We hear about all the young people making a big deal of their successes in their early years. Twenty-something tech gurus or entrepreneurs that make their fortune early.
Who here is past 45-50 and maybe made a switch or restarted and found success and a modicum of happiness in their new position?
I have ADHD and do the same thing with hobbies…so hear me out here.
I worked in the industry of my college degree for 7 years but the company killed my interest in it. I switched careers, quickly learned it wasn’t for me, and changed industries again less than a year later.
I felt like a failure and stayed at that job for 6 years, staying miserable the whole time. I thought that would be my life forever as I missed my chance at securing a career in my 20s.
But then I was talking to a guy I used to work with about it and he asked if I had considered another (less drastic) change. I didn’t think I had the skills for it but he encouraged me to message another old coworker anyway. I did - and his referral led to an interview where I lied about knowing AutoCAD. I was offered the position and watched tutorials for 2 weeks and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. I love what I do now and hope to work here for 20+ years
I know where your head is at and I know it’s borderline impossible to see a bright future but…keep your eyes open. There’s a ton of jobs out there that I’m sure you’d be great at even though you don’t even know exist.
Your current skills may be applicable or at the very least transferrable. Hobbies CAN lead to careers and I’ll bet the sum of your short-lived ones add up to something interesting. Your life definitely isn’t over.
Just to add to this - worth searching job sites casually and just paging thru “remote” and “no degree” without a keyword.
Haven’t found my perfect niche yet, but have definitely discovered a bunch of stuff that never crossed my mind.
Oh don’t get me wrong I am actually happy. Most of my life was just a struggle to survive, being a refugee etc constantly living constantly suffering from a cruel illness as well as under the fear of death and poverty(esp. homelessness). I feel like it’s pretty standard stuff for a working class genz, I don’t know anyone who even chose jobs before, everyone took what they could get and tried to make the best of it.
Still, years ago I couldn’t imagine the comforts I have now. Non-plastic silverware, dehumidifier, it’s crazy.
Every year my life is quite literally objectively better than the last. I feel blessed.
Thanks for writing all that anyway though I hope it helps someone!
As for me I don’t give a flying fuck about what I do because no matter what skills I have it’ll just be used to exploit labour more efficiently by corporations that do somehow probably ties back into marketing or other ways to be a parasite on the supply chain, but it’s a shame I was not born a sufficient genius to dictate terms to them e.g. being a big name in academia etc but eeeeh wasn’t meant to be.