Wait, That Was Optional?!

what's something you didn't realize was optional answering questions my parents demanded answers to any question they asked didn't learn until my 30s watching my husband evade his parents intrusive questions that i really did not have to answer but no one could move my mouth and make sounds come out except for me i could nod and walk away i could stay silent i could outright ignore i did not have to lie or mislead either i could just not answer you're allowed to tell them to stop asking too the best thing i ever did was tell my dad to stop asking me intrusive questions we fought about it but he doesn't do it anymore spending a lot of time effort and money buying gifts for family who are don't appreciate them b re-gift return or exchange them c have no use for them d never thank you for them i quit exchanging gifts for family about 15 years ago and my holidays have been stress free ever since i did this years ago because i simply didn't have the money and then just continued it because nobody seemed to notice lol this is stupid but recording odometer readings and how much gas you buy growing up every time we filled up the car my dad an extremely meticulous engineer would write down the odometer reading how much gas he bought and how much he paid for it on the receipt he had my mom do the same thing when she filled up the car i assumed this was something required of adults like doing taxes once i had my own car i did the same thing for a long time until i realized that not only was this data not required by the government but literally nobody except my dad cared it felt surprisingly liberating to just throw the receipt in the trash or the glove box and forget about it my phil did this i found out that at one point he had a car that had a broken fuel gauge he didn't know it was broken and ended up stranded on the side of the road for two days or something from that day forward he always meticulously tracked the mileage when filling up having an opinion about something sometimes you just don't know does god exist idk are humans destined to fail at governing one another idk is cereal soup idk and when asked about something don't bs an answer i don't know is a perfectly valid response or there is an answer i just don't know it off the top of my head is also fine pregnancy and having kids yes i'm serious until i was taught better by my therapist of all people at age 16 i really did not know pregnancy isn't something that just happens all i got from my family was the stay away from boys speech i wasn't taught how it happens so i lived in fear i'd wake up pregnant one day and could do nothing about it it was a huge relief when my therapist explained otherwise yeah sex ed didn't exist in the schools i attended and i went to four school districts nj 1999-2013 though my family still treats it as something inevitable which i feel explains a lot about my family circumstances now you have an excuse for when they ask why don't you have kids i'm 36 years old last week i went out for work drinks and discovered you could have margaritas with sugar around the rim i thought salt was the only option incredible game-changing revolution the sugar was delicious btw adding increasing responsibilities to life as i get older and doing the grown-up things that everyone else starts doing as they mature at 27 i was happy with my solo no debt life in my paid for house with my low responsibility job doing the frugal things that gave me joy by 33 i was on the road to 17 years of a marriage to a spender increasingly large houses mortgages expensive vacations ridiculous amounts of spending on dining drinks out several nights per week miserably climbing my way up the white collar ladder going to dinner parties blah blah blah blew the whole thing up three years ago now live the same life as i did at 27 in the same old condo nonetheless happier than a pig and crap couldn't give two shoots if everyone thinks i'm a man child celebrating holidays not having to worry about decorating or giving gifts for christmas and the like is so therapeutic you don't have to celebrate they're all fake anyway i kinda stopped doing this when i got my own place bought a fake tree but only decorated it once got rid of it after a few years it was only taking up storage space i still eat the food because i like the food and it's only available during the season that makes it special enough for me other than that i enjoy the time off in my own way having the same opinion as your parents i get parents teaching kids good values but what if these values are not good your name you can always change it even if you don't do it legally you can just walk into a new job or school or whatever and say everyone calls me x and people will just do that i've considered doing this i hate the common nickname for my first name i am fine with and even like all of the nicknames for my middle name i just am unsure about the idea of asking my mom i'm going to do it i'm going to text her right now and ask what she thinks shampooing daily turns out that excessive washing actually contributes to the problems like frozen breakage which shampoos claim you should use them to fix glad to know you worked it out people look at me like i'm nuts when i tell them i only use shampoo about once a month the rest of time i wash with just conditioner staying in the same country you were born i was raised in london and for some reason you kind of get sucked into these big cities i recently moved to scandinavia but my friends from back home don't understand how i could just start again elsewhere everything literally everything is optional everything has two options remember that when someone drops an ultimatum on you everything has at least two options often more that polish they use at the dentist i hated going to the dentist solely because of that disgusting stuff they put on your teeth when cleaning them found out it's just polish they use at the end and you can just ask them to not do that keeping up with popular culture to this day i don't know what any of the kardashians look like or what they do all i know is the name well there's garrick gul dukett and oh apparently pants during virtual meetings like none at all do people just not wear pants at home when not in a virtual meeting as an adult the amount of times i am awake circa midnight and think to myself hey i really want this or that snack and knowing that there is a convenience store that is open around me that is 24 hours and still i think no it's the middle of the night and i have work tomorrow so i can't go out and do this and then realize that in fact i can do whatever i want to do is an inordinate number i work a place where i switch shifts every four weeks third then second then first shift it wasn't until i started working there that i realized time means absolutely nothing and i can buy beer at seven in the morning if i want to have a few after working an eight-hour shift putting up with toxic people and living in a toxic environment if you dislike your friends you can either be to yourself or find new friends if you hate living with your parents or significant other if you have enough money and a place to stay you can't move out away from them if you hate your job and if you want to quit it you can took me a while to realize that giving a chance to the weird unattractive boys is optional and not actually something that should be seen as inherently morally good to do yes especially creepy ones don't pity date anyone i learned my lesson in high school almost got assorted if my brother didn't barge into the living room [Music] grew up thinking adults were always right now i try to explain to my kids that we are learning too and that most adults aren't the smartest kuwan and supporters helped push that theory pretty sure my toddler thinks i'm never right i guess he won't have that problem ha not answering questions as a society we're so hardwired to be accommodating it's extremely uncomfortable to keep information secret when asked directly it's not subterfuge to just not want to provide info you have just because someone asked sales people cops job recruiters co-workers like management and hr all these people have reasons to extract information from you that would be for their benefit into your detriment it's a good habit to practice politely refusing to provide information personal privileged or otherwise if you're worried that laying all your cards on the table might leave you at a disadvantage when i was younger i thought girls had to have girly jobs i didn't realize that i could have dangerous jobs like police officer or notary if i wanted to being able to say no even if it hurts other people's feelings i always thought i knew this and had good boundaries until about a year ago when someone pointed out to me that even though i intellectually know this that i often do things i don't want to do especially in close relationships and that emotionally the idea of hurting other people's feelings has felt a bit intolerable to me i've been practicing saying no and being more of myself since the advice that changed this for me was people will have their feelings and you will have your feelings and they don't need to be the same before i say no i often repeat this to myself it's like the mental mantra equivalent of the superhero stance for me i was playing a first-person shooter where for some reason it was set to have no reticle i got halfway through the game before i realized i could turn it on polygraph tests although it might make you look bad it is better if you don't agree to take polygraph exams they are very likely to be inaccurate and you might end up finding yourself involved in a crime you didn't commit if you are asked to take a polygraph politely decline and then ask for a lawyer i think a study reaverell that the polygraph was barely more accurate than guessing so it's basically garbage something i read a long time ago a person had always thought he had to stand in the shower when turning it on and suffer until the water warmed up didn't realize until he noticed a friend do it that you could wait outside first when i was in two grade i was doing homework and there was this one question i can't remember what it was about division i cried for hours because i didn't understand it turns out that all you had to do was estimate while my dumb butt was trying to solve a whole dang problem the worst thing is when you are doing those big equations which almost always end up with a single digit result and you make a small mistake like put a minus instead of plus when rewriting the equation and now entire hour of wasted time until you realize that these numbers are suspiciously too hard liking boys i grew up in the mormon church but i've always known i was at least bisexual if not completely lesbian my parents have always been supportive of me but have always been very conscious about what everyone else in our church thought they also knew ever since i was little but told me that i should hide it out of fear that i wouldn't fit in we left the church just last year and i've never felt freer working your life away so many people i know in white collar jobs work warrant more than 40 hours a week it is incredibly difficult to fire and replace someone so most of these people would be just fine if they simply left work at five it's amazing how the world keeps spinning when the reports your boss needs get turned in on wednesday morning instead of tuesday night makeup i used to spend an obscene amount of money on makeup and skin care products i became disabled and couldn't afford it anymore and realized i have great skin the amount of stuff i don't have to buy now is baffling i don't have to spend hours painting on layers of makeup or dedicate time and money to get my nails and brows done or feel like control when i don't want to dress up to go to the grocery store some people might call this letting yourself go but i disagree i learned i don't need people to tell me i'm beautiful to be beautiful i always get told how beautiful my skin is my hair is naturally growing and i have decided to just go with it people ask me who does my hair you don't have to buy beauty yes it's fun and i am not saying it's bad if someone loves wearing makeup i'm just saying for me i was raised to believe that makeup here clothes were beauty you bought beauty it's absolutely optional and you yes you reading this right now you are freaking beautiful stop letting other people dictate what you see in the mirror religion i grew up going to catholic school so i really had no idea where anything else existed and it wasn't as taught fact having a relationship with your family realizing i didn't have to have these awful people in my life was truly life-changing answering the door when you are not expecting anyone it was in my 30s before i realized just because someone knocks or rings the bell it doesn't mean i have to open the door two weeks notice when leaving a workplace unless you need to keep on good terms with them but don't let them treat you like crap i was working for a large office building's cafeteria and catering services for four years and after dealing with poor management for so long and rumors it was going to be shut down anyways by decision of the building i plan to jump ship i gave my notice and was commuting further because also in middle of a move so they made the final first week and half heck the building was mainly her large newspaper offices other large companies and some smaller ones in this building and over the years i built good relationships with my customers so it was a surprise but understanding to why i was leaving i was going to give the full two weeks but the friday before the last three days we were closed weekends one of my lawyer office customers informed me how it isn't a mandatory thing to do it is more a polite thing of not wanting to burn bridges that i didn't need to deal with the place anymore at this point i was so done with it all i thank them for the information and at the end of my shift said my goodbyes to who i could and left well when i was a kid junior college i thought it was just the step between high school and college like how junior high comes before high school having lofty goals growing up i always felt pressure to keep up with the expectations of my peers to be doctors lawyers wealthy etc it only dawned on me after i graduated university that i could in fact be perfectly content with mediocrity i've realized that anything i do say or choose is optional nobody's controlling your mind your options may not be good but there are always other options do whatever you want for the most part as long as you're fine with what results from it keeping family members in your life i have some pretty freaking batshit crazy family grandma and great grandma were tough scary crazy my aunt is nuts like slapped me so hard when i was eight i couldn't walk for a few days nuts like come to our house and fist fight my mom nuts i ended up working for my aunt and uncle i thought all jobs just treated people like crap but my wife helped me realize the truth my crazy confrontational controlling family members knew i didn't think there was anything else and as long as they kept me in that mindset i'd never leave or fight back i tried to end things peacefully when i got another job they prevented that from happening so i don't have any contact with them anymore it's kind of cool that you can just be like you're a terrible person and i don't want you around my wife or daughter so don't let the door hit you on the way out because i don't want crazy prince on my door throughout my late teen and my 20s i didn't know i had the option to say no to anyone for anything including sex i was severally beaten when i was young for saying no to my mother that led me to not being able to say no to anyone when i got in my 30s i was working with my young son on the it's okay to say no program i learned a lot as well i started slowly exercising my option to say no now it will forever be on my lips whenever i don't really want to do something engaging someone who is making an ignorant or bad faith argument turns out you can just say oh okay or that's interesting and go on with your day having retained your sanity and peace of mind forgiving people when they ask for forgiveness a sincere apology is great but allowing the relationship to return to business as usual is not obligatory took me a long time to realize you can also even forgive someone but not resume trusting them or respecting them like you used to before you don't have to agree to do a favor with someone just because they're your relative especially if they have a bad habit of screwing others over if they have a bad habit of screwing others over odds are good that they will screw you over as well if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video bye for now

Channel: OnTap Studios

Views: 178,443

Rating: 4.9475045 out of 5

Keywords: optional subjects for upsc, optional, options, optional objective, it was optional, up to you, decision, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, sub, reddit cringe, memes, comment awards, dankify, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, chill, story, stories, reddit on tap, reddit stories 2021

Id: bw9OnmTzBiY

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021