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I was thinking about the posters here on Dakka, both the ones I get along with and the ones I can get into some ugly disagreements with. One thing is common among 99% of them is the fact that however the conversations go on these threads, I find that I have a great deal of respect for the amazing things they do in life as well as the way they can defend their point and put ideas across.
I was wondering what some moment of life was that made the posters here feel really good about themselves. It doesn't have to be some Earth shattering heroic saga, but instead might be a quiet moment where something was learned or done.
Among those times that stand out for me, such as the birth of my daughters, and the desire I felt to educate and protect them along with the pride I have in my wife for the strength and love she showed in bringing them into the world.
Another thing is the fact that I modified a very strong stance I had on the death penalty, thanks to d-usa using a well reasoned approach of explanation. That was a major change, trust me, and I think about it from time to time, thinking d could have been a lawyer with the skill he demonstrated in that conversation.

Anyway, have at it, folks.

Well...
Any moment making me feel good about myself ?

Nope.

Every time I look in the mirror.

Bam. Instant positive reinforcement.

 kronk wrote:
Every time I look in the mirror.

Bam. Instant positive reinforcement.

That's something I thought went without saying.

Seeing our daughter smile.

Realizing I have a good job, am in an excellent marriage, get paid to travel the US, and have free time to paint doesn't suck, either.

Graduating college. Sure, it's cliche, but seeing how much some people struggled, especially in my program, where my school has a 41% graduation rate, graduating late still felt like a million bucks.

Seeing the birth of my daughter and realizing I will do everything in my power to protect her and keep her safe.

When I was a tank platoon leader I had a E5/SGT as my wingman tank commander. This was rare as it was an E6/SSG position and the company I was in had been hand picked with the best TCs and gunners from the BN to test the M1A2s. SGT P was a stud. Quiet, soft spoken, massively professional. And a real killer (he had the longest US kill from a tank in Desert Storm as a gunner). Just a phenomenal NCO and frankly a phenomenal person. His track was always in great shape and his crew was superbly trained and led. Unfortunately for SGT P, he had always been in units that were deployed or in the field so much he didn't have much more than a high school education, being too busy to take college courses. At one point he missed the E6 promotion cut off by a handful of points, directly attributable to his lack of education. I decided to fix that. I forced him to sign up for courses and even during extensive field time I worked with the company 1SG to ensure we could get SGT P back to the rear for his classes, even if he had to attend them smelly and mud covered. He resisted at first but like the great NCO he was, accepted the mission I gave him and knocked out an associates degree.


Fast forward about 18 months, and I had moved on to the BN Recon platoon, leaving SGT P and the rest of the tankers behind. One day he came up to me in the motor pool to tell me he had finally gotten the points for E6 and was due to be promoted the following week. He asked me to come back and be the one to promote him. He could have had his current PL, his CO CDR, the BN CDR or even the BDE CDR do the honor, but he chose me even though I was no longer in his chain of command.

I felt damned good, and damned proud to know I had helped a great trooper continue on to do even greater things.

At the end of August I finished writing my first book which will be published in the first quarter of 2016.

The book took just under two years to write while juggling a full-time job and a second part-time teaching position. The writing process was grueling and awesome all at the same time, and I learned a lot about myself and the basics of writing for publication.

That feeling of elation when hitting "send" to submit my manuscript was pretty intense, though, and made the previous two-year struggle entirely worth the effort.

What's the name of it? I'll keep an eye out for it.

Aye, post a link in your signature or something.

Thanks guys.

You'll be hearing about it soon in the N&R forum. Its a gaming book for the system Wreck-Age. Not sure what else I can say at the moment without getting in trouble.

 CptJake wrote:

Spoiler:

When I was a tank platoon leader I had a E5/SGT as my wingman tank commander. This was rare as it was an E6/SSG position and the company I was in had been hand picked with the best TCs and gunners from the BN to test the M1A2s. SGT P was a stud. Quiet, soft spoken, massively professional. And a real killer (he had the longest US kill from a tank in Desert Storm as a gunner). Just a phenomenal NCO and frankly a phenomenal person. His track was always in great shape and his crew was superbly trained and led. Unfortunately for SGT P, he had always been in units that were deployed or in the field so much he didn't have much more than a high school education, being too busy to take college courses. At one point he missed the E6 promotion cut off by a handful of points, directly attributable to his lack of education. I decided to fix that. I forced him to sign up for courses and even during extensive field time I worked with the company 1SG to ensure we could get SGT P back to the rear for his classes, even if he had to attend them smelly and mud covered. He resisted at first but like the great NCO he was, accepted the mission I gave him and knocked out an associates degree.


Fast forward about 18 months, and I had moved on to the BN Recon platoon, leaving SGT P and the rest of the tankers behind. One day he came up to me in the motor pool to tell me he had finally gotten the points for E6 and was due to be promoted the following week. He asked me to come back and be the one to promote him. He could have had his current PL, his CO CDR, the BN CDR or even the BDE CDR do the honor, but he chose me even though I was no longer in his chain of command.

I felt damned good, and damned proud to know I had helped a great trooper continue on to do even greater things

.

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

When I'm trying to make something good for myself others think bad about me,

 kronk wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

Spoiler:

When I was a tank platoon leader I had a E5/SGT as my wingman tank commander. This was rare as it was an E6/SSG position and the company I was in had been hand picked with the best TCs and gunners from the BN to test the M1A2s. SGT P was a stud. Quiet, soft spoken, massively professional. And a real killer (he had the longest US kill from a tank in Desert Storm as a gunner). Just a phenomenal NCO and frankly a phenomenal person. His track was always in great shape and his crew was superbly trained and led. Unfortunately for SGT P, he had always been in units that were deployed or in the field so much he didn't have much more than a high school education, being too busy to take college courses. At one point he missed the E6 promotion cut off by a handful of points, directly attributable to his lack of education. I decided to fix that. I forced him to sign up for courses and even during extensive field time I worked with the company 1SG to ensure we could get SGT P back to the rear for his classes, even if he had to attend them smelly and mud covered. He resisted at first but like the great NCO he was, accepted the mission I gave him and knocked out an associates degree.


Fast forward about 18 months, and I had moved on to the BN Recon platoon, leaving SGT P and the rest of the tankers behind. One day he came up to me in the motor pool to tell me he had finally gotten the points for E6 and was due to be promoted the following week. He asked me to come back and be the one to promote him. He could have had his current PL, his CO CDR, the BN CDR or even the BDE CDR do the honor, but he chose me even though I was no longer in his chain of command.

I felt damned good, and damned proud to know I had

a great trooper continue on to do even greater things

.

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

I'll second that. Truly amazing people here.

Kintergarden till 8th I was in special Ed classes. I needed help with some things, Math mostly(Didnt learn to Add until 6th grade) Alot of teachers said I most likely had a low IQ. like 70s or maybe even 60s. They said I most liekly will never graduate and will have to be taken care of. My mom didnt believe it. But I did, kinda. In Highschool I left those classes, went onto regular. Passed those fine.
Now, Im poised to graduate this spring. Granted this quarter I might fail a class(Music is hard OK?) but 6 years and never getting below a C in a class is still good. I'm going on to get my masters in Forensic Sociology.
And the IQ thing? Last time I check 115-125. Pretty average.
Im still gonna need to be taken care of, but thats cause of the Job Market now LOL.

When I help someone, two others blame me for not helping them.

 CptJake wrote:

Spoiler:

When I was a tank platoon leader I had a E5/SGT as my wingman tank commander. This was rare as it was an E6/SSG position and the company I was in had been hand picked with the best TCs and gunners from the BN to test the M1A2s. SGT P was a stud. Quiet, soft spoken, massively professional. And a real killer (he had the longest US kill from a tank in Desert Storm as a gunner). Just a phenomenal NCO and frankly a phenomenal person. His track was always in great shape and his crew was superbly trained and led. Unfortunately for SGT P, he had always been in units that were deployed or in the field so much he didn't have much more than a high school education, being too busy to take college courses. At one point he missed the E6 promotion cut off by a handful of points, directly attributable to his lack of education. I decided to fix that. I forced him to sign up for courses and even during extensive field time I worked with the company 1SG to ensure we could get SGT P back to the rear for his classes, even if he had to attend them smelly and mud covered. He resisted at first but like the great NCO he was, accepted the mission I gave him and knocked out an associates degree.


Fast forward about 18 months, and I had moved on to the BN Recon platoon, leaving SGT P and the rest of the tankers behind. One day he came up to me in the motor pool to tell me he had finally gotten the points for E6 and was due to be promoted the following week. He asked me to come back and be the one to promote him. He could have had his current PL, his CO CDR, the BN CDR or even the BDE CDR do the honor, but he chose me even though I was no longer in his chain of command.

I felt damned good, and damned proud to know I had helped a great trooper continue on to do even greater things.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
When I help someone, two others blame me for not helping them.

Yet you still help people, correct? That in itself says something about you.

Thanks, really it was so simple to look at it from this way

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Thanks, really it was so simple to look at it from this way

Easy to say since I've known and worked with enough cool Russians in my time.

Finding skills in people and getting them applied makes me feel good.

Had a temp help guy working on the line.
Talked to him off and on and found him motivated and willing to learn.
Asked to "borrow him" to work for my group and started teaching him what I knew or pointed him to good information on the job: he did the rest.
Got the company to pay for his night classes at the college as long as he passed.
He got a degree and the rotten turkeys took him from me and made him floor supervisor and a full time employee.

I have helped others in some similar ways but it really had a positive impact on his life, things were rather rough on the personal end.

Touch a life for the better, one person at a time.

It makes me feel really good when I succeed where other fail. I like watching the chaff fall by the wayside as I continue onwards.

Its complimentary to making sure you surround yourself with people who are happy, strong, and successful.

After losing 108 lbs, and my gym chain asked me to do modeling for their ads and posters. They paid me, and tbh at first I didn't think they were serious. A few weeks later, my phone started blowing up from people I talk to daily, to people I haven't spoken to in a decade! "You showed up in my mailbox! You look crazy blah blah blah" Dem girls too, mmmmmmmmmmm. People in the gym all gas me up too, but the novelty has faded, obviously.

Now I do photos a few times a year, it's good money just to take my clothes off and it's something I do for a whole list of reasons anyway - may as well bank on it.

I initially started going just to lose some weight, was tired of being 268 lbs - feeling sick all the time, joints hurt, looked like hell, etc. I was only 22! Signed up to the gym and began going at 5am (didn't want people I knew to see me). Eventually looked 'okay', then surpassed the regulars, now I'm one of the most shredded dudes in the place at 26 years old, all natural. Victory, victory, victory.

^^ Legit. Very legit.

I feel you on the self improvement thing. Respect for your discipline.

 Talizvar wrote:
Finding skills in people and getting them applied makes me feel good.

Touch a life for the better, one person at a time.

Pretty much the same for me, in that I feel best about myself when I can help someone else achieve something that, while they certainly could have achieved without me, I had a hand in. Since my experience of this comes mostly in education, put simply I feel just as good knowing that someone I helped through a course has passed the exam with flying colours as I do passing that same exam myself.

And moreover, it is not a case of me 'making' someone better at something, I just do my best to help them realise what they can do but didn't know they could. In general I find myself far more motivated to do something if it's going to help out someone else than if it's just for me.

On a personal note, starting out commission painting was a big one for me. Not because I'm getting a load of extra cash from it (I'm not) but simply because my painting has come far enough that people are willing to pay for it, which is just amazing when I look at my own stuff from a year or two ago and how much I've improved since then.

The other one was getting into university. Perhaps not what someone who knew me would regard as a shock as I've generally done rather well academically, but there was a period a couple of years back after I didn't do particularly well in my AS exams that it looked a bit shaky. To have got past that and now be at uni and back 'on form' as it were, is something I think I am very much the better for.

I never had much in the way of friends as a kid. I was the, "weird kid," and a lot of people would avoid me like the plague. I don't think I had a strong group of friends until grade 12. I went through a battle with depression for 4-ish years during my high school years, but in grade 12, I decided to tryout for the school musical, as a sort of last gamble.

Fast forward past awkward introductions, and not only did I get a group friends, but I found I was pretty good at acting, and my confidence shot up too. The months during which we had our practices were the happiest moments of my life.

Since then though, every, and I mean every time I go and do something with people, whether it's talking for 5 minutes, or going out drinking, it's enough to put a smile on my face for the rest of the day. I remember that I didn't give up through those years of depression, and I consider this my, "reward," for fighting through the worst of it. It's something I can look back and feel proud of.

Unlocking based on user feedback in Nuts & Bolts.

My two kids make me feel awesome all the time. I now find myself trying to go better just so they have a decent role model to look up to. This change in my views on the world happened just a few years ago when they were just starting school and it hit me one day I can't just sit around and be lazy and expect them to see me as a worth while role model. It's a great feeling when they make sure I call when I'm on the way home so they can come out side and wait for me.

My kids are everything to me and that's an awesome feeling worth smiling about

I was driving home at about 2am from a buddies house after a long gaming session, and the expressway was basically empty as far as the eye can see. Suddenly, I see headlights rushing up behind me and a car goes screaming past at about 90, swerving all over both lanes, and soon outdistances me around some curves in the expressway.

About five miles later when I am actually nearly ready to turn off the highway and head to the little town where my wife and I live, I come around another corner and see nothing but huge smoke across the entire expressway, and there was so much that my actual first thought was that there was a nearby house or chunk of woods on fire, but it's actually the car that passed me. It's on it's top in the ditch, and the "fire" flashing I saw was the roof lights of a guy's pick-up truck pulled over. I slammed on the breaks just past the wreck and ran back to help. The guy and his wife was a first-responder, and he said he saw them ahead of him flip three or four times into the ditch, so bad that there's pieces of car all over the expressway.

When I came upon him, he was working on a girl who had been thrown about 20 feet free of the wreck (none of the idiots had seatbelts on) and had actually come out of the passenger-side window so damn hard that it stripped her pants and underwear completely off so she was just laying there naked in the grass. He yelled that I had to come over and stabilize her head while he checked on two other people. She was completely unconscious and I just had to kneel down and do it. I could hear her breathing, but it was pretty scary in retrospect because I remember I could hear it rasping around her swollen tongue.

It was one of those eerie moments where you don't really feel scared or heroic or anything, really- you just act. I just knelt there and kept talking to her as comfortingly as I could, hoping that maybe she could hear me (she was completely limp and outwardly unresponsive). Just had to tell her to hang on and everything was going to be all right, and if she could hear me, I was there to help her.

Eventually the paramedics showed up from the last town I had passed (we live in a pretty rural area, so even on the highway it's a couple of miles, plus three or four through the town from their ambulance barn- incidentally it was my home town), and I helped them get her on a back-board and get oxygen into her whereupon she finally started moaning and coming around.

Turns out there was a guy over deeper in the grass I never even saw, who I think I heard died on the scene.

For a wargaming nerd who got picked on in highschool and regularly goes LARPing, I felt like a goddamn hero. Never got the girl's name, and she never even opened her eyes to see me. Feels so cool and eerie to me that just maybe if she was conscious enough to remember, that I'm some sort of ghostly unknown figure that just sat with her while she was hurt.