#1
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#3
I have two full suits, a dark grey 3 piece and a lighter grey 2 piece, 1 pair of khaki dress pants, and two dress shirts pressed and starched by our local cleaners hanging up in my closet along with a couple of ties and all the needed rigamrole.
Everything else... it maxes out at "Business or Dress Casual" and if it doesn't come out of the dryer and you can hang it up wrinkle free, it doesn't go into my normal rotation. I don't even own an iron or fabric steamer.
And I don't want to hear one word about being lazy. I was in Uncle Sam's Floating House of Shooty Ships for 20 years. I pressed and creased and ironed and spit shined and shaped hats and bloused boots and all that jazz for two f*****g decades, I paid whatever "Prove you are capable of maintaining complicated clothing" dues you could even dream of. I'm done.
One of the biggest questions in philosophy is whether we have free will or not. Basically, what this thought experiment is asking is whether all of our actions are predetermined (or in other words, not free) or whether we are free agents in charge of our decisions.
Since the current (who knows what the future holds) scientific method does not have the means to prove or disprove it, we have to rely on the ponderings of philosophers.
#4
Watching someone say “I don’t know enough about that to comment” made me realize silence is an option too.
#5
Then I saw a senior guy on my team—super respected, brilliant at his job—log off at 4:59 PM. Every. Single. Day.
I once saw a manager try to give him weekend work, and he just... looked at him blankly and said, 'No. I won't be doing that. See you Monday.
My jaw hit the floor. The world didn't end. He wasn't fired. He just... had boundaries. It changed my life.
#6
Some modern thinkers like Sam Harris argue that free will is a lie we tell ourselves; it's something we use to place blame on individuals for actions that can ultimately be explained by environmental pressures. Even Albert Einstein firmly believed that we don’t have free will and that it’s only an illusion. In his view, the universe was ruled by the laws of cause and effect, meaning that every event had prior causes.
At the same time, other philosophers suggest that free will can still exist even within the deterministic reality described above, though to varying degrees depending on the situation. Since there is no firm answer, it’s up to you to decide which of these ideas fits your worldview best.
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#8
I dont mean in an apathetic way, but growing up my parents paniced about every little thing. Going to the store, a dr's appointment, a missed piece of mail, dropping a fork, spilling milk on the table. Everything turned into a "BIG DEAL".
But I spent time with other people as a teen/adult, and realized that wasn't normal. The world doesn't end if you burn a pizza, or if the water spills over when boiling pasta. That guy who cut you off isn't the worst part of your day, the staff member at the store checking your ID isn't a bad person.
You can just "not" react to those things, and life gets a whole lot easier.
#9
It’s not the easiest decision out there, is it? Well, just think about yourself and your day-to-day actions. For instance, have you ever caught yourself glued to your phone screen, knowing you should put it down and do something else, but just not finding the inner strength to do it?
Some might argue that it's proof that we don’t have free will—a force pulling you to keep the phone in your hand. On the other hand, it might just be your mind working against you, pushing you into a pattern of bad habits.
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After all, certain habits are wired into our brains, both the bad and the good ones. In fact, most of the tasks a person does throughout their day are on autopilot, carried out through those habits. Again, you could see this as proof that we don’t have free will.
Yet we do have a choice to break those habits, don’t we? Just take a look at today’s list – it’s full of stories about people doing exactly that. Granted, not all are about basic habits; a majority of them are about people who, for the longest time, didn’t realize they had the choice to stop doing something.
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Things like that usually come from childhood or from the environment, painting things--whether consciously or subconsciously--as mandatory. And sometimes all it takes is witnessing someone choose to shake off this “mandatory” action for us to realize it was only optional all along. Whether these examples prove or disprove the free will argument is up to you. Make sure to let us know in the comments which party you are leaning towards!
#16
#17
In the car, having my heating on with the window open without worrying about ‘wasting the heat’ because I like the mix of the warmth with the fresh air
Not worrying about wasting food if I’m not hungry and can’t save it for later (or end up not wanting it later) because my body isn’t a waste bin
Not saving any of my clothes for best, because why should my nicest clothes be worn the least.
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#19
Like, I am, of course, responsible to behave like a decent human being and treat everyone lovingly and with integrity, but... it's up to them how they FEEL about my actions, and it's their job to manage those emotions, not mine.
The flip side, though, was also realizing I am responsible for my own emotions, and that I can't put those on anyone else.
