Latest news with #epiphany
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
People Who Grew Up Wealthy Are Sharing The Moment When They Realized They Were Privileged, And It's Eye-Opening
The lifestyle you grow up in is often the one you become accustomed to, and for those who grew up wealthy, sometimes it's the one you assume everyone has as well. Recently, BuzzFeed Community members who grew up rich shared the "epiphany" moments when they realized they were privileged, and it's incredibly insightful: 1."I was leaving work (a job I did because I was bored), and a coworker asked why I was changing clothes. I said, 'Oh, we're buying another home and signing paperwork.' He looked at me and said that he and his mom have never lived in a house. I didn't tell him that we owned five houses at the time. I didn't learn my lesson, though. Years later, at a new job, I rented an apartment nearby so that I didn't have to commute every day. When speaking to a coworker, I said I was shocked that three beds could fit in 1,000 square feet. He looked at me and said that his family lived in an 850-square-foot home. Then, he said very kindly, 'You were raised a little differently than most people, weren't you?' Humbled. I was completely humbled." —shaysmith3 2."I grew up solidly upper-middle class. I remember going to my friend's home, and she had to sleep in the same room as her mom. I found that so weird." —kmpbnjelly 3."When the guy I was interested in said he finally owned his car. I knew he'd had the car for 8–10 years. I didn't realize that not everyone went into the dealership and paid for a new car in full." —Anonymous 4."When I was a kid, I thought we were poor because our maid only came over three times a week, and I had friends who had live-in staff." —Joe, 68, New York 5."I can't pinpoint when in my adult life I realized I was privileged growing up, but I remember as a child, I'd innocently asked my grandparents, 'Which family is that?' whenever I saw airplanes with names on them. I thought all families had private jets." —Anonymous 6."I had a private garage with all the high-end tools to fix my hot rods when I was 14." —Anonymous 7."I was going to have a sleepover at my friend's house, but I didn't have any clothes or things, so her mom drove us to my home to go pick some things up. My friend came in with me and loudly exclaimed, 'Wow! Your house is so big! That TV is so big! You guys are rich!' I'd never once considered that we were upper-middle class before that moment. I'd always just thought we were in the solid middle. It really opened my eyes to how privileged we were growing up. I still don't feel like our house was wildly fancy or anything big, but it was definitely nicer and newer than many of my friends' houses at the time." —Anonymous 8."When I was in college, we were visiting Florida as part of our swim team winter training. A friend of mine invited me over to visit an aunt who lived nearby. We went out for a boat ride, and I mentioned in passing, 'Oh, this reminds me of Puerto Rico, when my family went there on vacation.' They gave me a surprised look and made a comment that I must be wealthy to have been able to go to Puerto Rico as a kid (this would've been in the '80s). Up until that point, it never occurred to me that people didn't just go on vacation to warm places during the winter. My friend had never even seen a real palm tree in her life." —Anonymous 9."My public elementary and middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area offered a winter break that was officially called 'Ski Week.' During that week, all of our families would take us skiing or on other vacations during the week of President's Day. Many of us had second homes in Lake Tahoe or other resort towns. The lore was that the school district started offering it because so many parents were taking their kids out during that time. It was kind of an 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' situation. It wasn't until I got to college that I learned that nobody else got Ski Week growing up. Now, in my 40s, I mention Ski Week sometimes, and nobody who didn't grow up in Marin County knows what I'm talking about!" —jennerator 10."My dad would take his plane and fly my mom and some friends to El Paso from our West Texas town to go out to eat." —Anonymous 11."I always knew that our family had enough money, and I am so grateful for the home that I've grown up in. The first time I realized our family was well-off was when we bought a nice house during the pandemic. It really sank in that I was very privileged when I was talking to a friend, and she told me that her family would be rich when her brother joined the army." —Anonymous, Oklahoma 12."We live in a nice 2,500 square-foot home that we built 27 years ago. I still remember the first Halloween we lived there. One trick-or-treater asked how many people lived here. I told him it was my husband, our daughter, and me. He said, 'Wow, you must be rich.' Now, mind you, I grew up lower-middle class. We didn't take big, fancy vacations or anything. However, it struck me when this kid said that." —blissbednar 13."I thought it was normal that my family went on vacation four times a year, but many of my friends haven't been on a vacation in years. I'm married now, and my parents take my husband and me on trips with the whole family still. My grandparents did that for them, and they want to pass down the tradition." —heyitsmadsss 14."I grew up in an upper-middle-class family, but I didn't realize we were doing better financially than many people. My brother and I went to private schools, and my mother made it very clear that we weren't 'in the league' of other students, whose families were really wealthy. Still, we had a vacation house in a resort town, went to premier summer camps, took private horseback riding lessons, etc. When I was 10, my parents wanted to get out of the city, so we moved to a farm about an hour out of town. It so happened that this was a couple of miles from the summer camp we'd always attended. I remember telling my new friends about how cool it was that camp was so close now. They looked at me incredulously and said that nobody local could afford to go to camp, but that many parents and siblings worked there. That was a big wake-up call for me. I realized that many people didn't have the privilege I did as a kid." —Anonymous 15."A friend in college told me they'd never flown on an airplane before. I straight-up did not believe her. Another person had to break it to me." —ORD2414 "I went to treatment for my alcoholism more than once. One time, the state didn't pay for it, so my parents did. It was around $6,000. My parents are middle-class but good with money and investments. My entire family is supportive. I've heard stories about other people's parents, and it really put me in my place. Some people were completely abandoned, or had to abandon their parents to be safe and sober. I never went hungry, and I never had to worry about the condition my parents were in when I had my friends over. I had stability, which isn't guaranteed to anyone, no matter their socioeconomic situation. Without my family, I might've been unhoused, dead, or in prison." —princesscansuelabananahammock *Cries in broke.* If you grew up wealthier than most, when did you realize you were privileged? Let us know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your story using the form below! Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jerry Maguire: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Tom Cruise shows us the money as the amoral sports agent experiencing an epiphany 1996
Gizmodo
18-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
This Is What Your Brain Looks Like When You Solve a Problem
We've all had the aha moment, when the solution to a problem is suddenly obvious. In cartoons, that eureka feeling is usually depicted as a lightbulb floating above a character's head—which is not that far off from what actually takes place in the brain during these moments. Researchers have revealed that epiphanies physically reshape brain activity. What's more, they discovered that people remember epiphanies better than solutions reached through a more methodical approach. These results could have important implications for how instructors approach teaching in classrooms. 'If you have an 'aha! moment' while learning something, it almost doubles your memory,' Roberto Cabeza, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, said in a university statement. 'There are few memory effects that are as powerful as this.' Cabeza is senior author of a study published earlier this month in the journal Nature Communications. As study participants solved brain teasers, he and his colleagues recorded their brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that measures changes in blood flow associated with brain activity. The brain teasers were visual fill-in-the-blank puzzles that revealed a previously hidden picture once participants completed the image. While such an activity might seem childish, this small discovery 'produces the same type of characteristics that exist in more important insight events,' Cabeza explained. Once participants thought they'd solved a puzzle, the team asked them how certain they were of their solution, and whether they'd reached the solution suddenly (in an aha moment) or worked it out more intentionally. Overall, the researchers noted that participants who reported epiphanies remembered their solutions significantly better than those who hadn't—and the more certain they were about their flash of insight, the greater the likelihood they'd still recall it five days later. The functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that the epiphanies triggered an explosion of activity in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. Stronger moments of insight caused stronger bursts of activity. When participants solved the puzzle and finally recognized the secret object, researchers also noted changes in the participants' neuron firing dynamics—especially in regions of the ventral occipito-temporal cortex, which is involved in recognizing visual patterns. Similarly, the more powerful the moment of insight, the greater the changes researchers recorded. 'During these moments of insight, the brain reorganizes how it sees the image,' said Maxi Becker, first author of the study and a cognitive neuroscientist at Humboldt University. Furthermore, the researchers linked more powerful epiphanies with more connectivity between those parts of the brain. 'The different regions communicate with each other more efficiently,' said Cabeza. As such, 'Learning environments that encourage insight could boost long-term memory and understanding,' the researchers wrote in the statement. While in this study the team imaged brain activity before and after participants' 'aha' moment, moving forward they hope to investigate what takes place in between—when the real magic happens.
Times
15-05-2025
- Automotive
- Times
Motorway middle-lane hoggers aren't a nuisance: they're dangerous
The trip meter on my dashboard has ticked over 11 miles by the time the white Hackney carriage finally indicates and pulls into the inside lane. Could it be he's had an epiphany? After all, in the time he has been driving in the middle lane he's only driven past one permanent sign that says 'Keep left unless overtaking' and — quite conveniently — a dot matrix sign emblazoned with 'Don't hog the middle lane'. Sadly it's not an epiphany. Moving lanes, it transpires, was necessary to come off at the next junction. I'd followed the taxi from Junction 1 of the M1 at Brent Cross in London all the way to Junction 6, for St Albans, in Hertfordshire, as the driver cruised obliviously up
