Young kids are also a lot more socially aware than people give them credit for. Young children are perfectly aware that adults don't take them seriously. They know when their parents don't actually like them. They listen and remember when adults talk about them while they're in the room. Kids will develop basic abilities to charm etc. from babyhood and will begin experimenting with social norms and concepts of deception, appropriate information, and acceptable language and attitudes in toddlerhood. By the time a kid is five or six, they have solid social strategies for relating to adults and separate ones fr relating to their peers, that they'll continue to refine for the rest of their lives. They will also say completely off the wall shit because they don't have the context to know what is and isn't considered super fucked up yet.

By the time a kid is eight or nine, their main difference from adults is in experience, interests, and ability for long-term focus. An eight year old can think as intelligently and coherently as a thirty year old, they just have less experience and information to draw from, and are likely interested in very different things. They're also likely still slightly hamstrung by vocabulary and literacy, though much less so than a younger kid.

basically all advice about this ive found is aimed at office workers, but i work a blue collar job. i'm Physically tired, not mentally tired. Right now, working less hours isn't an option, and i feel like i'm going insane because all my time off is spent working2 (chores) or doing required physical maintenance (eating, mostly sleeping)

ONE

Take vacations/time off and strategize them into your next steps. This can be either progression in your passion (building a project) or reboot (relaxation to rebuild your body/mind/energy reserves). Both equally valid.

TWO

At no point should you feel negative about taking this time off.

There is no room for guilt about "leaving your co-workers hanging" etc. Your time off is part of your -- I'm going to use a super corporate bullshit word, but it's the most commonly term used -- "employee value proposition."

EVP = everything you get. Cash, retirement plan, healthcare, time off, etc. It's everything.

It's a job.

If you're not the boss, don't do boss things.

THREE

Prioritize health as possible.

Look at me. Look into my eyes.

There is absolutely no room in this statement for negative energy.

You do what you have to do. You do what you can do. The entire goal: "Can tomorrow be slightly better than today?"

Pay attention to your habits, sleep schedule, diet, exercise, exercise at work (this still counts), water consumption, alcohol/drugs consumption. Adjust accordingly.

Look into my eyes once more.

Make decisions based on your resources and goals.

"I can't--?"

You can do whatever you want.

The premise is living your best life.

"But I physically can't--"

Do whatever you can.

The premise is living your best life.

This segment has a lot of exposition because it is difficult and resource intensive. Food is expensive, gyms are expensive, cooking takes time, etc. I am not unaware.

FOUR

Assess everything. Constantly.

You mention sleep. How quality is your sleep? If you are sleeping several hours and do not feel like you're getting several hours of rest -- what can be changed?

My hours are weird as hell. A cheap cloth sleep mask that keeps light out helped a lot.

Again. Zero negativity. Are you on your phone just before sleep? Are you doomscrolling in bed? Assess and re-evaluate. "This does not lead me to my next step." Something else.

How good is your bed? If bad, can you prioritize a better bed? If not, can you prioritize a better pillow? Start there. Start with clean sheets: can you get a few sets so you can rotate out and do laundry less frequently but in bigger batches?

Look into sleep hygine.

Look into something comfortable in bed that is just for you. Stuffed animal, again a good pillow, soft music playing in the background.

Look into how you wake up. Jarring alarm? Hours set on phone to gradually wake you up?

Study where you are. Look to blog articles written by experts on how to get where you want to go. Don't run out and buy a bunch of crap -- study, assess, experiment, revaluate, repeat.

FIVE

Good shoes.

Discworld boots theory.

Can you scale up your footware?

Same question, tools: Can you scale up your tools?

SIX: THE BULLSHIT NATURE OF PATIENCE IS UNFORTUNATELY NECSSARY

Everything takes time. Everything takes experiments. You are going to pursue things and then realize they didn't work and then "ah beans if I hadn't tried that I'd be further ahead."

Unfortunately you're not a god so experimentations are necessary and have costs.

Study your life.

Pick 1 thing and work on improving it 1% over the course of 1 month.

Everything you do is at service to making this goal.

Some 1%-s will come faster.

Some will take longer.

The only deadline is death.

SEVEN: BONUS

Stretching routines. Ten billion free videos online on how to stretch every part of you that exists.

Increases your flexibility, makes moving easier, reduces wear-and-tear on your body and physical effort, which decreases needed recovery time.

FINAL

"I can't--" is not a excuse. It is an internal call for modification.

The paths to Better are infinite. So saying, the overwhelming majority are almost always locked for almost everyhone.

If you can't adjust sleep hygine, work on stretching. If you physically can't, work on diet. If you physically can't, work on footware... etc.

Good luck.

If you're not in an office worker job, ignore the advice aimed at office workers.

Physical labor has a lot of parallels with athletes. Look into the opening training stages of how junior-to-career athletes begin increasing strength and endurance, see what fits.

AND AS ALWAYS

Be honest with yourself about your boss and your job.

If it is not working out, keep an eye for something else.

Tricky. Risky. Likely the most difficult thing on this list.

Keep in mind.

My entry for Clip Studio Paint 46th international illustration contest!

Grandma never meet such big kitty before, and is very content of such a meeting.

Are you able to find all the cats? Try to count them before you swipe for close ups and let me know in the comment how much you was able to find!

A little story: This is a milestone when comes to my art. If you're familiar with my artistic output you very much know that all of my works - I don't even count isolated exceptations over the course of more than decade - are depiction of individual animals, occassionally pairs or groups, with or without decorative elements.

No scenes - interior or exterior - no environments at all. No history behind the artwork other than history that pet owners has in their hearts related to their relationship with the beloved pet.

As long as it's nothing wrong with that and I really enjoy drawing pets as well as I'm honored when a owner came to me to make a memorable artwork of their deceased pet, I really wanted to do something more for a very long time. I wanted to tell a story, and I wanted to make a personal art. Because believe it or not, I'm not making personal art for a couple of years already and it's just insane.

So here's one.

So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.

So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.

There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.

Timesheets

Expense reports

Requisition requests

Budget justifications

Payroll

Performance evaluations

Incident reports

After action reviews / post-mortem analyses

Incident Action Plans

Contracts

Contract proposals / grant applications

even when the royalty look like they're just fucking off to have fun, they're doing Socially Mandated Fuck-Off and Have Fun Time

Invoices.

Intake sheets (information about new clients. The one for my firm is 13 pages and requires an hour long meeting. Then you have to do something with the info gathered)

Data entry for invoices and intake sheets.

Billing. (More involved than timesheets because you’re justifying to clients why you’re getting paid so much).

Form letters.

Taxes. Including 1099s for any contracted work.

Bank statements/accounting spreadsheets. Gotta track how expenses are trending.

Insurance documents.

General messages. Lots of office still use a paper system for missed calls and “important” stuff because it just works better than emails and chats for some people.

Cause there’s the invoice, and the follow up invoice and the we are about to have a problem follow-up invoice.

There’s the incident report and then the I swear I yelled at that worker about this don’t be mad at me if they do it again second warning documentation

The requisition form and the it has been six months now get me the fucking thing or you’re gonna hear from Cindy escalations form.

-Case Review! This applies in some areas of law but it's basically checking through the case, seeing the status with your own stuff and the court's stuff, often writing a brief summary of your review, and making an action plan for next steps. Depending on the type of law and where the case is in progress this can take anywhere from 5 minutes ("ok nothing new in the court file, nothing's changed on our end, we're still waiting on the court") to, uh, several hours or days ("we're preparing for hearing and I need a full summary of every single thing including an index.")

Also I cant think of a single employee of any company who doesn't have a non-zero amount of paperwork even if its just enrolling in the health insurance or pension paperwork.

Accident forms

Timesheets

Equipment inspection

Customer intake

Invoice

Do you think an evil lair runs itself?

Benny the Beater needs off next week for his sister's wedding (or an upcoming funeral. Groom's choice.) Slim is in the slammer again for reasons unrelated to official business. Does that count as paid leave? Everyone expects Memorial Day off or overtime. Leo wants 2 weeks off to go back to the old country. No one knows exactly which country this is but he's earned the time.

He gives his harness bells a shake.

What will survive of him is love

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

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It was kind of a joke between me and a friend ("you wouldn't judge someone for having gone rock climbing with a bunch of different people") but honestly the more I thought about it the more I bought into it unironically because:

It is a physical activity done with one or more partners

You should only go rock climbing with people you trust to not let you fall

You should not go rock climbing with someone who is drunk or currently incapable of rational decision-making

Some people get super super super into rock climbing and do not shut up about all the places they have climbed and how many are left on their bucket list and these people are usually men between the ages of 20 and 35 and like it's fine dude I'm glad you're happy but I don't know what most of those mountains even are

While many consider it a fun activity, pressuring someone into climbing when they don't want to (or ignoring their feelings and just dangling them off a cliff,) could cause both psychological and physical trauma

There is no moral value to it whatsoever. Who you have gone rock climbing with (or whether you have rock climbed at all) has no bearing on who you are as a person. Imagine telling someone "it's not that heights make you nauseous, it's just that you haven't found the right person to belay you!" or "you need to save your first time rock climbing for someone special." That would be absurd.

For some people it is a deep and moving personal experience.

"McDonald's releases AI Christmas commercial!!"

Don't care didn't ask plus here's a beautifully animated ad for a French supermarket that was made by actual artists