I feel dreadful of my future, but are my feelings valid?
So I just recently graduated university this year and am 21 years old. I live with my parents and am able to make good money by selling stuff on eBay, and I'm also a musician. I just seem so confused on what I truly want out of life. The idea of working a 9-5 job scares me so bad because its like I can already see what the next 40 years of my life will be. Wake up every morning, go to work, pretend to like my coworkers even if they piss me off, eagerly wait until my shift is over, waiting for Friday to come, and then during the weekend dread waking up on Monday morning. Rinse and repeat, while possibly having a family of my own along the way. Then I retire, possibly move into an old folks home, then die. I thought I wanted security by just getting a good job, moving into the suburbs, and living a stable and peaceful life, but now that I'm actually an adult that life sounds monotonous and boring and it honestly scares me.
However, I can't tell if this is a valid way to feel, or if this is just me being "childish" or lazy. I thought my adult life would be so straightforward and that I should just go the safe route like everyone else says to do but I feel like I'm gonna be so depressed in the coming years because I'm not gonna truly enjoy my life anymore. I like what I do now because I don't a set schedule and I find it fun searching for things to sell and making a couple of dollars here and there off my songs, but I don't know if I can expand those two things enough that I can live off both of those things while having enough money to move out on my own. I thought I wanted to work in tech and i have a degree in a tech field (Informatics with a concentration in Data Analytics) but even then I still don't know if I like it enough to enjoy a job, even though I do truly love technology. Its like my heart is telling me that I kinda need "chaos" or instability in a sense that I want to do something new everyday to feel fulfilled and have fun, but then my rational mind tells me to just work at a decent job where I know I'll be doing the same thing everyday and live a quiet life. I don't know, I guess I'm just lost. Do you think I'm just acting like a kid, or do some of you feel the same way?
This is a natural anxiety to have. The thing is right now the benefits of the life you're thinking of choosing are still abstract (e.g. the financial stability, the sense of having a 'mission' in life) but the drawbacks are emotional costs you have to pay now and it must feel like an extinguishing of hopes and ambitions. You don't have the job yet, so you have no conception of what a potential job might be like and what you could possibly enjoy about it.
By way of example, before I got a dog all I really thought about when my wife insisted we get one were the logistical difficulties it would impose on our lives like the functional curfew preventing us from partying all night, the cost of vet visits and food and dog walking, etc. The benefits of having a dog were largely theoretical. But now that I have the dog I love the little guy so much I barely think about the walks and the poop-scooping and stuff. I just scrounged up almost $3,000 for a treatment with a 60% probability of treating his allergy symptoms. This would have been UNTHINKABLE to me 3 years ago but now the thought of him suffering through life like that is unbearable to me.
In truth as long as you have a positive approach to life, an openness to novel experiences, and enough resilience to power through adversity you will find things to like and even celebrate about any job you get. You just don't know what they are now because you haven't experienced them yet. And if you can't, you will go job hunting until you find a place with coworkers you like and tasks that you find satisfying.
If life feels monotonous and boring, that is a symptom of burnout and not an inherent feature of having a regular job. If you have a balanced life with hobbies and vocations on the side that you enjoy, work shouldn't feel that way. Granted, not everyone is lucky enough to work in a place that gives them enough respect for their time but the challenge is to seek that out for yourself. The internet is where people come to whine and moan and vent so it has a pronounced bias towards negativity. But this can be a distorted view of the world if you internalize it too much. The people who are content aren't going to be posting about how they have no strong feelings one way or another, it's just the people with major complaints who do.
It's also important to keep in mind that this is not a true extinguishing of hopes. Unless you are full-time engaged in active efforts to make the hypothetical future scenarios you're thinking of come true, you're not actually trading off anything in practice. In reality, if you later on decide to start doing that stuff you can quit the job and go right back to where you are now. Just, potentially, with a more impressive resume and hopefully a fatter savings account.
Having a boring 9-5 with coworkers that are just coworkers isn't so bad. It sounds bad from a Reality Bites kind of perspective but it has perks -- namely the money to buy all the nice stuff for hobbies that you can't afford if you're trying to make it in a career that's far more risky.
There's also different kinds of jobs and environments out there even if you're doing a 9-5. There's places that are very fast paced and everything is on fire, and there's places that are super slow paced and nothing bad every happens or if it does, doesn't matter. Also everything in between.
There's nothing saying you need to be tied down to a 9-5 either, especially with experience in tech -- especially data or engineering stuff. Get some solid experience and then try freelancing, or consulting/contracting, or build up some knowledge and try to write a book or courses, or try starting your own company company (if you really crave chaos and instability đź‘€).
You're young, you're smart, you have a solid degree, you have time to figure this out. Get a job for a while, build up a bit of a resume, do fun things after work like joining a band or whatever, and figure it out over time. There's plenty of changes you can do to your life to invite chaos and instability all the way up to the day you die (and beyond!).
This makes sense, starting off with a good career and then using the money I make to invest in hobbies. Thanks for the advice :)
Seconding the parent comment. Furthermore, freelancing (and later in your career, consulting) is a fantastic way of having a job that constantly refreshes and doesn't lock you into a routine or a specific skillset.
I despise 9-5 office jobs for … pretty much the reason you outline. Don't worry, you're not locked into it. Your feelings are valid, but there is no reason for dread. If I were you, I'd be excited in fact; you got a great potential future ahead of you :)
Thank you for the encouragement!
My dad is about 64 right now, and he did the 40+ year 9-5 kind of career, but now he has a whole setup for a band in his basement and invites people over to play weekly.
Now, that includes the 40+ year 9-5 career, but I tell you, it's a lot easier to afford all that stuff and have fun and be able to walk away from it when it's a hobby and not your only way of making money.
Damn your dad sounds cool as hell lol
I forget exactly where this philosophy tidbit came from, but one of the concepts I found interesting in my studies has been the idea that people are so overwhelmed by their potential that it becomes paralyzing. And I think that's a good framework to understand what you are feeling right now.
You have the potential to achieve just about anything if you put the effort into it. You also have the option of not putting your effort into some grand idea and living a carefree life. And the one thing you should keep in mind is that nobody has the right to judge the way you choose to live but you.
And keep in mind that even if you do choose to go with a boring office job, that job will not define you. You have the ability to do more than just work for someone else. Unless you've got some form of patron or trust fund, there's really no way for you to coast through life. Your job does not have to be the thing that makes your life worth living and you will have many things that you can work on outside of work.
Yeah I remember learning about that as well, basically being “scared” of your own success. I always thought that concept was bs until I started to experience it myself.
Some of this advice might be kind of obvious but I'll say it anyway, in case it helps.
You're fortunate that in many tech fields you do have a lot of flexibility. There's nothing wrong with changing jobs fairly often, like every couple years or so. You can save up and take time off to travel. Even when working at the same company, you can change teams or work on different projects.
So, I suggest thinking about a job not as something you'll do forever, but something you'll do for a while, until it gets old, and then you can try something else. Even a "full time, permanent position" doesn't have to be any more permanent than going to school, unless you want it to be.
If you are worried about getting enough variety and challenge, maybe look for a job at a growing startup, since they tend to change very quickly. This is assuming you're okay with needing to find another job unexpectedly, if it comes to that. Startups can fail or get bought or change drastically.
On the other hand, larger companies have more well-defined roles and procedures, and are often less stressful. The big tech firms pay very well and have lots of internal resources you can take advantage of.
Also, maybe you won't like everyone you meet, but you're likely to make friends, and sometimes you'll keep in touch with them after you move on. So maybe look at it more as an opportunity to meet people, and worry less about being trapped with them? It's still a good idea to have some kind of plan in case you need to change your situation, like for example having a bad boss. Having savings definitely helps!
Eventually there may come a time when getting yet another job at another company doesn't appeal anymore, but hopefully you will save a lot of money by then.
Thank you for the advice, I definitely should save up more so that I can make better decisions and have more control over where I would want to work. I also am a bit anxious when meeting new people so I should see it as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.
To start with: Let's just say I'm older than 21 :)
You could think of your employment along a spectrum: (a) harmful, (b) boring, but acceptable, (c) sparks joy. It sounds like you might be combining regions (a) and (b) together, just because you might end up with "not (c)". Of course, (c) is the ideal, but (b) can pay the bills, too. The way I think: I work so I can live; I don't live so I can work. In other words, while I chase (c), I am content with (b), since I can just shut off after the 9-5, and be happy with the 5-9. Category (a) is what you want to avoid. Stuff like: lots of politics, backstabbing, toxic colleagues, toxic management, harassment, coercion to do the illegal or immoral, all that sort of thing.
And, in your OP, you went from "21 and entering workforce" to "have a family" to "and then die". Having a good partner/spouse, and having children can be extremely fulfilling, and bring much joy and happiness. The history of the human race has plenty of examples of that (even if there are many counterexamples).
Well, first of all, feelings are always valid - we don't control what we feel, just how we react to it. As to your particular questions:
For what it's worth, I work a 9-5 and this isn't really how it is at all. Certainly being exploited for one's labor is not a fun experience, but I don't think working consistent hours (especially remotely, as many jobs are now) with other people is all that awful. As a slight counterpoint, I used to work completely freelance and solo, and I found it incredibly isolating despite setting my own hours and doing something I loved.
With an Informatics degree you can almost certainly find a niche that you really enjoy and which brings you a lot of meaning and happiness. For example, I work in cancer prevention, and that really makes the whole "come in to work every day" thing a lot easier - I know I'm doing something positive for the world as a byproduct of creating profit for the company.
That said, wanting to pursue a passion - especially music - is a time-honored tradition. Don't count on being ultrafamous, but if you work your ass off you can probably make a living doing it; check out Benn Jordan's excellent video on the topic.
Yeah I think I kinda used the wrong words with that coworkers comment. I don’t hate people at all, in fact I really enjoy working with others that I find chill or interesting. The problem is I think when you have coworkers you don’t like, you’re still forced to be friendly with them, even if it bothers you.
That may be true in some companies, but IMO it's a sign of a toxic culture. You have to be professional with people you work with, but you absolutely do not have to be friends with them.
You might have that problem in your first job. But after you’ve got relevant experience on your resume and know what to watch out for it’s much easier to avoid a toxic workplace. And if you have desirability in the job market you can demand quite a lot of comfort.
First you could take a year off and go travel the world, or whatever part of the world is open to travel right now. Live off your music and your ebay and the odd job here or there.
Then you could find a job at a large boring corporation, which (if you pick something with hard to measure deliverables) will likely give you time to focus on side interests.
It sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about something you haven't actually experienced yet (which is totally understandable). If you're able to find a job in your field, I say try it out! Experience working in an office with a bunch of people and see if the reality of a 9-5 is as terrifying as the idea of it is. Taking a job isn't a life-long commitment to stay in that field for the rest of your life. If you hate it a few months in, try to find another job in a similar field or try something else entirely. That's really what your 20s are all about. Just figuring out what you like.
Also look into the possibility of a remote job. Pretty much anything tech-related could be done remotely, you just have to find a company that allows for it.
You absolutely may find yourself in a job you hate with people you hate more, but that's just life. Sometimes you gotta deal with it so you can build up experience and learn what to look for in a career.
But also keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with saying "fuck it" and forging your own path. Build up that ebay business, try to turn your skill as a musician into a career. I don't think you're acting like a kid. You're acting like someone who finds themselves in the early years of adulthood and overwhelmed by how absolutely insane it all is. But you'll figure it out.
I think a remote job would be great, especially since COVID allowed a lot of people to work from home. I also think you’re right about not seeing work as a life long commitment, it doesn’t have to be that way and I never really considered that, so thank you for giving me a new perspective.
Glad I could help :)
This has probably been mentioned already... the idea of doing what you love is a tired cliche at this point, but only because it's true. Find something meaningful, even if it takes trial and error. Just because a lot of people don't manage it, doesn't mean you can't.
And also: Live below your means. People get stuck in jobs they don't love because they don't have the financial freedom to leave. One part of beating the credit consumer trap is avoiding locking yourself into monthly payments that you can only just afford.
If you skip that, and you find decent income, you can quickly build up a cushion so you can leave a job whenever you want.
Alternatively there's the option to plan for early retirement. If you start early, retiring at 40-50 is entirely doable, especially if you're not planning on kids (though a lot of people don't plan on them, then change their mind when the love drugs peak, so there's that).