How easy/hard has your life been until now?

I'm 38 and it's been difficult at times. Very difficult at times. But it could have been worse. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. It could get a lot worse yet!! Life isn't no picnic for anyone, chaos waits around the corner for everything and pays no heed to rank or status. I just try my best to get through the difficult times when they rear up and make lots of time for what I enjoy when I can enjoy it.

Ah this is a nice refreshing thread. Suppose I'll start off with the last year.

Yeah life has been very good recently. Had a fair bit of turmoil of the existential kind about a year ago. Finished college took the relative mick out of my last year and hit far low below what I could have achieved. Got in a bad rut about that and I simply smoked far too much weed that year and really got in my own head about where my life was going. Just turned 26 at the time lying in my bed feeling stuck because it's the same place I've been since forever. No forward momentum, laying about doing nothing, half ass applying for jobs because I didn't feel I was worth salt to anyone in employment.

Knew I had a couple of brutal months to get to a place where I needed to be. So shaped up anyway and got a break in the form of a friend getting an internship for me that didn't pay much. Such is the nature of these things and the experience has led on to a fulltime job elsewhere in a role I didn't think I would ever get. Got my first pay check today and it felt so good. Money isn't everything but not having it makes life a lot tougher. Couldn't go travelling, couldn't learn to drive, couldn't even just do simple things like just go out for a meal without worrying about the dent in my pocket. Now I can contemplate all these things.

Life in general has been pretty good to me. I have awesome parents who showered me (and continue to) with love. A cracking support network of close friends. The one thing I have taken from all the years is the self confidence you build. It's hard to build yourself to a point where you can say "alright, yeah I'm ok I can do this" to a lot of things in life. Whether that'd be going into your first fulltime job, going after that person you want or even just socialising with new people. I feel now I have that bedrock of confidence to know what I'm about and what I want. I'm happy truth be told. Took a long time and I didn't give up but I got there and that's all that matters.

Probably long and completely off tangent but was great to write this. Thanks!

Its all about your reference point, I suppose.

Everyone has their struggles, I know, but If compared globally, most people on this island have it pretty easy.

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

I'd disagree with you there. To me, some of those are actually the easy things of life.

I'm from a very dysfunctional background, but from a very "successful" "respectable" family. They didn't know how to love us, but they definitely knew how to educate us. I'm healthy and always had financial support when I needed it, especially when it came to my education. I did several different college courses. I never went hungry.

But at the same time, I was repeatedly sexually abused between 3 and 12. My parents saw me losing the use of a leg at 3/4, were told it was psychosomatic due to trauma, and told the doctors and physiotherapists it was as a result of missing my mum when my brother was born. (I did regain use of it, but it had wasted away to half the size of the other leg.) None of that was normal or okay.

It doesn't mean I can't find a way to move on from it and live a normal life, but it's taken me so so very long to even accept that it affects my ability to do so. That he still has that power over me. Accepting that much is the first step in moving on past it.

I kinda don't agree with my own post.

We as humans are never happy with what we got and we always focus on what we don't have. Sorry to hear what you went through and I hope things are more positive for you now and in the future.

Now 64 and life has been hard at times but bearable.Have been blessed with good health so far touch wood .My main concerns now are financial .Living in a Country with no safety net .Its warm though all year and the people are nice.Have a good wife .Starting to think about death which seems more of a reality at my age .Do not fear it but just don't want to be there when it happens .

I'd rate it as meh

I've had a fairly easy life to be honest.
Nothings been handed to me but things just seem to workout.

Never really studied hard and got very average results in the leaving cert but it was enough points to get my first choice to college.

Graduated college with average results.

Went traveling on a 5k loan from bank of ireland. (Good old celtic tiger banks. You want 5k from a bank as a newly graduated student without a job, sure here you go. )

Arrived back a year later and landed a well paying contract job in a bank for 6 months almost immediately. Paid off the loan asap.

Landed a permanent job and was good at it. The economy tanked and things got cheaper. I kept my job so in my eyes everything was going great.

Still working for that company 10 years on (kinda, they got bought out by a well known multinational, so i now work for a company with a big brand name which gets recognition and looks great on the CV). Got plenty of promotions along the way and changed jobs internally a few times.

Met an amazing woman and got married. Purchased a house, earning good money.

Renovating the house so this is the time that things might go wrong as im doing alot of the work myself.

Hard, but could have been worse. It always could have been worse.