Quote:
Originally Posted by statisticsnerd
Oh come on. My 20s were all about struggling to establish myself in a career, getting my first tastes of office politics and layoffs, ridiculous work hours, bills, budgeting, etc. I'd imagine most people's favorite time is when they are finally retired and can do what they want.
To OP, you have some options that shouldn't be too hard to attain. You can join the military and stay in for 20 years, then collect a pension. You could also teach English overseas. It isn't too hard to get a TEFL certificate and then hired. There are a TON of those jobs available. It might be kind of a neat experience for you anyway. Alternatively, you could drive a semi. They are gone all the time but make decent money. You just need a few weeks of classes and a CDL and then you will be hired as there are tons of trucking jobs available.
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Thank you. Thank you for injecting an adult perspective to this conversation because if I had seen one more "pat on the head ,coddled, poor you, here's a pill" post, I would have left the thread.
Our ancestors used to call the OPs circumstances, "life experience", "acquisition of wisdom", "trials and triumphs" or "passage into adulthood".
Today, most people live such soft, cushy lives in comparison to what most of human history had to endure (and true even today in other parts of the world) that that ANY adversity produces the blues, a depressive response, or a wallow in self pity event, which of course, is made worse by reinforcement with external pity, is an abnormal crisis.
Welcome to your life, Maddog.
It's pandemic. I assume that you (statisticsnerd) are likely in your mid 40's up? Well, our generation was well into this culture of self-wallowing and "instafixes in a pill" to restore the gosh-darn, guaranteed right to blissful happiness that is missing because circumstances have treated one badly (don't you dare insinuate that one had a big hand in creating those circumstances, why that would be insensitive! - I guess I must be a real moron because I have been ENTIRELY responsible for all of my screwups and left-turns, LOL), and I'd say a good portion of Boomers, and Gen X are poisoned with this state of mind.
And guess who their children are? And grandchildren?
They are the ones sitting in mom and dad's basement cranking World of Warcraft 11 hours a day, wallowing in their self pity while consuming tons of instant fix Ritalin and Prozac to combat "life's unfairness" and their "clinical depression". Clinical? Wow, that sounds serious. Someone call an ambulance.
Maddog. Butch up. You are at a crossroads and before you, is a trial that could skyrocket you into an incredible future if you look at this present hurdle as an opportunity to EARN self esteem and confidence, to prove to yourself that you can overcome adversity (that will be needed in the future, I PROMISE you that) and while this present medicine that you have to swallow (I don't mean pills) tastes bitter now, in 30 years you will be telling your grandchildren the same types of stories that you have been told here, while looking back over the whole affair explaining it all to some young man in a forum stuck in the same rut that you too had to once plow through.
When using the pronoun "your" in the following, I am referring to your generation and not necessarily you Maddog. So don't come apart on my buddy, ok?
Your goofy teachers failed you when they handed everyone in your generation a trophy for participating because "everyone wins". (See now, how that is BS?. The real world is cruel, and your role models of your youth I deeply suspect shielded you from that cruelty and as a result inflicted the greatest possible cruelty on your generation) Your parents and teachers failed your generations when they doted on you excessively, pampered you and wiped your noses into your 20s, and became your best friends before you guys were out of diapers, instead of taking the much tougher, more difficult, and responsible role of parent. The parents and adults of your generation failed when they so gullibly bought into the snake oil fraud Dr. Benjamin Spock's pseudo intellectual pop psychology, treating generations, starting with my own ( I am turning 50) as a grand lab experiment in behavioral modification that on a grand scale, is generating results that aren't looking so good.
But here's the good news. You are not alone. You're not "weird" relative to these latest generations. The generation before you, and your very generation, are rife with the effects of this modern pseudo psychological nonsense and you can exploit that!
Make a commitment to yourself to accept responsibility for your place in life, do that, and you will rocket yourself miles ahead of the "competition". Drill into your heart, and between your ears that you WILL accept responsibility for your own outcome, for your own actions, and the world will be your oyster. Here's the punchline: Because so many are NOT doing that, if you do, then you will be able to walk through many doors that they don't have a key to. Don't do that and I guarantee you that the trophy "We are all winners" that your little league team got for its pathetic 2-18 season will lose more luster with every passing year. Do what we say here and in 10 years you'll be using that trophy as an oil pan in your garage.
Best of luck to you. You are at a crossroads and from this vantage point, the direction to turn is obvious.
Tell you what. These kind of threads tend to be memorable. You come back here in a year or two and tell us about how you decided to take the bull by the horns and how you are already executing x% of your plan, and people here, including myself, will want to buy you a beer when we are in town. I mean that.
Many of us (I know this for a fact, I am getting TONS of positive comments in my inbox regarding my comments) are saddened by how deeply this culture has gone to crap and along comes you, asking for advice on how to unscrew a bad situation. Maddog, most folks won't even to that, so you have already taken the first step! WHEN, not if, you do this, and you come back in a year of so to share your travels with us, you will inspire so many of us, and give us hope that maybe, just maybe, there is a chance that good old fashioned personal responsibility and "stick-to-it-tiveness" is making a comeback.
Be our hero Maddog.
Godspeed. Now get off your butt and stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's unmanly. Many of us are depending on young men like you to help bring in a new generation that doesn't snivel, and isn't jacked up on antidepressants and ritalin. Make us all proud!
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