Hopelessness and injustice seem to be the current zeitgeist - at least for anyone who spends a lot of time online. And I get it, there's plenty to be unhappy about.
But my counter-argument is that it's possible to do things in life that you're proud of. And find happiness in the simplest of places. And most people would do better to focus the majority of their attention on those things.
This story says "do yourself a favour and forgive yourself for any failings on your part, you’re only human after all" - which I agree with. But I'd go one step further and add "celebrate your successes" and try to align your life in such a way that you can have successes worthy of celebrating.
It makes me wonder: with everyone seemingly so unhappy, why aren't there more people pursuing alternative lifestyles? Similar to the 60s counterculture. You don't need the whole world to go along with you - just a handful (or less) of likeminded people. Or some people even manage to go it alone.
It seems a lot of people (perhaps a vocal minority?) actually enjoy being upset. Or maybe everyone is going through ups and downs but we just tend to be more vocal when we're upset.
generally land costs
I think the brony and furry community count for some examples. Brony community has been a major counter-culture since its inception and I truly believe it's had a measurable impact on gender norms and some other areas. Many of us see it as something of a lifestyle where it dominates the spaces we primarily engage in etc.
Furry is even bigger and easier to argue as a popular counterculture lifestyle, and growing all the time (record convention attendance every year).
They're also places where some other things like polyamory are more common, and much more LGBT/etc inclusive than average (which is less of a statement now, but they were both far ahead of the curve on that years ago), refreshingly sex-positive (at least the parts of the communities I identify with).
Personally all of those things apply to me and I love being a part of those communities. Brony community has been a hugely important thing in my life since high school and working on game development there was a big jumpstart on experience working in a team/technical experience. Furry I only started exploring more a few years ago but I've made a lot of great friends and met my current partners there too.
Brony's a consistent core of lifetime holdouts like me and a steady trickle of new people at this point, and furry's growing faster all the time - even the little bonfire meetup at a nature preserve I like to go to had a record smashing attendance on opening day this year.
I'd also add that I think the increased self-ID of young people in the LGBTQ community is in and of itself sort of a means to access a sort of alternative lifestyle. Many of these people live somewhat hedonistic, bohemian, artsy lifestyles that disregard traditional notions of success or traditional standards and mores in relationships and love.
Why don't you believe in the experience after dying ?
It's a scary feeling if you can grasp it. Grasping non-existence from within existence is difficult, I've consciously tried to do it and succeeded a couple of times, but it's fleeting and both times it affected my breathing and heart rate in a similar way to fear or panic or pain.
That being said, you can't just assume that existence is bounded by your living memories. You might as well have been everything instead of nothing prior to being spawned and you just don't remember it.
I was going to raise that, but couldn't find a short enough way to describe it properly. Something like:
Existence beyond what you can actually remember doesn't matter because it's outside any bounds of practical discussion; it should be excluded from consideration. The same way it's impossible to predict anything 'before the big bang' because we only have 'after the big bang' as useful evidence. There is no way to verify any continuity if you can't remember it or if there is no evidence of it. There's no guarantee you can even comprehend what it could be, 'you' as a concept may not even exist and it's unlikely to be relate-able to anything in this living world. Maybe you return to being 0.00001% of the collective consciousness of the universe, or any other crackpot thing anyone wants to suggest. Flying Spaghetti Monster.".