed that INTJs don’t have it. Generally, these types know they are competent and trust their abilities. As long as we’re not being patronized, micromanaged, or under-challenged in the workplace, then usually we’re good to go.

Hiding beneath the aura of confidence, however, are creeping feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. A lot of that has to do with the structure of the workplace. In traditional work environments, staff are trained from the bottom up on a need-to-know basis, meaning they are taught the specifics of their job role and nothing more. INTJs learn the exact opposite way, using a top-down style where they start with the big picture before getting into the nitty-gritty of a work task. If we can’t see the bigger value of what we’re doing, then we’re going to feel under-accomplished and out of control.  

Combine that with the INTJ’s perfectionist tendencies and their insatiable need to learn, and you can see why so many of us feel more stupid and incompetent than we actually are.

6. Diplomacy is exhausting

Being diplomatic and polite is part and parcel of a professional career, and people are often expected to sugarcoat the truth so as not to hurt others’ feelings  These types of social skills don’t come naturally to INTJs. While we can and do learn them (obviously), it’s extremely draining for INTJs to be constantly operating in polite mode. We have very little time for coworkers who are more concerned with one-upmanship and playing politics than getting the work done.

Most times, we deal with office drama by redirecting attention back to accomplishing the task at hand and focusing on results. Sometimes, that earns us a great deal of respect. Other times, it alienates people and sets us apart as a loner. Sigh.

7. Wanting and hating recognition

Here’s another paradox: INTJs absolutely want to be recognized for their efforts. If someone else takes the credit for our work or worse – actively denies that we had any involvement in a successful project – that really yanks our chain. That person will lose our respect, and probably our compliance, for the rest of time.

At the same time, most INTJs cannot take a compliment to save their lives. If you give us any kind of attention or praise for something we did, we’ll probably be wishing you would just leave us alone.

8. INTJs don’t ‘decide’, they ‘know’

As Intuitives, INTJs typically have hunches about how a decision should be made. Sometimes, we can justify our decisions to managers; other times, we just know the answer and can’t explain it. Subconsciously, there will have been an awful lot of pattern-spotting, predicting, and scenario planning that led us to our decision, but none of those things have any clear thought process or paper trail. We may even frighten our colleagues because we make decisions really quickly with what they may perceive as a lack of evidence.

Other people’s inability to see what we see is really frustrating to us. And because we have the courage of our convictions, we rarely back down from a decision that we ‘know’ is correct. It can come across as pretty arrogant to someone who does not understand our way of thinking.

9. We get derailed when someone moves the goalposts

Planning is the INTJ’s thing – we have primary plans, backup plans, plans for backup plans, and plans for the plans of backup plans. The point is, we know exactly what goals we need to reach and figure out multiple routes for getting there. When someone moves the goalposts, it throws all our plans out of whack.

Sometimes, shifting priorities are no one’s fault and we’re going to calmly adapt and deal with that. It’s not your fault that a major supplier has gone bust, for example, and we quickly need to find an alternative. But if we’re in the type of workplace where goalposts are moved all the time just because someone has not sorted out their own priorities, then don’t expect us to hang around.

10. We won’t settle

In my experience, INTJs rarely operate within the guard rails of their job description. If their own work is dull or easy, they’ll look for more creative endeavors elsewhere. Honestly? If your work looks more interesting than mine, I’ll probably try to muscle in on it and find ways to do your project (or my new, improved version of it!) instead.

While I haven’t seen any research on this, I suspect there’s a tendency for INTJs to jump careers frequently, because they’re so easily bored. A job that isn’t offering a bunch of interesting new projects, learning opportunities and the chance to try lots of different things will be deeply unfulfilling to an INTJ, because who wants to do the same thing every day? Employers may want to hire ‘experts’ who are really good in their narrow field of expertise, but we always feel we could do more.

[ellacrossman96]

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[chemorygunko]

The Money Problem Part 1 - Your Money Mindset

When money worries and anxiety set in, it seems to take over your whole world.

It’s overwhelming and all-consuming and you just don’t know how to stop thinking about it.

Worse than that though, it almost feels as if you are being cheated and deprived when you start having to make longer term lifestyle and budgetary adjustments, and when you feel cheated and victimized, you start getting despondent in other areas - like at work.

I mean why are you working so hard if you can’t even afford a decent lifestyle?

Please scroll down for the video version.

All of this is happening in your mind - and there are so many other thoughts to go with all this.

If you don’t make an inroad into understanding these mindset issues - and mitigating them - then you will keep falling over when it comes to making the practical decisions you need to to adjust your budget.

If you understand these concepts, and how they impact you, and you can then put them to one side, you will discover that you can go through the process of changing your lifestyle without pain, without feeling cheated, and with happiness and relaxation and ease.

I know it seems impossible to think that you can face money troubles and not panic, but you really can.

I know for a fact it’s possible because I did it - and I’ve never been happier in my life. And I’ve helped others cross that same barrier.

Survival needs & mode

Lack mentality

Level of comfort, lifestyle and the basics

Having enough

Instant gratification

Entitlement

Competition & parallels

FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

What ifs…

Survival needs & mode

When money stress kicks in, you often drop into survival mode.

You know what I mean - your whole mind and being seems to become immediately focused on making money, making a plan, or finding a solution. To the exclusion of pretty much everything else really.

Often you don’t even notice it until you’ve found the solution and relief sets in - and you feel the contrast of the relief.

What you don’t realize though is that this non-stop anxiety and thinking is a constant low-grade stress on your body and system, and this has a physical effect of releasing stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol into your body on an ongoing basis.

This ongoing stress chemical build up keeps you at a constant grade of stress - and permanently keeps your body in the state of fight, flight or freeze.

These hormones make you breathe faster and through your mouth, activating your instinctive and terrestrial response, directing blood away from your forebrain. Your forebrain is what you use for thinking as you know it.

So the reason you’re foggy and you can’t think clearly and you’re forgetting even stupid little things? Stress hormones.

Also blood flow gets directed away from organs, like the bowel, and towards limbs - so you can flee. Your body doesn’t send blood to digest food when you need to flee - it’s using readily available energy to ensure you can run quickly.

So you start getting sick, commonly with some sort of gastric issue at first. How often have we heard that indigestion is linked to stress? And you gain weight around your belly.

The list of physical effects is staggering, but what matters is that you understand the link between the stress hormones and why you feel sick and constantly fatigued and run down.

The answer? Use the Go Ape process ( http://www.lifecoachestoolbox.com/index.php/go-ape ) to turn off the stress hormones in your system. You should feel immediate relief doing this just once, but it’s very effective to do daily for three weeks or so.

It will also help you shift the stubborn belly fat the stress hormones cause you to carry.

It’s the release equivalent of a good, hectic exercise session where you really pushed yourself. You may feel physically tired after the first time you do it in fact, as the relief washes over you.

Lack mentality

Lack mentality is going to double whammy you.

On the first level, lack mentality is about your baseline lifestyle that you are used to.

A wealth coach I followed for a while has this rule she teaches - establish a new level of broke, say USD 10,000.

When your account reaches that threshold, you can’t spend because you’re “broke”.

At face value, that does seem like good advice - until you understand that what you’re basically teaching yourself to do is look at 10,000 and say “I have nothing.”

So it teaches you to see what you have as being nothing.

The reason that concept seemed like a good idea to you when you first read it, is that most of us do this in our lives already - we consider what we have as being 'ours-already' - so basically nothing. Our zero point we are working FROM.

So we don’t consider what we’ve built up and accumulated. We’re so busy moving towards what we are going to get next that we forget about what we already have.

So, to use a very practical example, you don’t “see” yourself as having technology because you haven’t been able to REPLACE your devices for three years.

The second level that this attacks you on is that a reduction in income, or increase in expenses, means that you can no longer “do” and “get” everything that you are used to having as your baseline level of comfort.

This one nails you hard, because it’s small, repeated reminders: you have to bypass certain items in the store, so you get a bit depressed about that.

You repeatedly have to say no to social invitations because you can’t afford the expense, or can’t afford a gift if it’s a party.

So now, you’re not only reminded that your lifestyle is reduced, you’ve had to make excuses (and maybe lie), and you’re sitting alone at home on a Saturday, bored out of your mind, with nothing to do.

So you think about your loss that whole week - and the week after.

And you can’t even go shopping to alleviate your pain, because honestly, you either can’t afford an increase in monthly payments, or you’ve missed payments and you can’t use your cards.

Each little reminder adds to your accumulating stress levels, just a tiny bit more. And you edge ever closer and closer to a total meltdown.

You just don’t realize it until the moment you finally snap.

It’s that whole frog sitting in boiling water scenario - the stressors have been too small and low level for you to notice the devastating impact they have on you.

Level of comfort, lifestyle and the basics

Speaking of that baseline level of lifestyle - it’s too high when you’re thinking survival.

Here’s the thing: it’s great to have everything that opens and closes, and every new toy or gadget on the market, but when it comes to survival, you have to be practical.

You can’t think in terms of disposable income anymore - and you have to cut costs where and whenever you can.

The most practical place to cut costs? Unnecessary luxury items - and unnecessary monthly expenses.

There are so many of these, from insurances to beauty products, beauty treatments, shopping, gifts, dining out, gambling, entertainment, drugs, high vehicle costs, vacation homes and so much more.

And if you’re flinching right now at any of those, then you are exactly the person that this is aimed at.

Just because you are USED TO having something around, and it makes you comfortable, it doesn’t mean that you deserve it, or are entitled to it, or can’t live without it.

Comfort is a habit. A comfortable habit. And one that is very hard to unlearn.

Very little in life will make you feel as inadequate in our consumer-driven society, as the need to tighten your belt in a way that restricts your day-to-day life in a noticeable manner.

But if you don’t make these changes as quickly as possible yourself, you will face the pain - and potential public humiliation - of having those things taken from you.

Having Enough

Having enough is all about the standards of what you consider to be “enough.”

It’s about the minimum level of comfort you are willing to tolerate, and often that minimum level of comfort is that immediate lifestyle of what we are used to.

If you are truly honest about it, you need very little space and resources in order to survive - or even thrive.

But that’s not what we’re used to - and it’s certainly not what the consumer-driven society we live in tells us we need.

This concept was really driven home for me when watching an Alex Jones documentary the one day, where a group of Americans were walking past a Muslim Refugee Centre, looking at the well-kept and seemingly brand new building from the outside.

You can hear audio in the background of the two walkers talking, and the one says: “Oh shame, these poor refugees. They have to keep their windows open - they don’t even have air conditioning!”

Really? Air conditioning? When did we get to the point where air conditioning is a basic requirement for the functioning of life?

Our concepts of what WE NEED are very warped by media and marketing, and ideas like you need three healthy balanced meals a day.

We grade people in media and marketing by how much money and stuff they have, and how much they have available to spend.

You’re Living Standards Measurement or LSM 1 if you don’t really own anything electrical, or a house, aren’t educated and don’t have disposable income.

However you’re LSM 9 or 10 if you have multiple cars, multiple properties, multiple devices and electronic consumer goods - and lots of money to waste on stuff you don’t need.

Entitlement

So why would all this be a problem? It’s creating entitlement.

Concepts that have reached mainstream - like The Secret and manifestation - aren’t helping the situation either.

“God wants you to have everything you want.” “Your needs matter to God.” “Nothing’s too big or small for you to ask for.” “Work hard and you will achieve any dream.”

Oh and if it doesn’t work, then it’s your fault for not working hard enough. Or maybe it’s your fault for not being.

But that doesn’t mean the feeling of entitlement goes away… and unfulfilled expectation will always breed resentment eventually.

But the answer always remains that you aren’t doing something right - everyone is entitled to their version of success after all.

So you start this endless round of beating yourself up because you aren’t manifesting correctly - and then getting determined and going out again... and then failing again.

And each time you fail, you dip lower emotionally, and the psychic pain of failure grows.

Because you must be some special kind of failure if you can’t even get the basics that you are ENTITLED to.

Instant Gratification

Instant Gratification is such a killer, and it’s all about patience.

When you look at the cycle of entitlement mentioned above, one thing that’s not shown in the mix - but is crucially important to understanding why this all happens - is instant gratification.

Not only are people getting frustrated because they’re not getting what they’re entitled to, they’re upset because they’re not getting it immediately, and in the way that they want it to be delivered.

So the time from sending out the desire, and beginning to work towards it, until the time that people get depressed that they are not achieving it, is often too short for any real results to manifest or realize. And often, results do not arrive in the way that we expect them to arrive.

Nowadays you get instant everything - and people want that silver bullet of happiness.

Even seasoned seekers and journeyers are guilty of this: you will catch yourself waiting for that next healing or insight that will magically make everything fall into place.

This silver bullet, miracle syndrome, and wanting instant relief that fixes everything is a pipe dream. It doesn’t happen like that.

Results are often hard earned, and there are many years and years of feeling like you’re running on a treadmill and going nowhere fast.

Competition & Parallels

Even if the concept of Mirrors of Relationship still eludes you, it’s important to know that we see ourselves in relation to other people.

So when you walk in and look at someone and think they’re attractive, you subconsciously also compare them to yourself, deciding if they are more attractive or less attractive.

We see this commonly in society with concepts like “dating outside your league.”

Why it’s important to understand this is because it’s also one of those moment-to-moment things that we do every day, without realizing it.

As we go through the day, we compare what people have, and can do (by our perception), comparing it to the lack or loss we now face.

So you’re walking to the train and you pass your favorite coffee shop, and see someone walk out with your favorite drink - and you remember that you are now deprived of your favorite.

And then you wonder why that person is “better” than you because they can still afford the drink, and to be buying coffee.

The truth is that that person may never have bought from that store, or bought that drink before. They may NEVER spend money on drinks.

The mirror inside you however, is a mirror of treating yourself daily to that drink at that store.

So when you see someone else walking out with the drink, you transpose or project the relevant bits of your story onto their life, and the snapshot picture you are seeing.

Then, while you’re on the train, you watch the cars on the highway and wonder why you don’t have a car, or work closer to home.

And then your friend calls and says she’s just bought a new bag and is going out on a date with her gorgeous, wealthy boyfriend.

Again, it’s little low grade stressors, but constant. And you parallel yourself in each of those moments, because we project and apply bits of our story onto others - often the bits that make us look bad.

FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

When you are trying to cut costs and tighten your belt, you have to be aware of the trap of FOMO, or fear of missing out.

It’s easy to make a decision once at the beginning of the month to be careful and frugal…. but when your friend is excitedly calling and saying she can get (slightly) discounted tickets for your favorite band, it’s hard to resist the impulse buy.

After all, you’re already being careful this month, you’ll just tighten your belt a bit more.

And that’s all great and well until it’s ten days before payday, and you have no money left for food or transport.

If you think focusing on work and getting stuff done is hard when you’re worried about money, try doing it when you’re hungry and worried about money. And not sure how you’re going to make it home tonight - let alone back to work tomorrow.

Impulse buy moments like those catch us unawares and off guard - and some of them are worth taking. But most aren’t, and another opportunity will come around again.

What ifs…

What ifs will trip you up and keep delaying you if you let them.

What if I win the lottery? What if this person pays me back or I get a bonus?

What if I win at the casino tonight….?

If you let yourself get too caught up in what ifs, you may find that you start betting or banking on them and taking unnecessary risks.

There is very little as soul destroying as not being able to feed yourself or your family - or being homeless.

We will sometimes take a wild, uncalculated gamble when the odds are against us, but survival is never worth gambling with.

Sometimes in life you just have to tighten your belt

It doesn’t have to heartbreaking or soul destroying however, and can lead to enjoying renewed life like you’ve never actually experienced before.

There’s a reason the old cliche exists: I got poor and happy. There’s a reason so many people say it.

While money troubles are difficult to go through, they are not the end of everything.

And if you can keep your survival needs met, and make peace with meeting only those for a while, this will pass sooner than you realize.

[ink-blooded-witch]

On Anger, Jealousy, Envy, and everything in between.

So hormones, right? They’re not great. I have always been a crier. Probably why it was so easy to pass judgement on the bitchy ones. So instead of getting hateful and mean, I’d break down and sob. I wallowed in sadness for most of my teen years.

You know, and then shit happens. Lots of shit. Bad shit. The kind of shit that stinks and lingers and leaves a stain. And somewhere along the way I became numb and extremely apathetic. Nothing made me happy, nothing made me sad, nothing made me feel ANYTHING. And all of that slowly cooked into an anger broth.

So to recount: still no joy or happiness, eagerness or excitement, sadness or grieving. But a rage filled haze? Every day. All the time. Which is exhausting and unfulfilling.

I am aware that we “create our own happiness” and that “your attitude is a choice”. I agree with that. And yet I. Can’t. Stop. Being. Mad.

I’m mad that my sister is handicapped. I’m mad that I was stripped of a built in best friend because the medical community refused to believe that she was having seizures for 4 years. I’m mad that they put her on medicine that fried her brain further. I’m mad that everyone has a person except me. My mom used to be my person, and she still is somewhat. But we moved in next door to her sister, and her sister is her person. And I can’t compete with that. I tried to talk to someone about how sad that made me and how much it hurt that I wasn’t in their club, and he yelled at me and told me that my mom needs friends her age. Again, I get that. And I agree. But it still hurts. I’m mad that my aunt doesn’t even like me. She’s the only other dog person in the family, I looked up to her so much. I wanted to be her clone. I wanted us to bond over our love for dogs and have someone who understood. But I grew up and realized that she only tolerates my existence and has no interest in actually including me in her life. Ouch. I’m mad that my cousins are more beautiful than me and are instagram models and make hundreds of dollars for a bathing suit shot. And oh, they didn’t have to buy the expensive bathing suit either. They used to think I was cool. Until they hit high school, and then they got cooler than me and stopped being good girls essentially. They’ll never have to work a day in their lives, and they think I’m gross. I’m mad that my dad won’t give my mom any Christmas money. I’m mad that my brother won’t get a job. I’m mad that my other brother moved to Florida with my niece and she won’t know who I am. I’m mad that my grandparents think my moms a fuck up. I’m mad that they could never see how much she does. I’m mad that Amanda is making more than me as a bather. I’m mad that Arlene hires another groomer when there weren’t enough dogs to go around in the first place. Im mad that nothing makes me happy anymore. Not dogs, not grooming, not friends, not movies, not writing, not reading, not food, not chocolate, not anything. I’m mad that I’m mad. I’m mad that I can’t be grateful. I’m spiteful and jealous and envious. And a bitch, currently.

“I don’t want to be alive anymore” runs on a loop through my head so often that I’d probably be committed if anyone else could hear it.

[barbosaasouza]

HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset Review: Experiencing Some Turbulence

Gaming headphones and headsets are serious business, especially for players on the PC. While everyone used to sport cheap PC speakers next to their CRT monitors, the demands and expectations of PC gamers has lifted the hobby into new heights across all input and output devices. Everyone has incredibly nice HD monitors, lightning fast GPUs, and a collection of cutting edge games to go along with them. The technology behind PC sound reproduction has advanced as well. While some still use dedicated speakers, home theater setups, or studio monitors for their PC sound, most gamers have moved to using headphones or dedicated gaming headsets. Kingston’s HyperX brand has provided affordable performance to gamers for years, but are now set to unleash their first wireless gaming headset into the world, the HyperX Cloud Flight.

Digging Into the Box

The Cloud Flight headset is pretty much what you would expect as you begin to remove it from the packaging. It is all-black pair of headphones with red HyperX branding on each ear cup and red wires peaking out from the space between the cups and the headband. Included in the package is a 3.5mm boom mic, which attaches to the left cup. Also provided is a micro-USB charging cable and a male-to-male 3.5mm cable so that the headset can be used without the included USB bluetooth dongle or if you plan on pairing the Cloud Flight with the Xbox One controller 3.5mm jack.

As for build quality, the Cloud Flight is an all-plastic affair, which is in line with the price category it competes in. Both cups offer around 90 degrees of swivel in a clockwise direction. This allows you to lay the headset slightly flatter on a table or possibly hold them up for some DJ-style one ear monitoring. The red HyperX logos on each cup are backlit with LEDs that come to life each time the headset is powered on in wireless mode. The lights have a few different modes that are set by pressing the power button a few times. Disappointingly, whatever mode you prefer the LEDs to operate in is lost every time the headset powers off, so you must toggle the unit to your preferred mode every single time you use them (or even after they power themselves off after brief intervals of inactivity).

The Cloud Flight’s drivers are covered by a thin piece of foam and surrounded by pleather ear pads. The headset features a closed-back design. When this design is paired with the pleather pads, the clamping force on the headset works to provide some isolation for outside sounds. The effect is not as pronounced as you would find on dedicated noise-cancelling headphones, but the Cloud Flight is not meant for that task, so it’s no big deal. As I prefer open-backed headphones, it took me a long time to adjust to the quirks of a closed-back, sealed setup. I found it very hard to hear myself speaking on Teamspeak as the seal caused the higher frequencies of my voice to be attenuated and I felt like the lower frequencies were being amplified resonating inside my head. I was never sure how loud I was talking compared to normal. The mic works, but the volume is very low and my friends had issues hearing me the entire time I used it. The software driver offers no mic gain adjustment. I found the wireless range to be acceptable, but audio would drop out once I got more than ten to twelve feet away from the receiver. My dreams of sitting on the toilet and talking to my friends on Teamspeak still go unfulfilled.

Taking My Game Wireless

I gave the Cloud Flight headset a spin on the PS4 and PC. On both platforms, getting started was as simple as plugging in the included bluetooth USB dongle and performing a long press on the power button of the left cup. On the PC, Windows automatically installed and configured whatever drivers were needed to make the headset work in a snap. The headset appeared in my Sounds and Recording Devices tabs and were ready to use. There is no other software or controls for the unit outside of what you’ll encounter in the Windows sound settings window. When you use the volume control wheel on the right cup, a small black window will pop up on your monitor indicating the volume level. In some cases, the driver will recognize audio output from different applications and provide additional information or graphics. I’m not sure of what the full software compatibility list includes, but it worked automatically with the Spotify desktop client. This pop-up did not appear in fullscreen gaming, but I did have it appear and annoy me while playing some games in windowed fullscreen mode.

For the purposes of this review, I chose to compare the Cloud Flight headset to the headphones or headsets I currently own or have used extensively in the past. These units include:

Samson SR850 Stereo Headphones (~$30)

Audio Technica ATH-M50 Stereo Headphones (~$100) *Discontinued

Audio Technica ATH-AD700 (~$100) *Discontinued

Logitech G930 Wireless Headset (~$150) *Discontinued

HyperX Cloud II (~$90)

Sennheiser HD598 (~$140)

Strapping Myself In

An important part of enjoying a set of headphones or a headset is comfort. You may find yourself wearing these things for long gaming sessions, movies, or listening to music while browsing the web. As a disclaimer, I have a bad case of stupid head. It is big, like really big. I often find that many sets of headphones provide an uncomfortable amount of clamp that prevents me from using them for any extended period of time. I can safely say that the Cloud Flight headset was able to accomodate my gourd without causing stress right off the bat. Compared to the Logitech G35 and G930 headsets I previously owned, the Cloud Flight was a real improvement in the comfort department.

I am not a big fan of pleather ear pads, as they cause my ears to get too warm and even make my head sweat while gaming or listening. While I absolutely love the sound I get from the Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, their clamp and pleather ear pads means that I cannot wear them for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. Because the clamp was not bad on the Cloud Flight, I was able to wear them for around 90 minutes before the pleather pads had made my ears so hot I had to take a break. In comparison, the Samson SR850s and Sennheiser HD598s, with their open design and velour ear pads, made me forget I was wearing anything while playing. On the far end of the comfort spectrum in the Audio Technica ATH-AD series, which are so comfortable it feels like your headphones are giving you a backrub.

Sliding Off The Runway

In my opinion, the most important factor in deciding on which headphone to use is sound quality. Great sound quality will allow me to tolerate discomfort (at least in short doses, as proved by the previously mentioned ATH-M50s). Poor sound quality simply takes me out of the game, album, or movie I would normally be enjoying. For gaming alone, the Cloud Flight headset performs adequately. Positional audio works the way it should and I had no trouble using audio cues to find enemy players in PUBG. While I prefer the larger soundstage provided by open-backed headphones, at no time did I feel like the closed Cloud Flights were impairing my play. Most sound effects were spot on and the closed-backed design of the headset helped to emphasize the lower frequencies heard in explosions or from certain types of gunfire. To be honest, reproducing sound effects and typical game audio is not incredibly demanding on most headphones. For what the Cloud Flight headset costs, I found it disappointing that it does not offer a superior game experience when paired against a decent $30 set of headphones, though it was no worse than the Logitech G35/G930. I feel that the HyperX Cloud II headset offers a better level of quality when it comes to game audio.

For anyone who cares about music in the slightest, the Cloud Flight is a big let down. I auditioned the headset using a variety of albums using Spotify’s high quality streaming option and using some 24bit/96Khz recordings via foobar2000 (that had to be resampled anyway since the Cloud Flight dongle only supports up to 16bit/48KHz output). I listened to an array of offerings, mostly in the rock, metal, pop, and rap genres. I found recordings that were already full of distortion to be passable and the Cloud Flight did well enough to hide some faults on some songs that were poorly recorded to begin with. For any well-mastered recordings, the HyperX headset really struggled. I heard lots of sibilance in the upper registers of female and male vocals, as well as with any cymbals. Instrument separation was also poor, where the kick drum in a rock recording could cause the volume of other instruments to fade. Airy recordings with strings simply lacked the small details I expected to hear. I did find music performance from the Cloud Flight to be better than what you can get from the Logitech G35/G930 (which are abysmal), but even incredibly affordable headphones like the Samson SR850 simply do everything better when it comes to music reproduction. As with game audio, I found the HyperX Cloud II headset to be much better sounding than the Cloud Flight for music.

I was worried that the wireless bluetooth transmission of the audio could be the culprit for some of the lackluster music reproduction from the Cloud Flight, so I hooked the headset up via the included 3.5mm cable. My wired signal chain includes a Schiit Modi USB DAC and Schiit Magni 3 headphone amplifier. When used in a wired configuration, music reproduction is definitely improved. The biggest benefit I heard was to instrument separation. Every instrument was able to shine through on busy recordings and I was able to reach volume levels well above what I got in the wireless configuration. It did not fix the sibilance issues and whatever headphone drivers are contained within the Cloud Flight are still not able to provide all the background details, but it brings the headset much closer to the level of quality I hear in the HyperX Cloud II.

Closing Thoughts

Kingston built up the HyperX brand on the backs of high-value products for gamers that punched above their weight class. Their HyperX Cloud II headset stood alone for years as pretty much the only affordable “gaming” headset that could provide a really enjoyable music listening experience. It endeared them to audiophiles who wanted the convenience of a gaming headset without having to sacrifice the performance they were used to in their dedicated listening setups. The HyperX Cloud Flight headset is an attempt to bring that experience into the wireless realm and it succeeds in many of the things it set out to do. The headset is fairly comfortable, even to someone like me who shies away from closed-back, pleather pad configurations. The initial setup procedure could not be any easier. Battery life was excellent in my opinion. I let the unit fully charge before using it over a weekend of long gaming and music listening sessions and it never showed signs of running low on juice. With its micro-USB port, you can charge it up just about anywhere and get right into the game.

Obviously, moving from wired to wireless will bring some compromises to the end product. Some of my gripes with the sound quality of the Cloud Flight headset can be chalked up to quirks with bluetooth transmission or how much power is used to drive the headphones while worrying about battery life. For most of the entire time I used the Cloud Flight, I felt myself looking for more volume. It performed better when used in the wired configuration, but doing that kind of defeats the purpose. I understand that many users do not care about listening to music at all and those folks should put no weight into my thoughts on that. If you only care about the games and you find the headset comfortable, go for it. For the $160 price tag that the Cloud Flight currently carries, it finds itself in shark infested waters full of strong competition. It fails to offer the outstanding value of its legendary wired cousin, the HyperX Cloud II. I find it hard to recommend the Cloud Flight, even if the wireless function is most important to you. There are competitors that sell for almost $100 less that can give you a decent gaming experience in a wireless headset. Without the ability to offer strong music reproduction performance, the Cloud Flight only fits the bill if you love the look or the feel.

This review unit was provided by the manufacturer. The HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset works with PS4, PC, and Xbox One (with 3.5mm adapter). The headset currently retails for $159.99

HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset Review: Experiencing Some Turbulence published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

[barbosaasouza]

HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset Review: Experiencing Some Turbulence

Gaming headphones and headsets are serious business, especially for players on the PC. While everyone used to sport cheap PC speakers next to their CRT monitors, the demands and expectations of PC gamers has lifted the hobby into new heights across all input and output devices. Everyone has incredibly nice HD monitors, lightning fast GPUs, and a collection of cutting edge games to go along with them. The technology behind PC sound reproduction has advanced as well. While some still use dedicated speakers, home theater setups, or studio monitors for their PC sound, most gamers have moved to using headphones or dedicated gaming headsets. Kingston’s HyperX brand has provided affordable performance to gamers for years, but are now set to unleash their first wireless gaming headset into the world, the HyperX Cloud Flight.

Digging Into the Box

The Cloud Flight headset is pretty much what you would expect as you begin to remove it from the packaging. It is all-black pair of headphones with red HyperX branding on each ear cup and red wires peaking out from the space between the cups and the headband. Included in the package is a 3.5mm boom mic, which attaches to the left cup. Also provided is a micro-USB charging cable and a male-to-male 3.5mm cable so that the headset can be used without the included USB bluetooth dongle or if you plan on pairing the Cloud Flight with the Xbox One controller 3.5mm jack.

As for build quality, the Cloud Flight is an all-plastic affair, which is in line with the price category it competes in. Both cups offer around 90 degrees of swivel in a clockwise direction. This allows you to lay the headset slightly flatter on a table or possibly hold them up for some DJ-style one ear monitoring. The red HyperX logos on each cup are backlit with LEDs that come to life each time the headset is powered on in wireless mode. The lights have a few different modes that are set by pressing the power button a few times. Disappointingly, whatever mode you prefer the LEDs to operate in is lost every time the headset powers off, so you must toggle the unit to your preferred mode every single time you use them (or even after they power themselves off after brief intervals of inactivity).

The Cloud Flight’s drivers are covered by a thin piece of foam and surrounded by pleather ear pads. The headset features a closed-back design. When this design is paired with the pleather pads, the clamping force on the headset works to provide some isolation for outside sounds. The effect is not as pronounced as you would find on dedicated noise-cancelling headphones, but the Cloud Flight is not meant for that task, so it’s no big deal. As I prefer open-backed headphones, it took me a long time to adjust to the quirks of a closed-back, sealed setup. I found it very hard to hear myself speaking on Teamspeak as the seal caused the higher frequencies of my voice to be attenuated and I felt like the lower frequencies were being amplified resonating inside my head. I was never sure how loud I was talking compared to normal. The mic works, but the volume is very low and my friends had issues hearing me the entire time I used it. The software driver offers no mic gain adjustment. I found the wireless range to be acceptable, but audio would drop out once I got more than ten to twelve feet away from the receiver. My dreams of sitting on the toilet and talking to my friends on Teamspeak still go unfulfilled.

Taking My Game Wireless

I gave the Cloud Flight headset a spin on the PS4 and PC. On both platforms, getting started was as simple as plugging in the included bluetooth USB dongle and performing a long press on the power button of the left cup. On the PC, Windows automatically installed and configured whatever drivers were needed to make the headset work in a snap. The headset appeared in my Sounds and Recording Devices tabs and were ready to use. There is no other software or controls for the unit outside of what you’ll encounter in the Windows sound settings window. When you use the volume control wheel on the right cup, a small black window will pop up on your monitor indicating the volume level. In some cases, the driver will recognize audio output from different applications and provide additional information or graphics. I’m not sure of what the full software compatibility list includes, but it worked automatically with the Spotify desktop client. This pop-up did not appear in fullscreen gaming, but I did have it appear and annoy me while playing some games in windowed fullscreen mode.

For the purposes of this review, I chose to compare the Cloud Flight headset to the headphones or headsets I currently own or have used extensively in the past. These units include:

Samson SR850 Stereo Headphones (~$30)

Audio Technica ATH-M50 Stereo Headphones (~$100) *Discontinued

Audio Technica ATH-AD700 (~$100) *Discontinued

Logitech G930 Wireless Headset (~$150) *Discontinued

HyperX Cloud II (~$90)

Sennheiser HD598 (~$140)

Strapping Myself In

An important part of enjoying a set of headphones or a headset is comfort. You may find yourself wearing these things for long gaming sessions, movies, or listening to music while browsing the web. As a disclaimer, I have a bad case of stupid head. It is big, like really big. I often find that many sets of headphones provide an uncomfortable amount of clamp that prevents me from using them for any extended period of time. I can safely say that the Cloud Flight headset was able to accomodate my gourd without causing stress right off the bat. Compared to the Logitech G35 and G930 headsets I previously owned, the Cloud Flight was a real improvement in the comfort department.

I am not a big fan of pleather ear pads, as they cause my ears to get too warm and even make my head sweat while gaming or listening. While I absolutely love the sound I get from the Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, their clamp and pleather ear pads means that I cannot wear them for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. Because the clamp was not bad on the Cloud Flight, I was able to wear them for around 90 minutes before the pleather pads had made my ears so hot I had to take a break. In comparison, the Samson SR850s and Sennheiser HD598s, with their open design and velour ear pads, made me forget I was wearing anything while playing. On the far end of the comfort spectrum in the Audio Technica ATH-AD series, which are so comfortable it feels like your headphones are giving you a backrub.

Sliding Off The Runway

In my opinion, the most important factor in deciding on which headphone to use is sound quality. Great sound quality will allow me to tolerate discomfort (at least in short doses, as proved by the previously mentioned ATH-M50s). Poor sound quality simply takes me out of the game, album, or movie I would normally be enjoying. For gaming alone, the Cloud Flight headset performs adequately. Positional audio works the way it should and I had no trouble using audio cues to find enemy players in PUBG. While I prefer the larger soundstage provided by open-backed headphones, at no time did I feel like the closed Cloud Flights were impairing my play. Most sound effects were spot on and the closed-backed design of the headset helped to emphasize the lower frequencies heard in explosions or from certain types of gunfire. To be honest, reproducing sound effects and typical game audio is not incredibly demanding on most headphones. For what the Cloud Flight headset costs, I found it disappointing that it does not offer a superior game experience when paired against a decent $30 set of headphones, though it was no worse than the Logitech G35/G930. I feel that the HyperX Cloud II headset offers a better level of quality when it comes to game audio.

For anyone who cares about music in the slightest, the Cloud Flight is a big let down. I auditioned the headset using a variety of albums using Spotify’s high quality streaming option and using some 24bit/96Khz recordings via foobar2000 (that had to be resampled anyway since the Cloud Flight dongle only supports up to 16bit/48KHz output). I listened to an array of offerings, mostly in the rock, metal, pop, and rap genres. I found recordings that were already full of distortion to be passable and the Cloud Flight did well enough to hide some faults on some songs that were poorly recorded to begin with. For any well-mastered recordings, the HyperX headset really struggled. I heard lots of sibilance in the upper registers of female and male vocals, as well as with any cymbals. Instrument separation was also poor, where the kick drum in a rock recording could cause the volume of other instruments to fade. Airy recordings with strings simply lacked the small details I expected to hear. I did find music performance from the Cloud Flight to be better than what you can get from the Logitech G35/G930 (which are abysmal), but even incredibly affordable headphones like the Samson SR850 simply do everything better when it comes to music reproduction. As with game audio, I found the HyperX Cloud II headset to be much better sounding than the Cloud Flight for music.

I was worried that the wireless bluetooth transmission of the audio could be the culprit for some of the lackluster music reproduction from the Cloud Flight, so I hooked the headset up via the included 3.5mm cable. My wired signal chain includes a Schiit Modi USB DAC and Schiit Magni 3 headphone amplifier. When used in a wired configuration, music reproduction is definitely improved. The biggest benefit I heard was to instrument separation. Every instrument was able to shine through on busy recordings and I was able to reach volume levels well above what I got in the wireless configuration. It did not fix the sibilance issues and whatever headphone drivers are contained within the Cloud Flight are still not able to provide all the background details, but it brings the headset much closer to the level of quality I hear in the HyperX Cloud II.

Closing Thoughts

Kingston built up the HyperX brand on the backs of high-value products for gamers that punched above their weight class. Their HyperX Cloud II headset stood alone for years as pretty much the only affordable “gaming” headset that could provide a really enjoyable music listening experience. It endeared them to audiophiles who wanted the convenience of a gaming headset without having to sacrifice the performance they were used to in their dedicated listening setups. The HyperX Cloud Flight headset is an attempt to bring that experience into the wireless realm and it succeeds in many of the things it set out to do. The headset is fairly comfortable, even to someone like me who shies away from closed-back, pleather pad configurations. The initial setup procedure could not be any easier. Battery life was excellent in my opinion. I let the unit fully charge before using it over a weekend of long gaming and music listening sessions and it never showed signs of running low on juice. With its micro-USB port, you can charge it up just about anywhere and get right into the game.

Obviously, moving from wired to wireless will bring some compromises to the end product. Some of my gripes with the sound quality of the Cloud Flight headset can be chalked up to quirks with bluetooth transmission or how much power is used to drive the headphones while worrying about battery life. For most of the entire time I used the Cloud Flight, I felt myself looking for more volume. It performed better when used in the wired configuration, but doing that kind of defeats the purpose. I understand that many users do not care about listening to music at all and those folks should put no weight into my thoughts on that. If you only care about the games and you find the headset comfortable, go for it. For the $160 price tag that the Cloud Flight currently carries, it finds itself in shark infested waters full of strong competition. It fails to offer the outstanding value of its legendary wired cousin, the HyperX Cloud II. I find it hard to recommend the Cloud Flight, even if the wireless function is most important to you. There are competitors that sell for almost $100 less that can give you a decent gaming experience in a wireless headset. Without the ability to offer strong music reproduction performance, the Cloud Flight only fits the bill if you love the look or the feel.

This review unit was provided by the manufacturer. The HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset works with PS4, PC, and Xbox One (with 3.5mm adapter). The headset currently retails for $159.99

HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Headset Review: Experiencing Some Turbulence published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/