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What did you change your mind about this year?
Hey everyone! I thought since the community has grown quite substantially since I last asked this question[1] it would be nice to bring it back up again. Without getting into whether or not the specific idea that "strong opinions, weakly held" may or may not have merit, I think having flexibility in your thinking and not holding on to opinions out of loyalty or inertia is a valuable skill to have. So, small or big, what is something that you changed your mind about this year?
[1] https://tildes.net/~talk/11mw/what_is_something_you_have_changed_your_mind_about_in_the_last_year
I have changed my view that having a full calendar is in fact a good thing. I am very good at having lots of things on my plate, saying yes to all manner of occasions, events, activities, and experiences. As a result, my calendar can often end up so full that I have barely 20 hours of unspoken-for time remaining in a month. That exact situation happened at least twice this year.
Trying to juggle a child, a relationship, a job, basic survival, two bands, a passion for TTRPGs, and various other interests and hobbies is just nigh impossible at this stage in my life, and I have finally realised that actually having unstructured free time is a net positive. I am still objectively bad at having such time, and struggle to find something to do when I have nothing to do. But surprise surprise, my battery recharges much more quickly when I'm not dashing around between half a hundred different contexts every week. Being kept busy was a great way to stave off my inner demons, but since I've been working on defeating them this year, the need to be busy is considerably less. I don't think I want to be so constantly occupied any more.
100% agree that having some free time to rest and recharge is great. I had a lot of free time earlier this year as I waited to start my full time job after graduating. I was incredibly burnt out from university and the job hunt so I felt lucky to have some time to relax before I was thrown into corporate life. It was nice waking up and having to not worry or think about anything. Did it get boring? Absolutely. But it really let my brain rest and once I started working, I was able to get into it fairly quickly.
Last year, I started getting doomerpilled about politics. I saw the other side willing to lie, cheat, and steal while saying my side was always doing it. I saw political content creators suggest that we fight fire with fire, disregarding truth and embrace propoganda, because my side is in the right and the ends justify the means. If the other guys are doing it so effectively, shouldn't we be allowed to as well?
Luckily I didn't fully buy into it and over the last year have been focused on trying to understand the kernels of truth that motivates both sides. It means I'm putting myself in unconfortable positions frequently, but I'm proud of myself for it.
There have been a lot more antitrust cases in the last five years though. If you want to follow that news subscribe to Big by Matt Stoller
That I would be ok living alone for the rest of my life.
I started dating someone this year and very quickly started to notice all sorts of things about myself—things I thought were unimportant or low priority, that I’d really just been suppressing. I used to be fine with being alone for days at a time, peaceful and quietly working. And now I’m not. It was a bit unsettling at the beginning, seeing myself change. But the joy is worth it.
This is going to be a bit mundane, but home ownership. For reference I’m a relatively new financial advisor after having worked in public accounting for 10 or so years.
I used to think people who “bought more house than they could afford” were foolish.
I’ve come to realize that most people don’t have the discipline to save money for things like retirement, and for many people, being “house poor” is forced savings.
There are a thousand ways renting can be better. There are even more reasons buying a “house you can afford” makes more sense.
But a lot of the people “buying too much house” would have just spent the difference anyway, and at least in the “bought too much house” scenario they have an asset they can downsize from when they’re too old to work. This is especially valuable in states where your primary residence is protected from bankruptcy.
True, but what you’re talking about encourages an anti pattern that many people are all paying for dearly. The “primary residence as an investment” paradigm is the #1 cause of the housing crisis, the 2008 recession, homelessness and poverty, poor urban development patterns, and the root cause of honestly, the majority of the economic issues we have, especially in the US.
People view owning a house not just as a way to secure housing, but also as a way to make money or even get rich. If their houses don’t increase in value relative to the rest of the economy forever then there’s something wrong in their minds.
Because of that, they’ll viciously oppose increased density development that they think will hurt their investment, and constantly work to keep housing scarce.
Obviously, you can’t jus have housing increase in cost forever relative to wages. Housing becomes further and further out of reach of normal people, and there becomes a really disgusting, perverse economic incentive to keep people homeless.
I wish housing was treated more like any other asset, like a car or a computer. Something you spent money on because it provides you with something you need, that you keep maintained because you need it to keep working, but not something you hold on to just to make money off of.
Cool question!
For me my husband and I had always envisioned moving to Scandinavia down the line (we're from the Netherlands), but it was always like a in 10 years maybe kind of situation.
Well, after some life/career stuff we've officially decided to say screw the waiting. We can make it work, so we changed our minds and are emigrating to Sweden some time in 2024 :D
It's a scary leap, because we even decided that we wouldn't wait for a job or anything - if I can't find work in Sweden (or remote Europe) before ~summer 2024, we'll take the plunge and move over anyway! I'm terrified and excited at the same time, hah.
What made you choose Sweden over Norway, or Denmark for example?
Over Norway because Norway is not a part of the EU - and that's just not worth the hassle to us, especially not with Sweden and Denmark on either side.
Over Denmark, even though I actually have family in Denmark hah, because there's a lot more job openings in Sweden in my field (I want to be a little careful here so will just say that I'm in tech). Not just that, a lot of the job openings in Sweden are listed in English and do not seem to require me to speak the Swedish language at a professional level. Lastly, almost all jobs in Denmark (in my field) seem to be concentrated around Copenhagen. Nothing wrong with that, but it limits where we could live, even if I'm looking for a hybrid/remote position. In Sweden, a large amount of jobs are concentrated near Stockholm, sure, but there's also a pretty significant amount spread out over Gothenburg and Malmö, which gives a lot of freedom of choice!
I moved from Florida to Sweden in March. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the process. If you're moving anywhere near me, I can give you recommendations about the area!
That's very kind of you, thank you! Will definitely keep that in mind 😄!!
If you enjoy any kind of spicy food, or any cuisines that originate from anywhere south of the United States, eat it now. Eat it for every meal. Eat it until you get tired of it. You won't be able to get it here, except arguably a few places in Stockholm, which did not live up to my Floridian standards.
I have a few questions if you don’t mind me asking:
My wife and I are considering moving to another country for at least a few years and Sweden is one option that’s been floated.
I don't mind at all!
The cost of living in Florida was skyrocketing. Our monthly medical costs had more than tripled, and were higher than our rent, which had more than doubled in our county in less than two years. We couldn't afford to stay in South Florida in any case. We wanted to move someplace that had a lower cost of living, was more politically progressive, and was at least a little walkable. A place like that is a tall order in the US. We were actually kind of panicking and not sure what we were going to do before we got extremely lucky and my husband got a job in Sweden.
My husband got a job in Sweden! He works for a video game design company. They hired him as a remote worker, and not only did they not require him to move, they actually thought it was kind of a bad idea. They loved having him in the office the few times he flew out, but they thought we would be bored and lonely and regret it. We really pushed for it and they finally agreed to help us relocate. Even with their help it wiped out most of our savings, but the cost of living is so much lower here that we've already put back in about half the amount that we took out. We got a work permit through the job which covered me. The process was long and we had to fly to DC, but it was pretty straight forward. Our town, Skövde, is a hub for video game design and there are lots of studios here that hire internationally. A lot of other immigrants that I've met are here on student visas.
I won't lie, the actual process of relocation was pretty harrowing. It was really expensive, over $20,000 total, including buying new furniture, bringing over the few things we chose to keep, bringing our cats, and other random miscellaneous expenses. If we didn't have cats or any savings we probably could have done it for much less, but I'm glad we spent the money we did.
We couldn't find an airline that would let our 22 pound cat ride in the cabin for an overseas flight, so we flew them cargo. That's the only part of this trip that I regret. We used an airline that had pressure and temperature controlled cargo and good reviews from other pet owners, but I was still out of my mind with worry the entire time and they didn't act like themselves for weeks afterwards. If I had to do it again, I honestly don't know what I would do. Maybe find a way to take a ship or something. That horrible experience was the biggest downside, and it's over, so while it was pretty bad, it's nice to have it behind us.
Other drawbacks include the existence of winter. We don't have that in Florida. While it's aesthetically very nice, It's quite inconvenient. If you already have winter where you're from, that probably won't bother you. Skövde isn't very far north so our winters are mild for Sweden. They can get pretty gnarly up north. Right now it's 26⁰F/-2⁰C outside, and we've been told it doesn't get too much colder than this, although it does get darker.
The language barrier has caused some minor hiccups. Most people here speak English and I'm learning Swedish, so it could be much worse, but I wrecked my hair yesterday because the hairdresser didn't understand me, so take some care.
The final down I can think of is food. I miss Cuban food and Mexican food and literally any spice level at all. I've ranted about it on Tildes before. The spice situation here is bleak. I'm not even a spice queen, my favorite hot sauce is the Smack My Sweet Ass sauce at Tijuana Flats. That's a full smiley face. There are a few decent restaurants for various Asian cuisines where you can get a barely acceptable level of spice if you beg, but nothing approximating any Latin cuisines. Okay I have to change topics or I will keep complaining about this forever.
The ups have massively outweighed the downs. Florida is completely unwalkable, but here we don't even have a car. That's barely been an inconvenience. We get more exercise, we don't have the expenses that come with a car, and it's better for the planet. When you do walk here, maybe during the summer in a cute little sundress, you won't get catcalled. It doesn't happen here. The concept is culturally horrifying. The few places I could walk to in Florida, I still avoided walking to, because you can't really leave the house there as a woman without a very high chance of being catcalled, no matter how conservatively you dress. It's very refreshing to be free of that.
There's nature everywhere. We live pretty centrally to the city, the furthest we need to walk for anything is maybe 15 minutes, or 5 if we just wanna take the bus. We also live next to a small forest. Somehow we have both! There's a much larger forest a half hour walk or 5 minute bus ride away, on top of a mountain. In the spring there are flowers everywhere and everything is lush and beautiful. Even from the center of the city you can see trees and flowers. You never feel like you're in a concrete fishbowl like you sometimes do in American cities.
Healthcare is a completely different world here. American hospitals are better hotels than Swedish ones - nicer decor, bigger beds, bigger rooms, fresher paint - but Swedish hospitals are better hospitals. The doctors talk to you. They make decisions based on what they think is best for you. My husband has diabetes. He saw two different doctors about it in Florida, both threw pills at him and didn't explain what they did or how to take them or discuss lifestyle changes with him at all. They also didn't look any further into his health. He's overweight, he has diabetes, case closed. This cost us a few hundred dollars in doctor's visits and medications. His first visit in Sweden with the diabetes nurse she changed his prescriptions, explained what each pill does and when he should take it, and talked to him about things he could do to benefit his lifestyle. This cost us 50 SEK, roughly $5.
In June he got some very bad kidney stones. He had to have them removed, and the removal led to sepsis, which is unfortunately common due to the nature of the kidneys. He was in the hospital for about two weeks total, he had multiple MRIs and cat scans. That cost us roughly $30. One of those MRIs found a mass on his pancreas, and they decided to do more tests. They found out that he has MEN-1, a genetic abnormality that causes the formation of tumors in the endocrine system. He has another one on his parathyroid gland. Considering how quickly he went from sub-pre-diabetic to fully diabetic, there's a good chance one of the masses on his pancreas is causing the issue. That strange jump was never investigated or even remarked on by the Florida doctor's. MEN-1 is also highly heritable. If you have it and have a kid, there's a 50/50 chance your kid has it. My father in law has had adrenal tumors, pancreatic tumors, and parathyroid tumors, all signs of MEN-1. He asked his doctor about it, and he said that he's suspected for decades that he has it, but they never tested him because the test is expensive and the only treatment is closer monitoring for tumors which they were already doing with him. That seems like a sensible response if you don't take into account that his son was not being monitored for this condition. Sorry for the extremely long and anecdotal story, but it's pretty likely that moving to Sweden saved my husband's life, and I'm still pretty emotional about it.
That's a lot of ranting and personal, anecdotal experience. I hope some of it was helpful! I'm happy to answer more questions, or get more detailed on what I've already covered if that's even possible.
I've changed my mind about sleep. For years I never got enough and I didn't know it. It took a sleep apnea diagnosis and the tracking of my sleep through the machine I now use to inch me closer to getting enough. Honestly, I just wanted to get a good score on the tracking app! But once I'd been sleeping 8 hours for a week I was so surprised to 1. awaken easily, and 2. feel like a normal human right away, like the way I usually feel after getting showered and caffeinated. I had no idea that was possible.
Ooh, now you’ve got me really looking forward to getting my sleep apnea resolved! I got sorta diagnosed via CT scan at the end of 2019, and a referral to a surgeon… and then 2020 happened, and I’ve just put it off since.
But now I’ve got a better paying job, I feel like I can afford to throw more money at medical stuff like this, and I think I’ll go back to my GP and pick up where I left off, early/mid 2024 when I’ve settled into the new house.
My partner has always been a “morning person”, and I never have, but the idea that it can change is exciting! I’ve always liked the idea of being awake before the rest of the world wakes up, but I’ve never been able to pull it off, most likely because of the sleep apnea!
Best of luck to you! I know people sometimes struggle to stick with it. It's probably not too surprising that it can take a while to get used to sleeping with something on your face, but I found the feedback from the app mine came with to be super helpful. It was about two weeks before I was able to make it all the way through the night without taking it off in my sleep, and probably another week before I started to feel a big difference in the morning. I hope it works out for you!
I try to try foods I don't like every 5 or so years, and I haven't had eggnog in probably a decade, but it turns out I really like it now!
So I definitely changed my mind on that.
I have found myself changing my mind so much on foods over the last year. I found a lot more tolerance for bitter things in general and am finding a lot more pleasure in drinks like unsweetened teas (Darjeeling is pretty great!) and flavored seltzers a la La Croix.
If you wanna push the bitterness much further, and also you drink alcohol, my favourite cocktail is the Negroni — equal parts gin, vermouth, and Campari bitters. It’s incredibly bitter, so be warned, but I absolutely love it!
I only drink on rare occasions, so I don’t have much taste for alcohol. I have not yet had much luck with gin, but I’ll try your recommendation if I can remember the next time I go drinking.
With or without alcohol?
Without. I don't drink.
If it's any consolation, I do drink alcohol and enjoy it, but I actually prefer unboozed eggnog more than boozed. So IMO you're not missing out on much by drinking non-alcoholic eggnog.
Good to know! I'm considering making homemade eggnog, which usually contains plenty of booze, almost more of a cocktail. I do love storebought too, although it can be a bit sweet which is why I'm hoping to control the flavour a bit more by making it myself. I hope you enjoy your newfound treat over the holidays :)
If you want the flavour of certain liquers without the alcohol, there's always the option of putting in a few drops of drink mix liquids or other kinds of concentrate. Rum is a much used flavouring where I am from, but as the concentrated flavour essence, not the actual alcohol.
Panspermia.
I was a critic, and obviously this criticism is still valid. However, I do not entirely reject the idea now. Why? Because a Kurzgesagt video pointed out something really interesting. There may have existed conditions for the emergence of life in outer space, with liquid water "between about 10 and 17 million years after the Big Bang". The timeframe is narrow, but the sheer scale is mindblowing. Sources: https://sites.google.com/view/sources-big-bang-life/
While this sheer fact doesn't prove panspermia, it makes it kinda plausible. Even if we had some basic life developing independently, since the elements for life seem to be abundant everywhere, it could have crossed with or had been outcompeted by space life.
In my slutty youth, I was definitely involved in some panspermia.
Sweet popcorn. Never really liked it but had some earlier this year, and now I kinda like it.
Ever had Chicago style popcorn (caramel corn mixed with cheddar cheese popcorn)? It's sweet and savory, and so so good!
Never heard about that, don't think I can get that anywhere in the Netherlands. I've had cheese flavored popcorn before but didn't really like it.
Allenbrands.nl has cheddar cheese popcorn and caramel corn... so if you want to try Chicago style you can just buy both and combine them yourself. Before a Chicago style mix was available here in Canada I used to do the same.
The Javascript/Typescript ecosystem. For years I was constrained to developing in a pre-ES6 compatibility world (MediaWiki's JS parser doesn't support ES6 yet, although they're finally working on modernizing now). So everything was jquery and I hated it so much.
This year I learned React & have built a couple SPAs, and god, I love it. I'm not gonna apologize for npm, but I really enjoy Typescript now.
I used to think Typescript was incredibly stupid, having a typed superset of a language with no performance benefits from that tradeoff of type safety, but TS has made implementing code on a team simpler, without needing to run tests first to find out you’re implementing something in an unexpected way, and some easier built-in patterning, so I’d say I’m in the same camp about TS specifically.
I read your comment shortly after you posted it, but wanted to come back now a few days later with a new thought I had: Arguably, TS decreasing the time it takes to debug (and thus the overall time of development cycles), as well as probably reducing the amount of crashes/erroneous behavior in production, is a form of performance benefit? Just not in the classically understood sense of “executing X takes Y time”.
I'm building a hobby web app where I use Typescript on the frontend. I was initially using JS but when the slightest bit of complexity arose on the frontend, I made the switch to TS mostly for the editor support because I kept shooting myself in the foot :D
I annotate only what I need to and it makes the work easier and more enjoyable!
After a sequence of monumental failures, I started this year very depressed about my "career" as an aspiring science fiction writer, and had totally given up on that. I changed my mind on that. Circumstances made me think it's still worth a shot.
As a fellow writer who is eyeing the door after many years of failure, may I ask what changed your mind?
Gas stoves. I used to think they were the ultimate cooking device, but then I started looking at induction, and... well, induction really does have most of the benefits (fine tuned temperature, temperature changes with no "latency" imposed by a heating element that has to heat or cool beneath your pan) of gas, without the major drawbacks (nasty air quality, overhead cost of a gas hookup, and the general expense and danger of maintaining gas infrastructure in your home).
Of course, what really did me in was using an induction stovetop, and realizing that I didn't miss gas at all. Icing on the cake? I loathe ads and propaganda (I view them as a kind of "mind virus", if I'm being honest, a bit like collective hypnosis) and some friends sent me some old gas stove propaganda videos from the 70s. The marketing was so aggressive and so baseless, it actively made me hate gas stoves through association.
I went through the same change in attitude a while back (I got a head start because my dad has always been an electrician, and when building his new house he decided he wanted to go completely electric for everything)
Now I find I’m even aware of little phrases and idioms that have crept into colloquial language, and it’s a little bit repulsive. “Now we’re cooking with gas” is a phrase I’ve heard people use basically all my life, and only recently has it suddenly felt gross. It feels like people are casually using some company’s slogan or tagline in everyday conversation without recognising the association.
You nailed pretty much all the major beats. Climate Town on YouTube did a great video that touches on all these points and more!
https://youtu.be/hX2aZUav-54?si=Fvi7K0KYmA5XQVpV
I changed my level of dedication to freeganism. It has been a useful practice and learning experience in connecting with both people and the divine. But now I'm once again open to using money in limited situations, when it seems like the most efficient way of getting somewhere.
Forgiveness, sort of. Difficult to explain and all this is very vague. I wish I could articulate it better for my own understanding.
It was difficult to forgive, in the sense of letting go for my own sake, when the past kept bouncing in my head. A lot's happened in the last few months, much of the intensity has faded and I haven't been experiencing hypervigilance and depression to extremes. That was partly due to seeing lots of new perspectives on other people, also because I figured out how to express what's been stuck in my head for so long. And I think also because I found some people who were saying things that really hit home for me, not just oft repeated platitudes about mental health.
In a sense, it wasn't "I changed my view on forgiveness", but rather "my state of mind changed, and this form of forgiveness became manageable".
I still can't forgive in the sense of absolving other people of the harm they did.
I've found that the word 'forgiveness' is used in two different ways by people:
One is the way where you accept what has happened, and instead of holding on to wanting to change someone or something, you let go of that idea and instead adapt your expectations and behaviours to account for how the situation is today. Including maybe keeping away from a person despite having forgiven them for what they have done.
The other is being okay with what happened and not being upset with anyone about it, and going back to the way things were before. If someone breaks a loved ornament by accident, but you forgive them and your are now good friends again. That kind of forgiveness.
Personally, I call the first kind of forgiveness "acceptance". Accepting that things are the way they are, and letting that inform my choices going forwards.
I thought of myself as the sort of person that was getting enough Vitamin D since I make a point of being active outside every day. I must be getting enough sunlight, right?
Well, I decided to try taking a Vitamin D supplement for about a month and it made a difference. Not a huge one mind you, but noticeable. Certainly, more than I would expect from a placebo effect. I was surprised by that and I take it regularly now.
Feels inconsequential compared to some of the other stuff here, but,
Five Nights at Freddy's. Ever since I first saw the game I thought it was just a medium for lame jump scares. I buried my head in the sand and made no attempt to learn about it, it was for kids, I was too cool for it.
When Willy's Wonderland dropped, my interest was piqued, but I realized this movie was just kind of trying to capitalize on the premise of FNAF, and it made me want an a real FNAF film. And once the trailer for the actual FNAF movie came out and I saw Jim Henson's creature shop was making the animatronics... I was all in, and enjoyed the movie quite a bit despite distancing myself from the franchise previously.
I've landed on Markiplier as my Let's Player of choice, and I've since binged him playing through the first five titles. I've actually become invested in the property and enjoy it.
Still too scared to play it for myself though 😅
I have started being more assertive this year, after I was cornered late at night by a man in an elevator last fall. Prioritizing my own needs and communicating them to people around me has empowered me to build a support network that has enabled me to avoid, buffer or completely ditch people in my life that were incredibly toxic or disrespectful. This process has caused me a lot of difficulty and hardship at this point, but it's just been worth it. Still worth it.