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Wow, davephan. That is spot on. If only the younger people (and middle age) would listen to this sage advice. No, it's not the best time of your life going back to school or learning a new trade but if you put in a little time and effort it can change your future.
That sounds like something a young person would say that has very little life experience. I agree that it is possible you could move to Hawaii, be successful, and have a good life. However, the chances of a young person being successful without the job skills necessary to earn a high income make chance of being successful extremely unlikely.
While you are still young, you have the opportunity to significantly improve your standard of living. When you reach age 40, it becomes very difficult, and becomes very unlikely as you reach age 50. I used to work at low wage, lousy working conditions jobs, mostly with no benefits. At age 40, I changed my life. It was a very hard thing to do. I've lived on very low wages in the past and now I am in the top 5%. The top 5% is much better than close to minimum wage!
You can shuffle through life when you are young, partying, having fun, working for multiple low pay jobs, poor or no benefits, constantly being broke, and living very close to the edge of homelessness all the time. Or, you can invest in yourself. You suffer for a few years educating yourself for a career with high income potential. You enter the work force at a much higher pay than just a high school graduate. Over the next decade, your income doubles, triples, or more. You live below your means, at a fraction of your income, and save a lot of money for retirement. You can buy new cars with cash since you don't need to take out auto loans. You can pay off a 15 year mortgage in 10 years. Since you are saving a lot of money, your investments make even more money, making your income even higher.
Every year you work at a low level, low pay job, party or goof off, time marches on. It becomes more and more difficult to ever change your life. Eventually, you will be old, you won't be able to retire until you can't work anymore. Then you'll retire and live in abject poverty and likely have a miserable life. At that point it will be too late to do anything about it. You can then think about how your life could have been different, if only you were willing to listen to the advise others gave you.
What you're talking about isn't realistic for most people anymore. You can invest all you want in yourself, and corporate America will invest in H1B visas and Chinese factories.
Have you noticed that Intel and AMD are moving their chip manufacturing to China? That was the last part of tech manufacturing that was left in America. Sucks for those semiconductor engineers who invested in themselves huh?
Engineering is not one of the best occupational choices due to the offshoring. IT is very hot now and is easy to find a job. IT entry level jobs start in the mid to high 30s, sometimes higher. After 10 years experience you can expect about $70K to $140K. There are nitches that pay more, such as database security. Most of the companies that attempted offshoring IT jobs have been burnt, and the jobs have returned to the US.
In Hawaii, most IT jobs seem to be underpaid, so it's better to get a job where you can work remotely if you can. By concentrating on occupations that have higher earning potential, and living far below your means, you can build up your net worth. Your investments, properly diversified, can increase your income significantly.
Most people do not follow that type of advise, even though they may have the ability to be successful in a high paying career. That's why most people are not in the top 5%. It can be done later in life, but it becomes much harder the older you get and the number of remaining working years decrease.
Well, there's other ways of surviving and thriving in Hawaii other than with a high paying mainland type job. If she is young, single and attractive enough, maybe she can marry into one of the established families around here and they will find her employment and take care of her along with the rest of the family? Although, that doesn't happen often, local folks are pretty wary of seriously dating malahini. They are too likely to leave, after all.
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