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

Your story touched me as it's exactly what I am living through at the moment, its now 6 months since I quit my well paying job and being broke constantly is no fun, especially after life threw some unexpected twists my way, my dad being sick and me taking time off to stay with him the past 2 months till he got better.

Point of it all is there will be lows in life but also highs, so hold on and take heart.

What are you doing with this free time?

First, you need to accept right now, that we need to sad times to appreciate the happy times. They are our reference points. There is no avoiding that. It's how the human brain operates.

Listen to me carefully. Imagine I'm in the room, sitting next to you. Relax and take a deep breath. Focus only on whats happening within you're proximity. The ambient sounds, the light from the screen, the keyboard, the mouse. Focus on that and nothing else. Empty your mind of your worries. Think about how passive everything around you has become. It's all just sitting there, just waiting for you to do something. You're the stimulus that puts things in motion. We, as humans do that.

There is a fantastic quote by Stanley Kubrick, that helps expand on this idea:

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

Look at your situation. You hated your job. So much so that you quit. That takes balls. At the very least, it's inspiring. In fact, Im at a cross roads in my life, very similar to you. You're not alone. You're story has captivated me (and many others) so much so that I've put aside an hour to read your story and respond from my heart. I think you're in far more control that you even realise man. I'm sitting in work right now, I should probably be coding some CSS or aligning my layers in Photoshop but no, you've won my attention. I'll probably think about you later tonight when I'm doing something unrelated. This is an incredibly powerful ability. It's who you are.

I'll try keep this short, but no matter who you are in this world, no matter where you are. You are always free. The mind is capable of making any choice it wants. Nobody can control your mind. Focus on the reality in front of you, focus on that fact that you and only you are the master of your decisions. You can achieve anything. Live is self-fulfilling, never forget that.

Read over what I wrote. Read it a few times. You won't get it first time. Think about it man, you've got a lot more control and freedom than you ever imagined.

Life is self-fulfilling. What you believe, is what happens.

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 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.

Learn to draw strength from within, and not to depend so much on external cues of approval or disapproval. Because guess what? Most people in your life are always going to disapprove of entrepreneurial decisions, or outside-the-norm inclinations. If you're always looking outward for validation, you're never going to get it.

Unfortunately, failure is the risk we outside-the-norm types face. We roll the dice, even if we try to roll them intelligently. And so, you failed this time. The dice came up empty. It sucks. I can't possibly tell you it doesn't, and I won't try to sugar coat it. It cuts you to your very soul, and it weighs you down. It makes you feel worthless and helpless. I've been there myself, and I know the feeling all too well. But the important thing is that you don't let a failure become failure. Learn from this one. You'll need time to get back on your feet, rebuild, and distance yourself from the emotional impact of this failure. But eventually, when you're strong enough, you're going to want to revisit it. Because you'll find quite a bit of experiential knowledge in it. When you confront your failure and really get to the bottom of it -- really understand why it happened -- you'll know what not to do next time.

The difference between people who fail, and people who are failures, is that the former learn from their mistakes. They draw wisdom from them, so they don't repeat them. That's what matters.

Remember, even if your friends are dicks and your dad is abusive, you've got dozens of friends on HN who believe in you :)

Print the responses on this thread, and read them out to yourself every morning before and after you go for a jog. The perspective that will provide you will help.