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I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

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Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#261

Post by theitgirl »

I once considered suicide too. It was for a different reason. My boyfriend of 2 years told me he got engaged to a woman his parents picked. I had just graduated from college, had no job, was still living with my parents and had no plans for the future. I just got more and more depressed..stopped eating and pretty much cried all the time. My best friend told me to "stop being a loser". My mom kept saying "why are you doing this to us?". Well, I felt like a loser and a burden to society...really, I would be doing a favor to everyone if I just disappeared.

Then one day I did try to commit suicide by slitting my wrists. It didn't quite work out. It wasn't as easy as they show in the movies :). Then I had a realization. I was looking for some external factor to make me feel better...my mom, my friends, etc. and I was very self-pitiful. I realized that if I wanted to get out of my situation, only I can do something about it.

I let go of the past and started over. I got a paid internship..moved out of my parents house and concentrated on just being self-sustaining. I made new friends and tried to be as social as possible...being around happy people rubs of on you :)

I feel like you are still in the phase where you are going over your past and keep thinking that you should have done something different. You have to stop thinking about the past. Hopefully, saying it out loud here helped you a little with that. I would suggest you to concentrate on the present. Take small steps. Do one thing each day to improve your situation.

A few more tips that helped me deal with my depression: - Write out your feelings like you did now - Try your best not be alone. Either go to the library or a coffee shop to do job applications or other work. - Don't take your friends and your dad too seriously. Most people do not know how to deal with a depressed person. They usually say the exact wrong thing :)

Best of luck!

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#262

Post by joezydeco »

mirkules wrote: post #255
joezydeco wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may also find that working in an area unrelated to computers you'll find an idea for a project or niche business that will work. There are lots of businesses that need engineers and programmers to help them but can't figure out where to look first.

You nailed it. As an example, recently I got back into music, started playing with a band, and then it hit me - there is an opportunity to make some iPad apps to help when on stage and in the practice studio. You can spend your life as an engineer always looking for other people's problems to solve, and always running out of motivation. When you have your own problem to solve, out of necessity or convenience, the mot…

From personal experience, there's also this great moment of pride that comes when you hand someone a tool they've been dying for and it works exactly as they wanted it.

You are (momentarily) a genius, a god, a lifesaver. Until they find the first bug, then it's back to business. =)

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#263

Post by natasham25 »

After graduating college, I got a very competitive job with nice pay that had a lot of potential. I ended up absolutely hating it, to the point where I would drive into work every day with tears in my eyes.

The problem was, I was young and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do, so I didn't even know where to apply. So I ended up spending all my free time focusing on things I was passionate about. I wanted to be healthy, so I cooked and worked out and got healthy. I also loved traveling and seeing and learning new things. So every weekend, I tried something new. I was in DC at the time, so I got to see all the plantations and went sky diving and learned skiing and went on a hot-air ballon ride and a lot more! Every weekend, I would do something I was passionate about. And none of these things were in any way related to my work.

Now, a few years later, I am working on a start-up with some new friends that focused on making it easier for others to get out and see and try new things.

So my advice is this. You're 20, so you probably have no idea what that one thing you're passionate about is. There are probably a few things that you're passionate about, so pursue them. They don't have to be related to anything you're "working" on at all. If you're passionate about traveling or meeting people or playing a sport or playing guitar or anything else, pursue it. It will not be a straight path to finding a job and getting out of your current situation, but it will be a step to getting there, and you never know what or who you will discover along the way. Good luck!

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#264

Post by mladenkovacevic »

///What doesn't make it any easier is that I'm 20, I have no college diploma, no high school diploma, no idea what the fuck is going on.///

So this pretty much sums it up. Dude you're 20! You just stopped being a teenager! Of course you're clueless about life and such... we all were at that age.

If you were European, Middle Eastern, Chinese or pretty much any other nationality other than American/Canadian your dad would be bitching at you until you were 45 so don't be so down on all that stuff. Pick yourself up, take some classes, study ANYTHING, read some books, go to some networking events, meet some new people... and always look for problems that need solving.

You'll have a bunch of false starts, and a single one of those at the age of 20 really shouldn't get you down all that much. I don't know how ballin’ you were before you quit your job, or how highly-paid you were, but I've got a feeling that you didn't walk out on millions in bonuses or anything so you didn't exactly make some catastrophic mistake.

If you are having suicidal thoughts I'd also talk to somebody and get some professional help maybe.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#265

Post by chops »

jonnathanson wrote: post #77
thaumaturgy wrote: post #59

So, here's my story; I tell it occasionally when stories like yours come up. I had no college experience, but did manage to jump right in to a good I.T. job while I was still in high school, and from there into an even better I.T. job in another state where I made more money than I knew what to do with. (I've never been good with money, and didn't understand what "savings" meant.) I worked there until suddenly one da…

"So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends." This. OP: Sounds like your friends are a little insecure or uncomfortable around risk takers like yourself. They're not cut from the same cloth. Truth is, most people in our society aren't. They're play-it-safe types, and to them, stepping outside the lines is tantamount to insanity. Many of these folks will take…

Many of these folks will take corporate jobs, or law jobs, and lead lives of reasonably well-compensated misery. None of them will be paid nearly what his lost days and months and years are actually worth; this is felt intangibly, in the back of his mind, like a dull pain whose cause he can't quite pin down.

Very poignant and well written. If you had a blog, I'd read it.

OP: "Friends" who can't respect the stones it takes to quit your job and seek your true calling, and furthermore, who insult instead of supporting you emotionally when the shit hits the fan - well, they can go straight to hell. They aren't your friends, they're asshole leeches who don't have the stones to do it themselves and instead seek to bring you down because of it.

Swallow your pride and find a (shitty if necessary) job and make new friends there.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#266

Post by reason »

Fuck your dad, seriously.

Your parents are probably foreigners who do not understand the concept of pursuing your hobbies and making decisions that make you happy. You seem to be getting no support from anyone around you, and that sucks. I've been through it, and am going through it now.

My father never supported any of my hobbies. In junior high I knew I wanted to get into CS and business. I would watch TechTV on a daily basis, fiddle with my computer, etc. I loved it, but dad didn't give an ounce of fuck, pushed me to pursue a more stable field, and now I'm in grad school with years of work ahead of me that I will likely hate. I'm trying to make the best of it, but it shouldn't have happened. And when it comes to other personal areas of my life, they are still incredibly unsupportive.

So I've learned something that you should too, and it's that you need to only rely on yourself for drive and encouragement. Your parents will die soon and you'll be left alone. Your friends will move away and leave you behind. You'll find yourself relying on yourself to make it, so learn to be self-driven and to not give a single fuck about what your father or friends have to say.

Although you're not getting any support from those immediately around you, know that you've got tons of support here from people who've been and who are where you are now.

People might respond defending your dad, but don't listen to them. Parents often forget about the huge level of influence they have on the development of their children, and the lack of support and encouragement can really fuck with a person's self-esteem and drive. Shitty parents really rub me the wrong way.

For parents reading: encourage and motivate your children.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#267

Post by willpower101 »

This person is the poster-child for why you get a degree AND and internship / experience in some marketable field.

People all over swear up and down you DON'T need a degree and they are right. But having a degree means that your personal safety net is higher. You don't fall back to square one if life hits you in the face all at once. Stints and Wendy's, Pizza Hut, and Best Buy are long gone. The worst that can happen is I have to go back to a white collar job in tech support. ;)

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#268

Post by willpower101 »

willpower101 wrote: post #267

This person is the poster-child for why you get a degree AND and internship / experience in some marketable field. People all over swear up and down you DON'T need a degree and they are right. But having a degree means that your personal safety net is higher. You don't fall back to square one if life hits you in the face all at once. Stints and Wendy's, Pizza Hut, and Best Buy are long gone. The worst that can happen…

Wait a minute. He's 20?! Christ. What kind of plan did you / do you have? You say you like art, why not get in school full time? Fill out the fafsa, get financial aid, live on campus instead of driving to that little community college, and go broaden yourself for a few years!

If you need help navigating the financial aid system and seeing just exactly what you quality for then shoot me an email @ gmail. I'm a master at it.

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#269

Post by a3camero »

dpark wrote: post #243
Jach wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about the wrong term, though I think it was clear from context. s/paid therapist/psychiatrist practicing psychotherapy/. If you don't believe the medical industry suffers from the same problems as the political industry, with "sales reps" taking on the roles of "lobbyists", you should do some googling. Here's a nice database: http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

There's a lot of difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist. There's even more difference between getting paid on commission and being wooed by lobbyists. Having doctors influenced by lobbyists is almost certainly a negative overall, but it's nowhere close to having doctors literally paid on commission for writing prescriptions.

"As part of that promotion, Allergan provided kickbacks to doctors in the form of cash, travel, and meals and held seminars instructing physicians on how to bill Medicare for off-label procedures. "

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/september/settlement-in...

Re: I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea.

#270

Post by dopp »

1. I'm from India, and most of the kids are still living with parents at the age of 20. So stop worrying about it.

2. Find out exactly what you want to do. It might take some time, but you gotta continue the search. Meanwhile at least find a part time job to pay your bills. If you're smart enough to have a good job in the first place, you'll at least find a part time job in a restaurant.

3. No one else can make things happen for you but you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, prep up the gun, and start shooting.

There's no gurantee that you'll be the next Steve Jobs, but not doing anything about your current situation is a sure shot way of failure.

All the best.

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