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Reddit user, u/giggglygirl, wanted to hear what your mom made you memorize when they asked:
What's the best advice your mom ever gave you?
Trust Your Gut. Seriously. Go With It.
If there's an uncomfortable feeling in your gut about a person, situation, or place, go with it. Listen to it and either protect yourself or gtfo.
Look In A Mirror Once In A While
Oh and also: "If you dislike someone for a character trait, make sure you don't have the same one. Things that annoy you in others, might be things you do yourself."
Never Not Mean It
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Something my grandfather told her, then she told me: "Hugs and handshakes, give them like you mean it"
Always Be Looking Ahead
"Happiness is just having something to look forward to."
You had your issues, mom, but this advice has served me well.
Again With The Mirrors. Must Mean Something.
"Look in the mirror and see if you see a friend in there.
If you don't, take a longer look and get the friend back."
Stop Taking It All So Seriously
My mom said "you young people get confused about dates, a date is just suppose to be a fun get together with someone, not meaning you're picking out life partners and deciding what house to buy. Just go out on a date, and have fun together, stop taking it so serious", this is one of the things i keep remembering when trying to go out on dates...(not that that happens that often).
You Are Not More Important Than They Are
In exasperation, my mom told me, "When you show up late, it tells people that you think your time is more important than theirs."
I used to be [chronically] late to nearly everything. And that statement just crushed me because I love my mom and my friends and would never purposely be disrespectful. I had just never looked at it that way before. I'm rarely late anymore and it's been amazing how something so seemly small has improved my relationships and has all around made my life better and less stressful than I could have expected. Wish Mom would have laid into me sooner.
And Then What Do We Always Do?
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"Don't touch that, it's too hot!"
I learnt that it was, indeed, too hot.
What I love about this childhood trope is that almost all of us touched it anyway
Guess it is hard for the danger version of the word 'hot' to have a real meaning without figuring it out yourself as well
It Only Happens To You Once
"You will never have to live this day again"- on my very first memorably bad day, coming home from school unable to stop sobbing.
I reuse it whenever trying to console someone after specific pains.
Everything Changes. Mostly You.
When I was a pre-teen she told me "as you get older you're going to think everyone around you is changing. It's not them that are changing, it's how you see the world that is changing"
I thought that was super weird advice, but as I got older and started to see adults for who they really were it really made sense. They weren't changing, I'd just never noticed that side of them before. I genuinely think it's why I wasn't a bratty teen, because I knew my parents were still the same parents, I was just seeing everything differently.
Tom for the Win!
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Tom, from Tom and Jerry. I mean that's his job, there's a rodent in the house. bizzywhipped
Ever notice how normally Tom is just going about his business when that thieving little sod Jerry turns up and starts messing with him?
Tom IS the good guy. GrinningD
Go head Medusa Girl!
Medusa. She gets such a rep. First she's assaulted by a god. Since she was assaulted in Athena's temple, Athena gets mad at her and turns her into a monster. Super sucks so she goes to live in an isolated place where men keep coming to try to kill her. She kills them, which I think is super justified until Perseus comes along and chops off her head. allycakes
The Humans are the Villains....
The ship from Wall-E.
Humanity had already doomed its home planet and transformed into a population of lazy slobs that could barely walk. Sending them back to Earth in the feeble hope that a lone sprout could revitalize a garbage-strewn wasteland was a death sentence, and the ship knew it... true love be damned. drmcsinister
Magneto Knows....
Magneto. In every X-men movie he keeps saying "The humans are going to wipe us out!" and then in Logan you can see that the humans have pretty much wiped them out. Reddit
Yes! The center conflict between Charles and Erik is that Charles believes humans can learn to accept them, and Erik believes that in their fear they will destroy them. Erik is obviously shaped by his experiences in the holocaust, and he knows exactly what humanity is capable of.
In pretty much every storyline, Erik's predictions come true. nuggetblaster69
From eating Trix to turning them...
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The Trix rabbit, all he wanted was a bowl of cereal and those kids never offered him some. So he turned to a life of crime thieving cereal. Tragic. HeyDannie
Imagine how much the Trix rabbit hates Tony the Tiger, who eats delicious cereal for every meal with no interference from meddling kids. sordines
The Machines the Saviors....
The "machines" in the matrix.
We destroy our own planet to destroy the machines, only to have the machines kindly take us underground and put us into pods where we can live in virtual reality that's exactly like how we lived before we destroyed our planet. megiverly
Just trying to survive!
Galactus.
Guy doesn't even want to conquer or destroy planets cuz he's "evil," literally devours planets just because it's how he stays alive. thepotatoprime
Yeah he's not a villain, he's just a force of nature. Not good, not bad. jjacobsnd5
Doing it for Justice....
General Francis Hummel
- Was completely bluffing
- Just wanted recognition and compensation for fallen heroes. walkingcarpet23
Poor judge of character when it came to picking his officers. RockerElvis
We all got bills to pay!
The landlord in "Rent."
He just wanted them to pay their rent. LAST YEAR'S RENT. He was very forgiving to let it go on that long! Like, it's all well and good that they're bohemians and pursuing acting and music and stuff, but maybe get a job on the side? bsweddingthrowaway
Not just a Monster.....
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Frankenstein's Monster, dude was just trying to make the best of his situation and kept getting shat on and never asked for any of it. Frankenstein was just a dweeby little prick who stumbled on something greater than his own understanding. XtacleRonnie
Be Invincible!
Ozymandias. Also, Robot from Invincible. xenulives
He saved the world from nuclear war, but he was a total butt about it. zzzaacchh
"Primed" & Ready....
Choose a Tales series villain. They tend to do this with their baddies.
Schwartz from Legendia wants to end human suffering... by destroying time itself.
Grand Maestro Mohs (pro. "mows") from Abyss wants to keep to what's known as the Score, a prophecy that promises prosperity for the planet... after a colossal war between the two largest countries that will kill a huge portion of the population.
Mithos from Symphonia wants to stop racism against half-elves... by genocide of humans and elves.
Bakur from Xillia 2 wants to help save the world by easing the burden of rebirth for the spirits... but that requires destroying parallel worlds. Plus it's suggested by some characters that the protagonists may not be from the "prime" dimension. Aniki1990
Gotham's Freakiest....
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Ra's al ghul
Gotham never got better to my knowledge for all of Batman's antics over the years. It just kept locking away violent psycho criminals who would later escape and the cycle would perpetuate if not get worse. More villains kept creeping out of the woodwork as Batman went along too - some created by his own actions/indirect actions. Gotham was just a breeding ground for violence and psychosis it seems. In "The Dark Knight" the Joker alludes to this stating that Batman himself is partly responsible for "freaks" like him coming into being. Showerthawts
Be Doomed!
Dr Doom has beaten Thanos.
Dr Doom has wielded the infinity gauntlet.
Dr Doom cured cancer and ended poverty.
Dr Doom is doom. ukima9
You're not a mean one Mr. Grinch!
One of my favorite tweets I've seen was a guy who said that the Grinch was justified. Something along the lines of, "the Grinch didn't hate Christmas. He hated people, which is fair." Lol mermaid-in-disguise
They weren't materialistic though. The Grinch was and thought they were like him. When he stole Christmas they still enjoyed it anyway. G_Morgan
Don't want to Miss a Thing....
The asteroid in Armageddon. It just goes where Newton tells it to. Rhodie114
People don't think the universe be like it is, but it do. Red_Chinchilla_1
Not the movie version...
Mister freeze from the batman franchise. Man just wanted treatment for his wife, not to harm. Watashiwarsh
Let the Skyfall...
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Raoul Silva in Skyfall. Tortured for days even weeks, his cyanide capsule failed severely disfiguring him and from his point of view he was completely abandoned by his agency. But I may just be biased because I think Javier Bardem played him brilliantly. Mammoth_Entertainer
Yo-Ho-Ho!!
Cutler Beckett from Pirates of the Caribbean. Since when is wanting to wipe out pirates a bad thing? Mad_Squid
Cutler Beckett was really just a different side of the coin. He wanted money and power in the same way the pirates wanted money and power. Cutler got his from the existing power structure and the pirates got theirs from going around it. Flutterwander
Lex is the Best!
Lex Luthor!
Everyone seems to be alright with a power existing that could, on a whim, destroy the planet or take over. Lex Luthor is trying to protect to human race from a potential threat. He has some more selfish aspirations but at his core he is doing what is best for humanity. If he could stop being so damn evil and killing people for no reason, that might make him a little more of a complex character.
S/O to Injustice comic series/video games for giving us a good story where superheroes go off the rails and it's up to mostly human heroes like Luthor and Batman to take them down. MooneySuzuki36
u/CaspertheGhostsFarts asked:
What is one thing you had never noticed before it was pointed out to you, but now you notice it all the time?
Here were some of the answers.
The Wild Beasts Howl And The Wild Winds Blow
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That in ancient cultures 40 was used as a general "quite a few." Not an uncountable amount, not infinite, but more than you want to casually count. In these old civilizations, where literacy was a treasure, being able to count to 40 was as much as most people cared to do.
Now any time I hear Bible stories, it strikes me (again) how silly literal interpretation based on the English version is.
Rained for 40 days and 40 nights = it rained for quite a while.
Fasted and prayed for 40 days.... wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.... it is EVERYWHERE
Tricks Of The Trade
My friend showed me how sometimes in a movie, when there's a character approaching the camera, they'll glance down at an out of shot cue-spot taped on the ground before the scene starts so they know exactly where to stop walking. Ever since he pointed that out to me I notice it in nearly every movie I see
The City That Never Sleeps
In NYC we have sewer drains on pretty much all the street corners, if you look on the curb above them you'll notice little spray paint marks.
Been living here for over 50 years and when one of those trucks came by my house to suck all the debris out the driver pulled out a few cans and marked it. I asked him why, he said that's how they keep track of when it was last cleaned, they have a color code chart that they check.
Now I see it all over the place.
For an image of what I'm talking about take a look here.
Diction Is Important
When I was about 10 years old, I took vocal lessons for a little while. For one of the songs I wanted to learn, the teacher told me that I kept singing "choo" instead of "you." She said people do it all the time when singing, and it always annoys her when she hears it in a song. Now I hear "choo" constantly when the singer is trying to say "you."
Not Actually A Viable Option
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In movies when people crawl through the air conditioning ducts. Somehow it always seems to be perfectly lit INSIDE the duct, no air flowing, VERY clean and NO screws to tear them up. I have worked around enough commercial HVAC equipment and installations to know that these are the stupidest things I have seen in movies and shows. In the real world you would not be able to see, be fighting very cold and fast air flowing while getting tore up by all the screws used to put the ducts together plus it will not be at all clean. Whoever came up with this misleading idea for entertainment is a jerk and a liar.
The President's Entire Platform
This may sound weird, but ad hominems. My best friend, who was on a debate team, introduced me to the term. For anyone who doesn't know, an ad hominem is when you attack the person rather than the argument/position he has (ieeg telling a guy he is "too young" to understand politics).
Since he told me about it, I've noticed how almost every person I try to have a discussion with, at some point, says an ad hominem to try to discredit my point by referencing me instead of explaining why the point is wrong. I realized then how often I use it during arguments, and I now actively try to stray away from it.
An Eye For Detail
I read somewhere that pretty much everything you see on screen is meaningful. Because literally every second of screen time costs so much money to develop (between cast, crew, editing, production, etc.), there is almost nothing "throwaway" that happens on the screen. If you see someone coughing, that's usually not just someone who is randomly coughing, as you say.
I had a somewhat related experience when I saw a recognizable actor in the background of a movie (it was a hospital drama, I think the one where Alec Baldwin has a god complex). My wife and I said "well, there's the bad guy." No way he's randomly in that shot.
Everything on screen is meaningful in some way. If someone randomly mentions that her brother is an elephant trainer in Kenya, that's probably going to be important later. If the movie takes a second to show someone putting an object on a table, it's because the movie needed to show you that object on the table.
It kind of changes the way you watch movies and television, honestly.
Aids For Enforcement
A small, inconspicuous blue light installed near a busy intersection that operates exactly in time with one of the signals. It's viewable from an area where a waiting police officer (who cannot actually see the traffic signal) can then know without a doubt who ran the red, and is then in a position to easily and safely make a traffic stop on the offender. I was on a ride-along a few years ago with one of our local officers who pointed this out to me. This particular one was slaved to a left-turn signal and it was positioned on the back of the signal pole such that the officer was ready to pull over scofflaws as soon as they completed their illegal left turn.
Oddly Sexualized Film Techniques
If an action movie has a female character with combat skills, you can bet there is a scene where she throws an enemy by doing this weird move where she wraps her legs around the enemy's head and spins.
Fight choreography in movies has gone to complete sh*t in the last 10 years and it's mostly poorly done fast cuts that are really hard to follow. John Wick excluded.
A Twinge Of The Eyes
When somebody points out input lag on a gaming system.
Another example is someone pointing out that Mario Kart 8 ran at 59fps instead of 60fps. This meant that every second, one frame would repeat itself and the game would stutter for 1/60 of a second. You couldn't notice it until they pointed it out and once they did, you could never unnotice it.
Here's what I mean. Also worth mentioning it was fixed in the switch port.
I was too young to really question that and by the time I was old enough it was just one of those beliefs that didn't ever get challenged so I never bothered to even think to question it. I was a book worm who spent most of my time reading educational books I checked out from the library.
In one of those books I leaned about the Ecumenical Council. I had no idea there were more books to the Bible. i had never heard of apocryphal texts or even considered that I was reading some highly watered-down and edited version of this "guide to life" - because I had absolutely been sold the idea of the Bible as a guide for life. I learned that a bunch of politically-minded men sat around and decided which gospels counted and which didn't. I learned there was tons of information out there that someone just decided I shouldn't know, so they got booted.
What!?! I felt so lied to! I had done a LOT of church and nobody had ever once mentioned that some royal dude put the bible together with some of his homies. Why was nobody talking about and reading from these other books when we were at church?
Little me was heated, fam. Heated. It had never occurred to me that information could just be altered, or kept from you, or used in any sort of a dishonest or less-than-honest way. It messed with me that I felt like the information was kept from me on purpose. Keeping things from kids is how you end up with suspicious, nosy, and angry little girls who lead tiny rebellions.
So one Reddit user asked:
What fact totally changed your perspective?
I needed to know if anyone else had the same sorts of reactions to that mind-blowing moment. Turns out no, I'm just extra and have been since childhood. Also turns out there's a lot of really interesting factoids that we didn't know or hadn't thought about. Here are some of the more popular responses. Some of these are still kind of messing with us, honestly. The one about making it three minutes could change a lot of lives.
Castles
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There are real life castles that are less expensive to buy than a New York City apartment.
Literally Nobody Cares
Most people are too wrapped up in their own lives and insecurities to focus on your little stumbles. Try to think of other people's embarrassing moments. It's actually quite hard to do! And if I do think of something, I don't dwell on it or give it more than a fleeting thought - it's usually no big deal. It's kind of nice to know that no one reeeeeally gives a shit and maybe that one cringey thing I once said isn't actually that big of a deal.
Related note - when I realized that I would never talk to someone the way I talk to myself, it was a little light bulb moment. Self compassion is a long road.
Not Your Problem
Knowing that the way someone treats you is often a reflection of their own problems or issues and quite possibly has nothing to do with you.
Two Problems
If you have a problem and you completely lose your head over it, you now have two problems.
- Saphnich
Actions And Perspective
We judge others on their actions, but ourselves on our intentions.
- BiJa90
I remember reading that the right question to ask is not "Am I a good person?"
It's, "What good do I do in the world?"
When I started thinking about it that way, I realized I wasn't actually a very good person.
- moal09
In psychology we call it the fundamental attribution error and applies to others as much as yourself. Basically the more familiar you are with someone, the more likely you are to understand their behavior as a result of circumstances. The less familiar you are, the more likely you are to blame something intrinsic about the person for the behavior being displayed.
For example, if a random drunk driver kills someone, you are likely to just dismiss them as a bad person who did a bad thing. If your best friend drives drunk and kills someone, you're more likely to think of it as them making a horrible mistake because they are having a rough time and it ended in a freak accident, etc.
That knowledge hit me so hard that this was one of the few tidbits from a psych degree that I've retained as meaningful.
Five Degrees
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During the last ice age, the global average temperature was only 5 degrees lower than it is now. It helped me understand why 2 degrees of global warming would be a pretty big deal.
- luchubbs
If I Wasn't Me
This sounds really obvious but bear with me. Recently I "realized" that reality only exists in one form and that's in you; your brain, your body, your perspective. So wishing you were someone else, looked like or acted like someone else or had different talents is literally wishing you were born in an alternate universe or something, which people don't typically do. Everyone accepts that we live on planet earth as humans and not mars as aliens. So what I need to accept is that the only life there is ever going to be is mine. I won't ever have the option to like, select to play as a different character or whatever because once I'm gone this is over. Like, from my perspective there was no reality before I was born as myself and the instant that I die the world will cease to exist. I mean sure, other people will live but I will not. Every single about me is literally the only thing that makes sense because if I wasn't me I wouldn't be anything at all.
- oKay21
I, too, have taken LSD.
but I do get what you mean.
Three Minutes
The longest a nicotine craving will last is 180 seconds. That means all I need to do is resist for 3 minutes. My last cigarette was January 25 2008.
- nivla73
It's OK To Whine
Just because someone has it worse doesn't mean you can't complain about your own problems. It's ok to be a whiny little b*tch sometimes.
Wash Your Face
No girl wants someone who doesn't take care of themselves.
I went a long time thinking girls were just shallow until I realized I never washed my face or got a personality.
Little Kids With Leukemia
I found out finances played a big role in this little girl dying of cancer in my hometown. It changed how I felt about healthcare.
I had my life repeatedly ruined by the VA and military after I got shot in Afghanistan. It made me vehemently opposed to any form of government healthcare for years. Then I watched this little girl in my home town die slowly from cancer over social media.
Her family did Gofundme's and sold T-shirts to raise money for the treatments. She died after a bitter, heart wrenching, struggle and her family was completely ruined emotionally and financially. It really shocked and scarred me. She was a beautiful, innocent, little kid going through an unimaginable horror. I felt deeply for her because of my own medical struggles and when I found out that expenses played a large contributing factor in her death it really broke my mind.
I still have the t-shirt her family sold, it's hanging up in my closet next to a bunch of my old Marine Corps shirts I'm too fat to fit in anymore. I really think we need universal healthcare. I think this kind of thing explains why the VA has been allowed to be so terrible for so long. If we don't give a f*ck about little kids with leukemia then how is anyone going to give a f*ck about a grown ass man getting shot in a war?
- Mick0331