Gdiddy's comments

It's certainly a factor for many people. But frankly the way you've phrased it is pretty offensive to me - a non-obese person with severe central and obstructive SA.

You're also forgetting the confound that being chronically fatigued and having a screwed up cortisol, blood oxygenation and glycemic index (all due to lack of sleep), makes losing weight extremely difficult.

There's a lot to unpack here... But let me touch on a couple of the points you raise - from the perspective of a trained, but non-practicing therapist.

First of all, there are lots of terrible therapists out there. Especially of the 'religious counsellor' variety (I'm shuddering at the phrase). I had a similar negative experience with a school counsellor who had an academic degree in psychology (which involves zero client hours) and had self appointed herself as a therapist in the educational context.

So choosing the right therapist is key. Well trained therapists with good experience are not free. Someone is going to have to pay for what is an expensive and highly educated professional service (for example it can take up to a decade to become a clinical psychologist here in Ireland). That might be government, charity, or client payment - or it might be that some excellent therapists offer a portion of their time at a reduced rate; but it's extremely unlikely that you'll get good therapy for free.

To address your second point however, I have to emphasise that the goal of therapy is not to give advice. It's explicitly antithetical to most schools of psychotherapy / counselling. There are many reasons for this - the therapist is there to be the one person in your life who doesn't evaluate you, people respond negatively to advice (with 'reactance') even when they desire it, advice isn't necessarily generalisable. But overall, if you're looking for advice you need to talk to a domain expert - e.g.: someone whose doing the job you'd like. If you're going through emotional difficulties, counter-intuitively the last thing that will help is concrete advice.

What the research shows is effective are things like the relationship between therapist and client, trust, tailored interventions (e.g.: CBT for PTSD or OCD) etc.

If you're ever interested in resuming therapy, I'd recommend reading more into how the different kinds of therapy differ. It sounds like some form of CBT might be useful for you - but above all the important thing is to work with a professional whose a good personal match for you. Picking a therapist is selecting someone with whom you'll be forming an intimate relationship, and compatibility is vital. So I'd encourage shopping around.

Well this is awful... Their monetisation of OK Cupid killed the sites functionality. You literally have to pay to see 'more attractive matches', and search ranking is based on payment as well. What was once a place where the alternative / arts crowd could meet like minded folks is now awash with spam, poorly filled out profiles and other guff that makes it effectively useless for meeting a potential partner.

Huge misunderstanding of David Graeber's idea. Essentially a response which is actually an advertisement for a consultancy. Graeber doesn't attack specific occupations (the article's author didn't even bother finishing his initial 'bullshit jobs' piece, let alone the new book that fleshes out the idea). Instead, he examines why so many of us experience our work as meaningless - what is missing from occupations that would provide hedonic utility, fulfilment, engagement and intrinsic motivation. That's one aspect of Graeber's argument - the other side, again missed by the articles author - is that market 'efficiency' increases inequality, which has driven down the cost of labour and led to middle class occupations becoming curation of a bureaucratic process, rather than fulfilling, imaginative, measurably impactful work. Something, in Graeber's view, and mine, intrinsically destructive of human dignity.

The behavioural economic concept of 'hyperbolic discounting' serves as a pretty good explanation. We radically discount delayed consequences (e.g.: learning), while simultaneously overestimating our willingness to invest effort into the future.

You may find it easier to redesign your dream phone than the entire web.

I really like the clean design. But...

It needs to be much more customisable - moving, removing and adding sections.

Eg: I'm monolingual but can't remove the languages field.

There's no section for references.

There's no section for website.

There's no way to easily list work samples / project - much more relevant than employer if you're an independent contractor.

Really needs the ability to save and edit later.

Looking at that list, I think you might like Arcade and Retro, a podcast from Ireland which is still a going concern. I know the makers but have no stake in it, pretty good show. - http://arcadeandretro.com/

Edit: Scratch that - they're already on the list, missed it the first time