Three Things That Just Aren't Worth It
It's an opportunity cost. By inverse, skipping wasteful things spares you from those stupid headaches. You invite more happiness and efficiency into your life.
In 2024, a friend announced on her Facebook feed, 'If you plan on voting for Biden, just unfriend me now!'
Shortly thereafter, she appeared in a comment section, all-caps replying to people over election issues. Each comment got more corrosive and insulting. People were name-calling and going deep into bitter 37 reply threads.
A week later, she made another post ranting, 'Facebook is so toxic. I have found out who my real friends are. Time to take a break from this place.'
Yet she was the one who invited this toxicity into her feed. To be fair, we live in an important swing state (Florida). Tensions run extremely high during elections. I've seen friendships dissolve over elections that went well beyond clicking 'unfriend'.
John Stuart Mill, the father of modern utilitarianism, once wrote, 'So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.'
More plainly, Mill saw that emotion entrenched people's beliefs. He inferred, 100 years early, that internet arguments are futile. Without underlying respect, two people can never hope to convince each other of anything. And in the veil of internet anonymity, respect is fleeting.
Let's face it: Most internet users are only interested in being right.
So don't bother reasoning with them. It's like arguing with a drunk person.
The funny thing? When I've gone to writer meetups, the nastiest, most aggressive online writers who argue 24–7 with readers, are often the shyest in real life. They are meek. They stand in the corner during cocktail hour, smiling and not saying anything.
And so I say to you — is it really worth going through your day, angry about what a stranger said to you online?
Just as so many people are banefully toxic, many of you keep these exact people in your everyday life.
You reason with them. You give them second chances.
They cheat on you once again. They flake on dinner plans. You get begged into trusting them and being their friend/partner again. Only to get burned, over, and over, and over again.
I never thought I'd be one of those people who got burned and then was talked back into being friends with that person again.
I was just reading about a woman and her abusive partner. She described going back to him repeatedly after he apologized. I sat reading the story pleading to myself for her to stop doing it, even though this story took place in the past and that she was now free.
On paper, these decisions are always so easy, especially from the outside. There's no emotion or shared history to cloud your judgement.
The healthiest thing I ever did was face this hard reality: just because I love and care about a person, doesn't mean they should be in my life. My open-door policy and being too forgiving were ruining me.
I was losing my spine. I was becoming a person I hated, letting other people completely walk all over me. Walking away is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It hurts and feels like having a death in the family.
But if you don't cut toxic out, they'll just bring more havoc to your life. You'll be looking back 10 years from now wondering why it took you so long to figure things out.
This chapter should have been closed in middle school. The number of unintended pregnancies continues to hover around 50% in the United States. Granted there are very real needs around education and access to contraception—there's also quite a bit of willful ignorance at work, as I've seen firsthand.
People continue to wing it on birth control, or opt out entirely, using highly unreliable methods that just create an enormous problem they have to contend with (women especially).
My friend told me a interesting story. He was 18, and still in high school. He was parked in front of a pharmacy during a storm. He needed to buy condoms but was so embarrassed and scared to do it, worrying about being judged. He kept sitting there, delaying and delaying, watching the rain hitting his windshield. He tried to pretend the rain was the reason he couldn't go into the store. Then, he had an epiphany, and realized, 'If I am not mature enough to buy condoms, I should not be having sex.' I thought it was a rare and candid moment that you rarely hear from a person.
It's never my goal to call an unintended child a 'problem'. However, these surprise babies create a world of other problems for people who aren't ready to be a parent. They end up co-parenting with someone they can't stand — or hardly knew. They end up in a legal battle over visitation. I see friends, still dealing with drama co-parenting a kid they had more than 10 years ago.
And then there's the cost of daycare, food, and the infinite list of unexpected problems you have to squash each day.
Every tiny aspect of your life is forever changed because you didn't spend a few extra bucks on protection.
After my divorce, I was absolutely stunned by the number of single parents I saw on dating apps. It felt like 1 in 3. Every other profile was a car selfie with a kid in the backseat.
Sure, it might feel good to break rules and be naughty. Just mark my words — there's a haunting feeling that sinks in later.
The affirming question I try to repeat to myself with risky decisions is, 'Will I be glad I made this decision, hours, days, or months from this moment?'
I don't always get it right. But it was that exact question that helped me quit smoking.
I knew I'd never look back and think, 'I wish I'd just smoked for a few more years.'
Life is full of wasteful activities. Avoid them and you'll be ahead of the pack.
Getting tied up in internet debates. Just move on.
Trying to save dying friendships and relationships. Cut out toxic people.
Treating birth control like a game you can wing it with.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Curses as White House Faith Office Lunch Takes Bizarre Turn
Things got a bit awkward during the White House Faith Office luncheon on Monday. Not only did President Donald Trump curse in front of faith leaders—calling Biden-era indictments against him 'bulls--t'—he raged that he he had been investigated more than the gangster Al Capone, bragged he has 'always made money,' and incorrectly claimed gas prices are the lowest they have been in 50 years. Those topics did not appear to be part of Trump's prepared remarks. As he addressed assembled religious business leaders from the podium, he looked down occasionally at his speech but went off on tangents as he worked his way through the text. 'I've ended the radical left war on faith, and we're once again protecting religious freedom instead of destroying it, and God is once again welcomed back into our public square,' Trump said, clearly part of his prepared remarks. Trump, 79, compared himself to Capone moments later. He characterized the notorious gangster, believed to have murdered over 200 people, as 'great.' 'I was under investigation more than the late, great, Alphonse Capone,' Trump said. 'Think of it. Al Capone would kill people for dinner. If he left the room and he didn't like him, he'd have him shot, killed, buried under a building someplace, as part of the foundation of a building. They're all over the place, and I said I had more time under investigation than the legendary Alphonse Capone, or probably anybody else.' Trump then misremembered that he had been indicted four times in 2023, not five. 'The one thing I did that was very helpful, I was indicted five times. Indicted, that wasn't a word that was in—my father's looking down, my mother's looking down, that my son's not supposed to be indicted,' he said. 'I think I got indicted five times, impeached two times. All bulls--t, right? Terrible stuff.' The luncheon crowd, comprising 60 CEOs and business leaders who donate to faith-aligned charities, did not appear to mind the president's meandering, as they clapped and cheered throughout his speech as he rambled. 'Gas prices have reached the lowest level in five decades,' Trump remarked at one point. 'Actually, it's going to be, we're going to see some really good numbers where, you know, drill, baby drill, drill, baby drill. I've got to make sure that people can afford to produce the gas. ... 'But the gas has gotten to the lowest level in decades, and you're seeing $1.99 $1.98. I saw $1.95 at certain states, not California, because every time it goes down, they add taxes onto it,' Trump rambled. 'All they do is they keep adding taxes. Terrible governor, doesn't know what he's doing. He may be, he may be a candidate, but if you, if you go by success, you can't have him be a candidate.' Fox News reported that the White House luncheon is the 'first event of its kind.' The White House Faith Office was created by executive order in February. Trump grew up in a Reformed Church but rarely attends services as an adult. He has made a habit of name-dropping God since entering politics a decade ago, and he won the presidency in 2016 off the backs of Evangelical voters who later became his MAGA base.
Forbes
22 minutes ago
- Forbes
Is Patriarchy Corporate America's Costliest Blind Spot? This Expert Weighs In
Close-up photo of Dr. Tubbs holding book 'Erased.' Research suggests that companies with diverse leadership teams produce over 19% higher innovation revenue compared to non-diverse teams, yet global and U.S. averages for women in senior leadership roles float between 28% and 34% in recent years. After approximately $8 billion spent annually on diversity training, the numbers haven't budged, and Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs believes that this is not a coincidence. The Cambridge-educated anthropologist and bestselling author of The Three Mothers argues in her latest work, Erased, that patriarchy isn't a relic of the past or a women's issue but a business crisis disguised as progress. 'The things that we have lost as a result of a desire to protect American patriarchy have not been by mistake but have been intentional. The erasure of mothers in my first book was not an accident but rather a deliberate omission,' Tubbs said. 'Many historians and scholars felt it necessary to exclude women from their accounts of men's lives. When we understand it that way, rather than as something that just happens naturally over time, we're more aware of what we're up against in terms of the desire to maintain a social order and to erase anything that proves we can choose other options.' This same pattern of deliberate exclusion didn't end with history books but seeped into corporate culture, eventually making its way into boardrooms and performance reviews and strategic planning sessions. Tubbs also rejects the idea that patriarchy is outdated and, instead, presents it as a part of a larger, more insidious system. Think about the last board meeting where a woman's concerns about market risk got dismissed as 'overthinking,' or when relationship-building skills got labeled 'soft' while aggressive negotiation tactics were called 'strategic.' These aren't isolated but collectively form symptoms of what Tubbs calls 'American patriarchy,' a term she uses to distinguish the specific system that emerged from the founding fathers' post-Revolutionary War anxiety about maintaining control. According to Tubbs, modern patriarchy is not a personal failing but a structural problem. 'If we think about it as a system rather than a person's fault, we realize how all of us have been hurt by it,' she said. This framing avoids the defensive posturing that typically derails diversity conversations in corporate settings, and instead of finger-pointing, it redirects attention toward structural barriers, those that constrain organizational potential. Applying Tubbs' framework to corporate settings reveals how patriarchy becomes self-sabotaging at the institutional level. When companies fail to recognize and address patterns of exclusion, they perpetuate cycles that limit their potential for growth, scaling, and adaptation. The cost of this can be far-reaching and is only reinforced because other unlikely groups contribute to it. 'Patriarchs are not only men,' Tubbs emphasizes. 'There are many women, people of color and immigrants who are protecting this social order.' Patriarchy is not a new topic of conversation, especially not in corporate conversations, but Tubbs pushes for something that goes beyond simple recognition. She's asking executives to look at their last five major product failures and ask themselves if a more diverse leadership team would have seen the blind spots coming. 'We cannot build a nation where women have power over men because that's not what I'm advocating for, but instead a nation where we each have power vested in us,' Tubbs said. For business, this vision translates into cultures where different voices and perspectives aren't just tolerated but actively pursued as competitive and valuable, as opposed to being yet another diversity metric. 'We have to be completely aware at all times that we cannot be neutral, because our American systems are not neutral,' Tubbs said. The observation cuts through corporate rhetoric and exposes how being neutral itself can become a form of complicity. The companies that get this right will tap into market opportunities that their competitors miss. For some companies, the biggest threat to innovation isn't in Silicon Valley but the unchecked bias around their boardroom table.
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump says any 'credible' Epstein files should be released
President Donald Trump said Tuesday the US Justice Department should release all "credible" information from its probe into notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein as he sought to douse a firestorm of criticism from his supporters over his handling of the case. Trump is facing the most serious split of his political career from his famously loyal right-wing base over suspicions that his administration is covering up lurid details of Epstein's crimes to protect rich and powerful figures they say are implicated. "The attorney general has handled that very well," the Republican leader said of Pam Bondi, who leads the Justice Department, when he was asked about the case at the White House. Trump repeated his claim that the Epstein files were "made up" by his Democratic predecessors in the White House -- even though he said multiple times during the election campaign that he would "probably" release them. "She's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her," Trump said. "Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release." Trump's latest comments mark a softening of his stance -- he had voiced frustration in the Oval Office and online about his supporters' fixation on Epstein and pleaded with them to move on. "I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody," Trump told reporters Tuesday night, adding: "It's pretty boring stuff." The president's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement has long held as an article of faith that "Deep State" elites are protecting Epstein's most powerful associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood. Trump has faced growing outrage since his administration effectively shut down Epstein-related conspiracy theories, which have become MAGA obsessions. The Justice Department and FBI said in a memo made public earlier this month there is no evidence that the disgraced financier kept a "client list" or was blackmailing powerful figures. They also dismissed the claim that Epstein was murdered in jail, confirming his death by suicide, and said they would not be releasing any more information on the probe. - 'Let the people decide' - It marked the first time Trump's officials had publicly refuted the stories -- pushed for years by numerous right-wing figures, notably including the FBI's top two officials, before Trump hired them. Beyond angering supporters, the issue has opened a schism within his administration, sparking a fiery blow-up between Bondi and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who is said to be considering resigning. Trump's attempts to take the sting out of the controversy have largely failed, with far right influencers continuing to criticize him online. Even his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, a Fox News host, has called for "more transparency" from the administration. Trump's most powerful ally in the US Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson, pushed Tuesday for the administration to release more information about the case, and his stance has been echoed by multiple Republicans. "We should put everything out there and let the people decide," he told MAGA influencer Benny Johnson's internet show, calling on Bondi to "come forward and explain" apparent discrepancies in her statements about the case. Bondi told Fox News in February a list of Epstein clients was on her desk for review, before backtracking and saying that no such list existed. Epstein died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking. Trump -- who has denied visiting the US Virgin Islands home where prosecutors say Epstein sex trafficked underage girls -- said ahead of his election he would have "no problem" releasing files related to the case. Asked whether Bondi had told him if his name appeared in a file related to Epstein, Trump said "no," adding that Bondi has "given us just a very quick briefing." ft/jgc/dw
