Ask HN: What is (is there something) wrong with me?

Find your passion. This may take some searching, but staying in school is wasting your time. You're young, with no responsibilities (and hopefully minimal debt). Your family can take care of themselves, so focus on you.

Quit school. You can always come back later. Try new things, meet new people. Move. Keep searching until you find IT. And then pour all your soul into becoming the best.

> I interned for a big company last summer, and utterly hated the experience, so much that I quit 5 weeks into the 10 week program.

I'm curious why this was so.

Sometimes I try something and hate it because of the social experience that accompanied it. Like if you go to a big company, and nobody reaches out to you, and you spend the time alone, it can form a very strong mental association: big company = loneliness. But maybe it's just that company. Maybe you'll later try working at a new company, and make a couple of great friends, and decide that mechanical engineering is your life calling and this new company is the home/family you were born to have.

Quality of life has very little to do with the exact type of work you do. On the other hand, it can have a lot to do with the lifestyle constraints entailed by that type of work, like the amount of travel or face-to-face interaction involved.

The point is, look at factors surrounding the work the you love or hate. If you have a particularly good day, look back at what happened that day. Did you have a big stretch of quiet time? Did you get to be around certain people you like? What did you eat? Did you get recognition for something you did? These perhaps seemingly-irrelevant details have a lot more to do with your motivation and job satisfaction than your job title or salary.

You're not unique in this and basically have two choices: continue what you're doing, push through it, and see it as your adult responsibility. Ultimately many jobs are like that, you don't love them, but they bring home the pay-check. The second option would be to do a search for what you really want to do. One great book with tons of bios of people who have and turned out happier for it is: "what should I do with my life?" In the end, you'll probably settle for a combination of both. Lastly, it may be that you over-pushed yourself and burned out. That can lead to similar negative feelings about what you are doing now. It may be a good idea to approach a medical professional and discuss symptoms and solutions.

I am 27, was once in a position very similar to yours and dropped out between my sophomore and junior year in high school.

I have advice on a couple of different fronts.

As for college, your major, whatever.. if school is free / heavily subsidized then I would go ahead and stick it out until you have something else you'd rather be doing, then weight the cost/benefit of not having a degree vs how long it would take you to get it.

However, if school is costing you money, unless you're at a very good school and/or planning on doing graduate level work, just drop out. Degrees just aren't worth that much, especially if you don't know you are going to use it.

You absolutely have to drop the social pressure thing. You definitely can quit school. You can be weak about it now and wake up when you're 50 and realize you wished you had done your own thing, or just realize at some point you have to make your own decisions.

You're 20, you are allowed to be a kid. Take care of your body and mind, don't do any permanent damage, but beyond that man, fucking live it up.

If the main thing hanging over your head is the social/family pressure, just shrug it. Be loving and warm to your parents as much as possible, but ultimately you are going to be better off drinking beers for two years as a beach bum than spending two years trudging through some major that bores you.

There is a considerable value to life experience that you can get as a young independent kid who has a pretty open mind sort of wandering around. It doesn't happen often, most of the really smart people either go insane or take the express route to being successful through traditional channels.

Obviously as an entrepreneur there is a third option, but unless you have that drive you won't succeed anyway. If you have that drive, follow it, otherwise loaf around, learn what's interesting and be poor.

Like I said, I am 27. I dropped out with very disappointed friends and family, some of whom still hold it against me to varying degrees. Starting less than 6 months ago I got my first 'real' job, a devels salary, etc. I pretty much let every burden I felt I had completely get ignored. To some detriment to be sure, and I don't recommend you exactly do that. But because of my experiences I think I fundamentally react to authority, bills, social pressure, etc etc in much healthier rational way than I did before.

What I want to express is the intangible benefit to having thrown tradition to the wind and being independent.

What you lose in $$ not pushing forward hard in life on some relentless path to success you gain in wisdom. As you get older, maybe get a wife, get more expensive tastes, get used to nicer cars, nicer places to live, your monthly nut gets higher and higher, that rat race gets tighter and tighter.

Many people go till they have a midlife crises to even take a step back and consider their lives, most people in their mid 30s couldn't do it even if they wanted to.

But, you, you're young, you probably have little to no responsibility, and you're a smart kid. Get some wisdom, see if the rat race is even for you at all, take some lsd in the woods and hang out with gutter punks spanging your pocket change.

Most people don't even have happy lives.. if you feel yourself going into a shitty one, take a step back and just stop for a bit. See what happens.

Remember your are awesome. :) http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/