Without going into too much detail…
- 21
- Dropped out of Uni (ie. I’ve started falling behind ‘the pack’)
- Still living with my parents (have lived alone for periods)
- Frustrated, have been repeating the same mistakes and life is currently going in a loop.
- Not fully settled on a specific career
- Thinking of a couple of nuclear options I could try to move things on.
I want to know if I have reason to stress or if I should just give it time and enjoy the ride. Seeing as any sort of renewed degree-pursuing will eat up another several years starting anew from square one.
Edit: Thanks for all of this life advice everyone. It is genuinely really reassuring
It gets better bro.
I’m 33 and I was in a worse situation:
- Started getting depressed in 2011 at the age of 20
- Graduated in CS in 2016, super late, but with top grades
- Started working as a software developer, hated it
- For a few years I switched between working in a local computer shop and uni to get a master’s degree
- Again, I graduated super late in 2021 but with top grades
- Still hated working as a developer and now hated working as a technician too
- At the end of 2021, I got a call from my old high school, they needed someone to teach programming
- Decide to give it a try, absolutely love it
- Suddenly, depression is gone and I have a reason to get up in the morning
- A 10 year old nightmare is over, still single though
Yep absolutely!
For me, it felt like my life was quickly progressing away from a youth I was not ready to leave for inexplicable reasons. In the end I ended up taking a nuclear option once I realized how uncomfortable I was with my future, and while it’s not been easy it’s been absolutely worth it.
Even though you may be stuck in the same habits and mistakes, they can be rewritten and you’ll be surprised how quickly life changes once you find what makes you authentically happy. A lot can happen in 3 years and I guarantee you’ll still be young at 24. You can still be young at twice that. There’s a lot of life ahead of you, especially once you take calculated risks to improve your future and make the most of the youth you still have. You may not know what exactly will make you happy, but trust in yourself and your judgement to find it as you go.
Oh wow, you read my mind! Yes, I don’t feel ready to move on from my youth just yet because I feel it was deficient in a few things (especially with the 2 years lost to COVID). I’m quite tempted to just say f**k to career development, move out to the city where my childhood friends live, get a minimum wage job, and just spend some time with them for a bit. Just to meet the needs of my current self, now.
Oh you’re always “right” to stress about life. Life is fucking hard, and full of problems, and if you aren’t neck deep in problems in your life it’s because you’re unconscious.
But for that very same reason, you’re always “right” to skip the stress and just get on with the next task. If you have a hard time doing that, I suggest drawing a map of the meaning in your life.
If you don’t know how to do that, look for a class called “Maps of Meaning” and watch it. It’s a free course, published on youtube. No homework or anything; just all the lectures videotaped and published on youtube.
That one course has done more to make my life functional than anything else I’ve encountered.
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I’m 29 and work with people in their 40’s and up. None of them have their shit together.
The idea that you must have a fully set career and planned life in your 20s is a conspiracy and a scam made to make you feel less-than and worse.
Beat em. Live life at the pace it comes to ya. Don’t think about where you should be. There is no should. Society is a game of dress up and everyone is a nervous ape that just wants be to loved.
Dude, you’re barely in your 20s. You’re fine.
If you continue with the school route, do it for the least amount of $$ you can.
I dropped out of art school at 21, and got my AA at 37. Finally have an actual “career” now.
