It’s perfectly natural to be scared of change but it is fruitless because change is going to happen whether you want it to or not. Even if you stay here, things are going to change. Remember that and use it to help you get past your fear of change.

You’re also focusing on the negatives, what about the positives? What if this internship turns out to be the best thing you’ve ever done? What if it does lead you to wanting to stay there which then leads you to an amazing life that you love and makes you happy? Even if you stay here, you and your partner might not stay together and how would you feel if you gave up this opportunity and you guys break up 6 months down the road and you’re full of regret for not taking the internship?

If I were you I would 100% take the internship abroad, that’s an opportunity that the majority of people don’t get. Take it!

Fellow plant enthusiast here, thanks for the link to your instance!

This is my first experience with fediverse, I had never even heard of it before. So far it’s going okay, there are some things I wish were different or easier, but maybe that’s just because it’s new and feels clunky because I haven’t figured it all out yet.

In general though I am enjoying Lemmy so far, it feels like being on internet message boards back in the old days (20-25 years ago)!

I agree that this will be a fun evolution to watch!

The one thing that I don’t like is that you can’t change your home instance. I signed up for Lemmy without knowing anything about it, and I mean I knew absolutely ZERO about how it works. Therefore, I just clicked on a random instance because I didn’t even know what an instance was, and I signed up. So what if I joined the wrong one for me? What if it turns out to be shit? I Guess I could just sign up for a different one with a different login, but wish there was an option to jump to a new one with your same login if you wanted to.

Oh god I got so tired of the jokes. In the beginning I liked to see them peppered in here and there, and I love a good pun, but it just became so overdone and forced. Every thread was just lines and lines and lines of jokes (many of them weren’t even good) with no actual conversation. It got boring.

I think you’re right that trying to figure out how it all works will be a barrier for some and they won’t bother. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of user base this grows into!

In a way I’m a little sad but I’m also hopeful. I started on Reddit 13 years ago and it was a very different place than it is now. I liked it better then, and I think I’m sad and will miss it for what it was, not what it is. I’m hopeful for a fresh start here on Lemmy where it feels like I’m getting back to the actual conversation with other users, which is what I miss about the current Reddit. There’s very little conversation there anymore, so much of it is just pictures and jokes and bots.