got my a.a., was gonna go to my state school and finish up my bachelor's and then covid happened. at the time i had sort of promising prospects as a freelancer and covid college was making me want to die, so i quit and just leaned in to the independent work that i was already doing.
those prospects quickly evaporated, so initially this seemed like a pretty tremendous mistake. i became a self-taught software developer just in time for the age of "self-taught software developer gets $70k job" to end, and i became a semi-professional writer just in time for almost every reputable publication in the universe to spontaneously combust and for the few that remain to start paying, like, $0.00000000001 cents a word. i beat myself up about it for a while
five years later, it seems like i actually did end up making the right choice in the long run. not only am i able to feed myself (finally) but also because i ended up building the rudiments of a career in a cave from a box of scraps i found myself with a tremendous amount of creative freedom. i felt like i was wasting my life because i wasn't achieving the "standard" life accomplishments that my peers were, but i realize now that i was frontloading a lot of the bullshit that most other people spread out evenly throughout their lives. it's only just now (last ~18 months) that i've started to see the dividends of all the grinding that i've been doing, and it's all coming all at once.
as for if i have any insight for your situation, it's hard to say. i've the sort of freak who has always had a very clear idea for the lifestyle i want and the discrete things i want to accomplish in the world before i am dead - my problem always has been figuring out the path to get there. i gather for most people it's the opposite problem - they know what path they're "supposed" to take but don't really know what they want to do when they get to the end. what do you want *your* life to look like?
4d ago
Related Recs
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To be upfront, there are two things about myself that I love:
1. I'm tenacious AF
2. I am generally a positive person. I can handle almost any situtation, and I've had to learn to actually ask/demand more, so it's not always great.
With that being said, I've wanted to die many times. I've experienced a lot of trauma. I have PTSD for years. Things got to a point where I knew if I didn't make really drastic changes I was going to die in some way- I simply could not go on how I was.
The only thing that started to change things is when I started to learn more about myself and my reasons for doing things, being with certain people, getting into certain relationships. Part of my whole issue was that I had major trauma from childhood that I was actively avoiding. So many things happen to us as children, big and small, that we don't have the capacticy to deal with at the time. But as adults, we do.
I remember the moment where things started shifting for me. It unlocked a hunger in me to dig more and more to why I was the way I was, and why I made the choices I did, in a really deep way. I became more action oriented in facing my shit, healing it, and discovering what I was like without it. It definitely wasn't easy, and it wasn't fun most of the time, but in reality the years I spent doing that are small compared to the life I have ahead of me. I'm a whole new person, but the parts of me that are true are the same. I became a more mature, loving, responsible version of myself.
Hating your life is a sign something is not working. If you're unsure what that is, go inward. If you don't know where to start, think about the very next step. That's all you need to do. You're never locked in where you're at now forever. Don't know what you want to do for a career? Switch gears and do a completely different job. There is no timeline. You can literally do whatever you want. When I was doing a lot of the stressful inner work, I worked at animal shelters because I needed something so low stress. And I was mid 20's!!! No career goals in sight!!! Not even anywhere in my brain!!! If you're straight up hating something that is taking up most of your time... just quit it. Life is too short.
Success to me is ease and grace. I want a peaceful, joyful life (most of the time). Sometimes to figure out what you need to do, you gotta take a giant step back. Or a step to the left. Or take a big roundabout. Or maybe a quest needs to be taken...
Dec 4, 2024
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been having a lot of conversations with friends and family about people feeling stuck - stuck in the first job they got out of undergrad, stuck in an industry they don't care for, stuck in a place they don't feel connected to, stuck with a story they inherited not one they wrote for themselves. our society imposes on us the damaging narrative that we have until age 18 to choose the way in which we will be a productive member of society, and then until age 22 to acquire the skillset to do so, then we must contribute in that way until retirement. finding yourself having followed this path but feeling disconnected to your core values/desires/goals is not uncommon. this was me when i was 23, and to a lesser extent i am finding myself in a similar situation now as a recent 26 year old. you are not alone. here's my advice:
find what motivates you, and pursue it with abandon. obviously there are economic realities that make this movment difficult, and this is by design. needing to work for survival keeps us fitting neatly into the roles we've been assigned and makes breaking this mold difficult. this system robs us of our time and energy that we could otherwise apply towards self-actualization. this (combined with the narrative that diverging from a singular career focus will stunt your progress and hinder your sucess) keeps us frozen in a mindset of scarcity and immobility. you have more agency than you realize, though, and your only compass should be that which makes you flourish as an individual.
reject consistancy, humans are too complex to be burdened with the obligation to be stagnant. we are told that we have core competencies that make us assets in one specific capacity. this is an economic reality, not a human one. in truth, humans are more capable and dynamic than we know. that which you apply towards one field can just as easily be applied to another, and your "career" can look like making use of your knowledge and skill across many fields and roles and places. don't feel obligated to limit yourself to one narrow path. edify yourself by allowing your compass to guide you along a broad and diverse path.
lastly, reject narratives that are not true to your experience. during this period of regaining your agency and taking control of your own direction in life, you will be met with the well-meaning voices of those who have internalized the narratives of our culture, and they will weaponize this against you. they will tell you to fall back in line, to not seek out that which you know to be good for you. do not fall into weariness. you owe it to yourself to find flourishing where you can, and to follow the moving target that will lead you there.
what you are doing is brave, and authentic to your true self. answer to no other voice but your own. the corporate climate is so entrenched in the ways of our world and it is starting to reveal itself as a system which does not serve us as individuals. to a certain extent this is out of our control, but in realizing this you can also become more in tune with that which you can control in and of yourself. best of luck friend.
Aug 5, 2024
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spent the last five or so years in a maze of ennui and self-pity, but i have in the last 18 months slowly been clawing my way towards something resembling the life i want to be living.
i can see the end of the tunnel now, but strangely that amplifies my impatience. when things seemed more hopeless it was perversely sort of freeing - i didn’t know where i should be going, so i wasn’t in a rush. now that i have the full map in my hands i have nothing left to do but drive towards the end. that’s exactly what i wanted, in a sense, but now i have the burden of actually executing on the promises i made to myself - turns out that’s harder than making the promises in the first place! who knew
Mar 3, 2025
Top Recs from @dotmatrices
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it is your civic duty to mercilessly mock generative ai users as much as possible
Jan 18, 2025
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spent the last two weeks working on an interactive guide, recommendations database, and digital library (link depot) to help get people off of social media. the first draft is done now, and it's at the link to this post.
it's still very much a work in progress (the library is especially thin atm) - which is why i wanted to share it here before unleashing it upon my IRL friends and the general public. i welcome any and all feedback, bug reports, and suggestions for things to add. i will be pushing updates to it out like a madman in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back every so often to see new additions to the database and library.
additionally, i am still on the hunt for newsletters from local venues / community organizations / magazines / newspapers, etc. the only cities i have remotely covered so far are nyc, orlando, denver, brisbane, and little bits of worcester and chicago. if you know anything in your area that fits the bill, send it my way!
Jan 27, 2025
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chronological feeds on social media are a dying breed and it's so important to maintain the ones you still have
Apr 7, 2025