Where do I go from here?

BeaverTown

BeaverTown

Based and straight...eh
Kinda posting this because I'm conflicted and don't really have other people to share with. Or there are other people who are in a similar boat...
Yeah I'm sure there's some glowies/feds here, so I'll try to keep details scarce...

TLDR: I really don't know what I'm trying to say or what I'm hoping to hear....I just feel a bit aimless....I suppose I am in a good place right now, but being the overthinker I am, I feel like something's missing or lacking...I'm not out there doing "big things", despite my efforts, and even though things have seemed to work out, I still feel like I'm a disappointment to my family because I'm the child who was supposed to know what they were doing, the one who did great at school and that everyone thought was gonna do something bigger. Now I'm just a burnout who still doesn't know where I'm headed


Early 20s, and right now I'm feeling a bit at a crossroads....I haven't ever had a solid "career" plan - I mean, throughout school I was an overachiever, and afterwards I had some ideas of what to do, but many were thwarted by things like inevitable vaccine requirements (if I wanted to even finish a post secondary program for this field) and whatnot. Had a hard time picking a lane, so I just didn't go to college. I pivoted to a somewhat aligned entry job that was more lenient, albeit more limited in career growth options....eventually quit, because the job started to suck real bad, and tried pursuing some random certs to boost the resume....even tried a few creative side hustles - learned alot, but broke even at best, and ultimately burnt out because the price could not practically be justified given how much personal effort/skill was involved.....

So there I was unemployed and stressed about being a loser, so I jumped right into a accelerated trade school program (for a non compulsory trade) over the summer...I hate the DEI stuff, but you play with the cards you're dealt, so I took advantage of being a woman pursuing the trades (sorry guys) and got in. Worked hard and learned alot, passed my certificate tests and got good enough that when a job opportunity came up near the end of my course/program, I got a referral from the school....so now I have a full time job doing what I was trained to do.

That's where I am now...

All things considered, my job is great and I thank God I have it. It's stable, for an entry trades role, but I've got alot of autonomy in how I do my work. I could see myself here for at least a year or two...but after that......is this what I really want to do for the foreseeable future?? Do I learn another trade? Or do I just stick with it until my body breaks down because it's stable (for now)? Or do I take a chance and keep up my creative pursuits hoping something sticks? (third time's the charm, right)

My main concern is the accumulative health issues, despite wearing PPEs. That and the fact that I got into this purely out of necessity for having some stable job and practical skillset that I will be able to fall back on....I "like" what I do for work and it's not boring, but I feel like I'm partly betraying the creativity that I know God has been pushing me to pursue (poetry, visual arts is the one thing that ALWAYS comes back to my life even if I try to focus on something more practical lol), because my attention is focused on everything BUT that creative purpose right now.

Idk...I just never feel like what I do is enough
 
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Sounds like your doin good keep it up. Buy a vehicle cash and save up $50K before you drag up and go pursue art.

Also stop with office reddit fag talk of your body "breaking down" lmao. That's some office soy boy cope.
 
It's a reality though. Women just aren't built for the same kind of exertion that men's are... though I am questioning that now, with the afore-mentioned soy boys. Testosterone gives toughness and endurance that women can't build without juicing.
 
Well yeah that's kinda where my mindset was, just based in acknowledging the biological differences....granted, I am pretty active and fairly fit, so maybe I'd last longer, but idk and my thought process when getting into this was - at least I'm young and physically capable, so may as well make the most of it now, get a few years of experience and save up some money to hold me over until----??? that's the part I can't figure out lol
 
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Welcome to adulthood, you’ll never feel like you’re doing enough. Very few are completely fulfilled just by their occupation. You should do hobbies/passions/side hustles, more school/certificates or travel.

If you’re happy and continuing to learn in your trade, give it another couple years, then you could (I’m assuming) become self employed or teach your trade at a trade school. Be awake to ways to customize or specialize what you do.

What’s your personal/family life like? Maybe with career stability it’s time to put more focus on that area.
 
  • What are your 'family' plans? That's the most important thing to figure out vs job/hobbies. As a woman you're on a timer, but you already knew that (we all are, really). If you're undecided, go hold a friend/family member's baby and you'll know better
  • All jobs suck, sooner or later. The jobs that don't suck pay shit or are very hard to get, because so many people want to do them.
  • don't quit a shitty job until you have a new one lined up
  • the most important thing you get out of a job is contacts. Make a good impression/make friends and keep in contact with them. You don't have to kiss ass per se, just be reliable, don't be an asshole and show up. This has always been important, but is extra important today with tribalism/the jeet invasion.
  • keep doing the creative things on the side. I knew a guy who was working as a janitor at your age, and always wanted to do art... he kept at the janitor thing to pay the bills, but he also kept at the creative stuff and eventually was able to make it work! Make no mistake though, he did bust his ass
  • Does that above point sound hard? Think long and hard about your time management skills - how much time are you spending doing brain rot shit like being on this site. Really, really think hard about it and be brutally honest with yourself.
 
Others have said it, but long term nothing will probably fulfill you more than being a mother. Granted it is slim pickings, but not a single decent man cares what your plans for career are even 5 years in the future, let alone extremely long term; decent men are more concerned with how many children you want than your potential future earnings.

In the meantime, seems like that job is good, and with how AI is trades are one of the safest bets. Even if you work until 70, with DEI, good chance you'll move into management long before your body breaks down.
 
Remember when a person says AI is it Actually Indians. LLMs are in the gutter(over extending what they can actually do) and there is massive over-investment into it. There will be junior positions available just like 2010s depending where off-shoring goes. Got feeling once a big company implodes due to jeet to White ratio favoring the jeet. Onshoring cycle begin anew again.
 
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PS you get paid for a trade because... not everyone knows how to do it. You know something someone doesn't.
That's a lot cleaner than the stuff I've seen. Girl goes to modelling agencies straight out of high school. Gets involved with the wrong people/sketchy guys/drugs. Straight up perv photographers not even monetizing, just for their own enjoyment.
She died at 25.
 
Don't put too much pressure on yourself. If you have a stable job that you enjoy doing enough that you aren't anxious the nights before and turning to drugs/alcohol to cope then you're doing good. You don't need to accomplish anything more. Life isn't about anything more.

Just focus on your work. Do good at work. Make connections at work. Get ahead, at work.

Stay away from women and partying as it's a waste of time. You'll come back to this later once you've well established yourself.

It honestly just sounds like to me you need to stop putting pressure on yourself and accept who you are and what you've done.
 
first - congratulations on having full time employment in your early 20s, for something you were trained to do, dei or not!! if you can do the job, thats what counts. just keep taking the money til you cant/dont want to anymore. bonus points if you arent working weekends or holidays!!

second - what everyone else already said - most people with half a brain struggle with feeling as if they're enough, or whether they're fulfilling their lives to the fullest. we could all do more, but we dont, so either change that or accept it. you are enough. do your artistic pursuits in your spare time...i'm guessing i'm at least your mom's age and i will say that having done physical work my entire life, my body is definitely fuct. it is what it is. my "secret" is to just keep moving. my will to move is stronger than my will to wallow in pain. no one really gives a fuck and i'm not getting surgery, so whatever. with that said, i try to do my creative pursuits at night, if i'm not too tired, or on the weekends when i have more energy.

finally - how to be more - be careful about shitting where you eat, but i'm sure you can find yourself a nice boy more so in the trades than if you were stuck in an office or retail with nothing but women and gays. (i'm assuming you are still single?) i think the bigger factor is loneliness, and starting a family, if thats what you want, would help you find direction and a higher purpose. of all the "big" things i was "supposed" to do, but never did, the one thing i'm glad i did was reproduce. the offspring have given me the most purpose in life, but ymmv.
 
Keep the full-time job and use the money to explore your hobbies while having a roof over your head. I've been a tradie for life and we all do this. If your hobby can become a side hussle then build it slow instead of going all in.
On getting physically worn out, that'll happen but so can a life altering car accident or fall. Getting old is life, just manage it best you can. The goal might be rising up in your field as you age and getting off the tools to become a supervisor.
 
Find something that pays the bills and do the creative bit on the side. My real background, talent, and interest is music. My day job pays the bills and I do music outside of that.

Also keep in mind that if by some miracle you can survive on your art, you may grow to resent it. This is a real thing. When you're "forced" to do art in order to pay the bills, it's not something you're doing for your own personal enjoyment and growth anymore. At that point, you can't just put it down if you need to step away for a bit. This happens frequently and is why a lot of creative types just burn out, and fast.
 
This is an excellent point. I had 2 major hobbies as a young'in, and I pursued a career in the more lucrative one, leaving the other as an 'avocation'. Guess which one, decades later, I can't wait get away from...
 
For what it's worth I am on my third career pursuit. Started in manufacturing only for offshoring and mass immigration to rob me of opportunities, went back to school for insurance, did that for the better part of a decade but alas because between DEI fuckery and COVID, office politics are garbage. back I go to school for HVAC. Just passed my G3 will be writing my OBT3 eventually and by the end of my course I should be set to write my Gas 2 and OBT 2 licenses. the plan is to learn what I can within the next 2-5 years to gain experience and to navigate the market before I venture into starting my own company. My aim is to learn the market I operate within in order to reach out and grab hold of money while also being able to refuse work when customers act like assholes. You don't get paid enough to deal with bullshit. Adults can act like adults. if they want to act like snobbish adults then they can find someone else to be their nigger.

Long story short, from my own experience, take things in stride. Re-assess your opportunities every 6 months to 1.5 years. Don't be afraid to leave for another company as it is the best way to get a pay raise. If you stay put too long in one position your employer will take advantage of you and time is precious; Time is money. Don't be afraid to learn something new. Life is dull without some changes. Don't let the devil keep you down. I'd rather have my soul than all the riches in the world.

As others have also mentioned.. you are doing great kiddo. Keep it up.
 
I believe I was injured by the chemicals I was exposed to in a summer job, but I also believe I was genetically predisposed and had underlying health problems. I was exposed to solvents, asphalt cement/tar, mold, cigarette smoke, while working 12 hour days and eating junk food. It was too much for my body to handle at once.

After 10 years of research, 2 pieces of advice when dealing with chemicals:
  • keep your overall burden as low as possible. No fragrances, no processed food, keep your living space as unscented and unmoldy as possible, and shower when you get home to get work stuff off. Every bit adds up, but if you supply your body with the nutrients it needs through good food and good rest, your body can usually handle it (most people believe).
  • do your research on the chemicals at work.

Women's bodies are built for endurance and high energy demand of bearing and raising kids, but do seem to be more sensitive to chemicals, especially endocrine disruptors. And some kids of pollution does impact fertility, so it does affect women in certain ways.

Right now I'm seeing a RMT who is trained in Matrix Repatterning and the treatment has helped undo strain patterns from my childhood plus having 4 kids.
 
My advice: have kids before 30. don't wait. I waited until I was more financially stable and unfortunately due to health-related reasons it wasn't possible anymore. I won't go into detail but my spouse was a tradesperson and the strain of the daily work over a decade basically wrecked her body.

Now I am angry and jaded and have to deal with thoughts of envy and jealousy.

I make a lot of money in my career though, but it doesn't make me happy. i would rather work at McDonalds and have kids.
 
That's terrible. Working-class people who do the most necessary and physically taxing jobs are treated as a disposable natural resource by our society, which repays them for their efforts with snobbery and disdain and later with neglect when they try to obtain worker's compensation, healthcare etc. I remember hearing a case of a local power plant worker who contracted asbestosis from a period spent removing asbestos from the walls during renovations: years later when he was dying he sued for compensation in the hope of leaving something behind for his family, but the lawyers for the plant kept on securing delays to the hearing in the hope that he'd die before it could begin (and they eventually succeeded)
 
Yikes, that's just evil. We all have regrets in life, and I have to remind myself to be thankful for what i do have, as there are many more with less.
 
In our society, and especially in urban areas, you'll get a lot of pressure to "make it big" from family and friends, but as an older man I can assure you that it's absolutely a mistake to live your life in such a way as to impress others or to try to make them happy if it's contrary to your own nature. Many are led astray by the strange North American paradigm of "winner" vs. "loser", especially since the number of truly successful (i.e. rich and powerful) people is necessarily limited and it is a fact that most people will never rise very far out of the social class into which they were born.

A better conception was expressed by the ancient Greeks in their word ἀρετή (arete), which basically meant "fitness for purpose" and was applied to inanimate objects as well as to human beings, so for example the arete of a knife would be to cut, of a hammer to drive in nails etc. Every person also has a specific ἀρετή, which is why someone who is good with his hands would be wasted in an office or a bookworm would be uncomfortable on an oil rig. Only you know what yours is. Of course, we don't always get to choose the job that will fulfill us the most, but we can usually choose the one that annoys us the least -- work only exists in order to bankroll our real interests anyway. Unless your job is also an actual vocation, which is very rare, you should never tie your identity or sense of self-esteem to it. We are completely replaceable as workers, but not as human beings. If you are like the vast majority of women your ultimate fulfillment will come in having a loving family anyway and you won't resent having to provide for your children whatever you do.

PS: If it's any consolation, I was a deeply anxious overthinker when I was your age and that started to go away when I was in my early 40s. Declining mental and physical energy can be a drag, but one of the blessings it undoubtedly brings is declining emotional energy as well, so you do start to see the world and your own life more objectively and to take more pleasure in the small joys and contentments of being alive. It really is something to look forward to.
 
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