Ask HN: Are you ok?

I really found it illuminating, and their suggestions helped me get out of a momentary and powerful funk.

Maybe the bible is right here, but another way to view that parable might be that the rich person was planning for his safety, which is wise. And by dying, he has transferred the safety that he was building for himself to his legacy, which can continue without him. I think most people in our society would describe that rich person as being prudent, not foolish. We call that "estate planning" today and it's recommended that everyone does it.

There's a lot of other guidance that I consider very wrong in the same bible though, so its authority doesn't help me much in deciding if it's correct about how to view life. It also seems like this advice might have been more applicable before the invention of medicine.

In any case, I appreciate the explanation.

What I do is highly repetitive, right now it's 79F and change in the office which is cooler than yesterday and my chair and pants are both damp from sweat, I have a GED and have been doing the same job for 13 years now. Most stuff wants a 4-year degree for entry level work, I've even seen a bunch of admin assistant type jobs at local law/medical offices here in Indy wanting 4 year degrees and/or as much as 15 years of experience on Indeed.

I'm 34 so even if I wanted to take on tens of thousands of dollars of debts, I'm looking at nearly 40 before I have a degree. Nearly 40 to start at entry level at something. Add to that I'm a terrible test taker, I'm purely awful at them and always have been.

Hell, I can't even get a "thanks" from people. One of the people that was doing http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ paid me to do a bunch of research, I spent weeks of my evenings doing math and research on things like what efficiency Azolla could remove CO2 at and how much area of fresh water would be needed, on kelp and seaweed farming, new polymers, etc and then wow, this page gets published and oh hey guys, they're thanking people at hte bottom this is gonna be so cool my name is gonna be right down there!!! Nope, "Ideas & content: Gabriel Lopez, Zack Abbott, Greg Rau, Leonid Kozhukh, and Sam Altman; Design: Max Marele; Illustrations & implementation: Vlad Omer; Coffee getter: Radu Spineanu; Feedback & content edits: Maddie Hall, Adriaan Kroon, Camille Ricketts, Drew Reid, Ryan Flynn, Akwasi Apori" don't see my name in there at all, but at least I paid off a bill with what I got paid for it but I can't point to someone and go "look, look I was part of that!" I just have a 1099 from a random LLC. I tell you what, that chapped my ass so bad when I saw the 'thanks' section and my name wasn't there. Like ok, cool. Thanks for reminding me I'm not worth remembering.

I make enough to pay my bills, but not to remotely adequately fund my retirement. Despite housing here being in the 100-150k$ range for a decent house, home ownership will likely stay beyond my means as well. I can afford Netflix/Hulu/the occasional meal out but buying a big ticket item (my daily driver is a Chromebox 2 for example) or having a proper vacation is purely a dream... someone flew me out to San Francisco for a couple of days last year and the few Uber rides and 3 sub 20$ meals in the hotel obliterated by 'fun budget' for a couple of months.

Now add in that my, retired early via disability, mother and I live together and that I've never had a meaningful relationship as an adult (nothing past a few dates) and the regular rejection by potential employers "no experience" "not enough experience" "we require a 4-year degree" "would you be willing to move to the other side of the country for an entry level positions" "we wasted your time with 4 video interviews, scheduled while you were working, but we're not remotely interested in hiring you" "unfortunately your bankruptcy...".

Yeah. I hate my life. Most of my friends are married, have houses, have nice jobs, have remote jobs, do cool stuff a few times a year, some have kids, always have the latest tech and I'm just over here like "I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if I like had a heart attack in my sleep, would it?".

I don't even know what I want to do in life, finding out hasn't been an option. I've been working full time since the day I turned 18 and the maximum allowed hours prior to that from 16 on, with my first job being around 11 delivering papers on foot and during the summer going store to store on Main street asking if anyone needed their windows/display cases cleaned or wanted me to go get them lunch for tips.

2-3 years ago I reached out to someone that has had success after success, and to my surprise they replied and gave me their number and answered email after email of mine. When I asked initially what their secret was, they told me it was luck. Just luck. They got lucky. Where the hell is my luck? You get lucky, get your idea funded, sell your idea to another company, get the opportunity to do next thing, then get the keys to the castle, then have a bunch of success on the side, and then go start another thing that right out of the gate has people lining up to fork over money to be involved and you're taking a vacation over to that continent with your extended family, and then going to that continent a few months later, and showing off this bauble online, owning this crazy thing and that crazy thing and this crazy thing and getting invited to personally witness historical events and I'm over here like, shit man, that's cool, I just want someone to give me a job and let me prove myself instead of requiring some idiotic piece of paper from a university.

Around this time last year I went fully outside of the box and desperate... I legitimately tried to sell my life to someone. I figured out about how much money I'd need to retire today and told them I would will them 50% of my estate, 15% of all gross earnings for xx years AND the benficiary of as much life insurance as I could obtain (up to but not over the loaned amount) and give them as much access to my financial dealings going forward as they required. They declined "that would be like slavery" well what the hell do you think my life is now? If I have even a minor cash emergency, I'm screwed and I already had to fiel bankruptcy once. I make enough to survive with some comfort, I do not make enough to grow or enough to experiment. What I would have done with the money is just vanished for a month, just disconnected from everyone and gone camping and seeing new places for a month. Then I would have started looking for what I want to do with my life. I'd love to go apprentice with a blacksmith for a week or three, I'd love to go audit a few brick and mortar college classes to get an idea of if it is something I feel I could actually do. I'd love to go volunteer at various volunteer opportunities and just interact with people and hear their stories and struggles and try and find out who I am and what I want to do/be.

So, no I'm not ok. I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate the world we live in (for way too many reasons to list here). There are men that effectively have their own private spacecraft walking around this planet but taking a 3 day trip to Disney World is literally a dream that I'd never be able to justify at my current income because I could use the money for far more practical things.

Last year after quite a painful breakup, after which everything went to shit. Soon after being dumped I was pushed out of my own startup by my co-founders. This lead to me to a self destructive spiral damaging everything I touched, especially uni, which in reality is my only true responsibility. (I'm very lucky to have come from a stable and supportive environment)

This (academic) year was me basically trying to fix everything I fucked up last year. Passing all the courses I failed while listening to quite a few new ones. I did fine and there are just fivee courses between me and my degree.

In 5 days I have a final for one of them which I MUST pass now. If I fail, I probably won't be allowed to re-enroll, which means I won't be able to get my degree, which means the last four years have been for nothing. The worst thing is, this is my fourth year in a three year degree, and if all goes well I'll only be able to finish it next year. So five years total.

To top things off I failed this exam last week by a big margin 20%. I spent a month and a half studying for it, now I have less than a week to reprepare.

I don't know where to start or what to do. What I did wrong last time. I lack motivation and it all feels pointless and useless. How can I do something in less than 5 days, that I didn't manage in more than a month.

I'm not sure if I'm too dumb to pass, or just an idiot for not being able to force myself to sit down and work, to give 100%.

Sorry for the rant, thank you for letting me get this of my chest. I'm probably gonna go to bed now, wake up at four and try to get some work done.

It helps to hear from others who have gone through the same thing, and who have come out the other side. Glad that you made it out, and hopefully I will too soon.