Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life

Good courage, much love. <3

It's quite easy for us (I'm 29 too) to get too caught up into the idea of happiness we see on the news or all the public stories we know.

Many people you admire were what could be considered a failure at 29, but that's not newsworthy, we always love the young ones, that they've figured out everything by the time they're 23 or less (12?). That's not true for most people, and doesn't mean you won't find happiness in the near of far future.

That's what helps me to get some perspective. Also know that regardless of how successful you are your life impacts way more people than what you think.

It's tough, and it's something you'd have to experience I think many times in your life.

You're asking if there is anything else to life, but likely you haven't actually experienced a day of real life. I think you need to figure out what life has to offer, and jumping right back into another institution is not the way to do it. Discover the world, whether by travel or by engaging in your local community. Meet new people, try new things, and above all, do not conform. It will not take long for you to discover that life happening all around you, but you've been sheltered from it. Once you discover real life you will realize how worthless your Business Administration degree truly is and laugh about how silly you were for thinking it was so important in the first place.

You should embark on side projects. They will teach you so much more than school ever will, and they will reward you in a way that nothing else really can. If your projects can make money too, then that's icing on the cake. You will be free.

I'm 25 years old with no degree, taught myself to code for the past 2 years and got turned down for thousands of developer jobs. I ended up working in a factory doing curtain assembly, and selling websites door-to-door after work, until last month, where the first day I decide to go back to sports, I tear my meniscus.

Thankfully, healthcare in Canada is free. However, with 250$ to my name at the time of surgery, the future was looking really, really dark. Can't work, and can't do door-to-door sales. Mother Nature has deadly accuracy with those curveballs.

In the hospital bed, I'm having an existential debate of what to do with my life (in the immediate future). I can sell my Macbook to stay afloat, but that means that I can't build iOS apps anymore. I can ask my brother for money, but he's just about the biggest asshole ever to have roamed the planet and we have a trash relationship. After a lot of tears and self-pity, and telling my life story to the nurse, I decide I'm going to throw life a curveball of my own and invest all I have in a new e-commerce venture.

So I set up a quick WooCommerce site selling Pokemon Go apparel and blew 200$ of my 250$ on FB and Instagram ads, and believe it or not, within 3 days, I nailed my first sale, and got approached by 2 Pokemon influencers to sell to their following.

I'm now making about 2 sales a day, which amounts to 30-35$. It's peanuts, but I've survived on less, and honestly, stuck in bed with a full zimmer brace, super high on painkillers, 10 full minutes to do a washroom trip and I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life. I'm trapped in bed for the next month, but I have never felt more free. Maybe with this, I don't even have to go to work again.

So that's my two cents, for your two cents. Find a project with potential and work on it. It doesn't have to bring money, it may be learning to play Californication on the guitar or implementing a hashing algorithm, but as long as it's something you enjoy and makes you grow, this is IMHO what life is all about.