I’m 29 and work with people in their 40’s and up. None of them have their shit together.

The idea that you must have a fully set career and planned life in your 20s is a conspiracy and a scam made to make you feel less-than and worse.

Beat em. Live life at the pace it comes to ya. Don’t think about where you should be. There is no should. Society is a game of dress up and everyone is a nervous ape that just wants be to loved.

It gets better bro.

I’m 33 and I was in a worse situation:

• Started getting depressed in 2011 at the age of 20
• Graduated in CS in 2016, super late, but with top grades
• Started working as a software developer, hated it
• For a few years I switched between working in a local computer shop and uni to get a master’s degree
• Again, I graduated super late in 2021 but with top grades
• Still hated working as a developer and now hated working as a technician too
• At the end of 2021, I got a call from my old high school, they needed someone to teach programming
• Decide to give it a try, absolutely love it
• Suddenly, depression is gone and I have a reason to get up in the morning
• A 10 year old nightmare is over, still single though

redacted for privacy :3

Haha, yeah…

I did the classic overachiever route and finished my thesis pretty fast, focused on a specific career. Then still ended up with a shitty full-time job, so took on three more jobs and started a nonprofit. All that still got me exactly nowhere. I was ridiculously stressed. One time I didn’t sleep for 3 days and had to check in to the hospital.

Hopefully this offers some comfort. The things you consider mistakes, are the things I wish I had done. Even spending more time with my parents. So perhaps nothing is so serious :)

My “nuclear option” was immigration. I sold everything and (just barely) got a business license in the developing world. I’m basically Ozymandias from watchmen, but less fit and I don’t own tights. Also none of my friends are blue. Splicing genes and splitting atoms, I will admit to though.

Anyway the point is, what matters is what happens next. I don’t recommend immigrating to the developing world (it’s acutely distressing), but it’s surprising how much we can influence the outcomes of our lives if we radically commit to a course of action. If the exact details of your course of action aren’t optimal (or even borderline insane), I think that’s OK, it’s being radically committed to improving your future that matters. The context isn’t exactly irrelevant, but I think it’s secondary.

So no need to stress. Better to spend that energy doing. Anything reasonable will do. Start a side hustle, learn programming, design websites, learn to do taxes for yourself and others. Degrees are OK but I don’t value them any more personally. Get used to starting at square one over and over – it’s a good habit and you will eventually know how to do many things. People who can do many things are rare and valuable.

I’m approaching 40 this year. Around 20, I missed an important uni deadline, and meant the degree I had planned would cost me an extra year I couldn’t afford (like literally couldn’t afford the tuition). Managed to finish, but with a degree no one would recommend. Was absolutely panicked.

Ultimately, ended up very successful in a job in a country on the other side of the world. Met the woman who is now my wife of 13 years, had some amazing adventures, moved to a few more different countries, changed industries again about 10 years ago, and worked my way up to upper management again before leaving that field too.

TL;DR No, stress has brought me nothing but misery, I have no regrets except that I didn’t enjoy the ride as much as I could have.

Learn new stuff as you work, or as hobbies (my entire second career started as a hobby). Don’t be afraid to “fake it till you make it” and keep an eye out for jobs you didn’t even consider as a possibility. I personally avoid corporate gigs, smaller independent companies are more likely to notice you and use you for the skills you bring. Life can fly by, enjoy the ride.

I dropped out of my university in my first year. I was a music major, and my orchestra director set up a gofundme so that family and friends and teachers from my old high school could all get together to purchase an instrument for me I can use in school because my family was broke and couldn’t afford it. But I stayed at home instead of living on campus, and since my family life was so chaotic, the stress of everything happening at home on top of taking on a huge course load made me lose my academic scholarship, and the thought of taking out student loans to be a gigging musician seemed like a guaranteed way to never escape poverty. I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. The deadline passed, and I fell into a deep depression that took years to get out of.

I had to start working in various blue collar environments until I had enough money to move out with my partner, who turned out to be really shitty once we started living together so then I had to find a place by myself, then I went back to a technical college to get some IT certs, and eventually stumbled into my first “big boy” job doing IT for a large warehouse. Since then, I’ve doubled my salary by hopping between a few different tech jobs, and I even get to play in a local symphony with the same instrument that was given to me for school.

It took about 5 years of wafting around after dropping out of college, and my mental health was in the shitter for most of that, but going through that stress made me the person I am today, and for the first time in my life, I kind of like who I am. With that said, I didn’t have the time to enjoy life with how much I was working and am trying to make up for lost time now. But it’s so much easier to do that now that I have disposable income and a comfortable place to sleep every night.

TL;DR Your early 20s suck and there’s going to be a lot of stress – thats unavoidable unless you’re a nepo baby. Just roll with it and don’t forget to have fun every now and then. You’ll figure it out.

I have been struggling with my career for about 4-5 years now. I am already 33. Life takes a while to settle. There is no rush and definitely no need to stress about it. Loops are pretty common. You are not too old. 21 is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Thought I was having a quarter life crisis then at 40 realised - “Oh no, that’s just life”.

It’s just bullshit and downhil all the way form birth til death.

Get used to it.

There will always be someone who is beating you in a metric (buying houses, having kids, promotions, pay, relationships, etc…) fixating on it will drive you mad.

Instead you should compare your current status against where you were and appreciate how you are moving forward

As for age

During university my best mate was 27 who dropped out of his final year, grabbed a random job, then went to college to get a BTEC so they could start the degree.

It was similar in my graduate intake, we had a 26 year old who had been a brickie for 5 years before getting a comp sci degree.

The first person I line managed was a junior 15 years older than me, who had a completely different career stream. They had the house, kids, had managed big teams, etc… honestly I learnt tons from them.

You have time, just don’t do drugs. Else you won’t have time.

I also dropped out very early. Struggled with that disappointment for a long time. Moved in with my SO’s parents and lived with them for years!

We moved out and got a rental when I was 25. I’m 29 now and working on my career in banking. Started exercising the last couple years and have been keeping up with it consistently. I feel like it was only in the last few years that I felt I was making progress but really needed some optimism to keep going. You just never know what’s going to change your life around. Try to improve yourself in any way you can and sometimes that can help you change your trajectory

I’m a bit older than you, and I know for my age group things are real hit and miss in terms of success and ability to do things. Your age group is just getting fucked. I’m sorry :(

We don’t have the same level of opportunity the boomers had, or the money, and now all that wealth and power is theirs and they’ve tightened the grip. It’ll take a lot of dying out or a revolution to fix anything, I feel.

Fwiw, I dropped out and reentered the following year and completed it. From there I just kept building my career and I’m doing pretty well for myself at this point.

Don’t give up.

You’ll be fine. You are incredibly young. I just started over with a new career at 45. I have friends my age who are back in school. Maybe try not to have kids since that will make this all harder. But then again, have em if you want em.

Oh you’re always “right” to stress about life. Life is fucking hard, and full of problems, and if you aren’t neck deep in problems in your life it’s because you’re unconscious.

But for that very same reason, you’re always “right” to skip the stress and just get on with the next task. If you have a hard time doing that, I suggest drawing a map of the meaning in your life.

If you don’t know how to do that, look for a class called “Maps of Meaning” and watch it. It’s a free course, published on youtube. No homework or anything; just all the lectures videotaped and published on youtube.

That one course has done more to make my life functional than anything else I’ve encountered.

What mistakes are you repeating?