Here are 5 things you should know.
1. Romanians are welcoming the Ukrainian refugees with open arms and food. There are a lot of people who are renting their homes without any charge to the refugees. Also, there is an animal shelter that is going to host Ukrainian pets of any kind.
2. How people treat you is not a reflection of your value or who you are.
Shitty people are everywhere in the world. And sometimes even the best of people can do shitty things. Focusing too much on what you might have done to deserve being treated in a specific way, or wondering why someone you love would hurt you often just leads to pain without solutions.
Quick disclaimer: This is a HUGE topic and there’s no way anyone can get to the bottom of this in just a few paragraphs. This is just a humble attempt at catching the most important things.
In my personal experience, people usually end up hurting each other as a result of poor communication. I think this poor communication can be divided into a few different groups
- Not knowing properly what is important to the other person ahead of time
- Not communicating about how others have hurt you before
- Not communicating to someone how they specifically might have hurt you before
- Not being honest when something does happen that would hurt the other person
People might still end up hurting you even if communication has been excellent though. In these cases, it’s still not a reflection on you, your value, or your person. It’s far more often a projection of who the other person is.
So what can be done?
- Trying to avoid the missteps in communication listed above Inquire about what matters to other people and don’t be afraid to ask deeper questions concerning what they care about.
- Lead by example Being open and honest is difficult. Especially for men in a macho culture or anyone else in an environment where feelings are frowned upon. However, it gets easier the more people embrace the emotions of others as well as themselves. Start with the man in the mirror and be supportive of others. Even if you disagree with their moral values or decisions.
- Make it easy for others to communicate with you Respond positively and constructively when someone is open and honest with you. Try to avoid making a joke of things unless you’ve established that this makes it easier for the ones involved. When someone does hurt you; try to understand what lead up to it and how it happened, rather than laying blame. Look for solutions to the problem at hand and don’t be afraid to accept your part in it. (I have never experienced someone making me regret taking on any blame. I personally also think the relationship is more important than being right)
- Some people are toxic or just incompatible Sometimes things hurt or just don’t work for reasons we can’t do anything about. This also means there are people we will be perfect with for reasons nobody else can change. Don’t worry too much if someone hurts you or things don’t work out with someone specific. It’s not because you’re bad or because you deserve to be treated poorly.
3. If you’re attempting to flee Ukraine right now, there’s a website that can help you.
Currently, you do not need a visa. There is apparently some talk about disinformation regarding whether or not Poland’s border is closed. It is not.
https://www.gov.pl/web/udsc/ukraina
If you don’t intend to fight or stay head West.
4. This is how to identify and avoid market manipulation with collectibles (like WATA/Heritage Auctions is doing with retro video games).
Periodically, certain collectible items experience the “tulip craze” phenomenon where prices spike to incredible levels, only to crash a short time later leaving people who bought in “holding the bag” after overpaying for near-worthless goods. We saw this with collectible coins in the 1980s, Pogs and beanie babies in the 1990s, and now it’s happening with retro video games and VHS tapes.
Sometimes these crazes happen naturally, but they can also happen through deliberate market manipulation. For example, right now prices for sealed retro video games appear to be skyrocketing. Maybe you saw the allegedly record-breaking $1.5 million auction of a copy of Mario 64 or some other stunning sale of a game that seems to fetch incredibly high prices that were inconceivable just a few years ago. Well, they were inconceivable a few years ago because the entities fixing prices hadn’t yet started their ploy.
In this video, Karl Jobst lays out exactly how WATA and Heritage Auctions are colluding to manipulate video game prices for their own gain. And he also shows how some of the same people did it for collectible coins in the 1980s. The steps are simple and recognizable:
- set up an entity that grades a collectible, and have that entity take a cut for every product it grades
- have the grading entity “slab” each collectible: putting it in a fancy plastic case with a certificate of grading
- work with a less-reputable auction house to facilitate sales for record-breaking prices by anonymous (inside) buyers, thereby catching the attention of news outlets
- keep reselling (internally) the same collectible periodically so that the price appears to keep going up and news outlets report what appears to be a trend
Innocent people get swept up in these crazes, buying and selling in order to make quick cash. Inevitably the market bubble bursts and the people who bought in expecting the value to continue skyrocketing are “left holding the bag” with items that are far less valuable than they paid. The only people who are guaranteed to profit are the ones who fixed the market and know the real prices of the goods.
5. There is an updated pain scale for when you’re needing medical attention.
This is a more accurate way to relate pain, and it allows the person suffering to give a fairly objective estimate vs a number that is fairly subjective as everyone perceives pain differently.
