What is the most inspirational thing you saw or heard that changed your life?

TVgog56789@lemy.lol to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 36 points –

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/21933555

For me it was these.

"A focused fool can accomplish more than a distracted genius"

"Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter"

These two quotes really helped get my @** in gear.

13

I started smoking when i was 12 or so. I tried most of my life to quit, with no success. Then one day at work an older woman walked past me as i smoked and simply said along the lines of quitting will improve your life and smiled at me. She did not get preachy or anything, just made a simple statement and went on with her day. I later found out she was a lung cancer survivor. But those few words and the smile were enough to motivate me to quit. It will be 20 years in November since i took my last drag.

For my wife, a pirated copy of Allen Carr's easy way to stop smoking video worked in one sitting.

For a couple years anyway.

It was a video and this is going to sound very very strange, but just bare with me. Be warned it is rather morbid and I apologize.

There's a video out there, can't remember where I watched it, but it's the autopsy of an obese woman. It's incredibly morbid and not an easy watch but has had a profound impact on my life. I've been overweight the majority of my life and never really thought anything of it besides "man, I should start losing weight." That is until I saw that video. Seeing the internal state of that woman's body put a lot into perspective for me about what being overweight was doing to my body. I've seen diagrams, illustrations, and descriptions of what happens to the body when overweight. But actually seeing it with a real person? That shit changed me. Been super conscious about it ever since. Lost about 50 pounds and started taking care of myself better. I'm still not perfect, but having that reference of what could potentially be going on inside my body that I can't even see is a very informative and helpful tool to have. Not in a "scared straight" kinda way and more as a "I need to be more aware of what I can't see" kinda way.

Yeah its that goth mortitician. I know the Video. Pretty great.

Thank you. I don’t know if I watched the right video, but it certainly was eye opening

“Action over anxiety.”

Another Lemmy user (@Riccosuave@lemmy.world) posted this, learned it from his mum. I’ve been really trying to take this to heart. Instead of spinning in circles, I try to do something about it. If I can’t, then there isn’t anything I can do to change it at that point and just need to wait. It gives some relief to me at least.

Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another's perspective, to understand, feel and possibly share and respond to their experience.

We're all the same, equally susceptible to bad influences that can compound and overwhelm our sense of right and wrong.
No one is beyond saving, but sometimes the effort needed to do so is impossible to reach.

As someone who lacks empathy this is something I don’t understand on an emotional level. Like I get it cognitively how one feels, but I don’t feel it myself. I’ve been doing my best to fake it since I’m a little kid, though back in those days i thought this is what empathy meant. IRL I’ve told no one about this. There may be one or another person I was close with who might suspect something since I literally asked what the appropriate response to something was.

I do have empathy for animals thought, which I find totally weird.

I'd say empathy is a social skill learned through experience or proper education.
It can still be distorted and applied selectively or even outright ignored.
And at its core, it can be both simple and complex. Whatever emotions you feel and why can be felt by anyone else in the same way, but perhaps for different things.
So the main thing empathy asks is to understand that, to accept that having their experience and knowledge from their life is what guides their decisions, just as your own guide yours.
We don't know the same things and we should appreciate that difference, even though we might not agree with it.

Empathy for animals is easier to have because they are simpler to gauge and direct in their actions. Less of a headache to deal with the why's.

I found a website called "Out of the Fog" that opened my eyes to the abuse I was suffering at the hands of my ex.

It made me feel like I wasn't crazy, and gave me the courage & tools I needed to finally escape that relationship.

A sentence said by a math teacher I had once : "A choice is right as long as it is made."