What do you do for a living?

What do you do for a living?
We've learned that brain development isn't really complete until we're in our late twenties. We're able to drive a car as a teen, can even vote in many states and can often buy liquor at 18. But how many crazy fucks are getting into car crashes and killing people in their teens and twenties. It takes awhile to grow up and begin making sensible decisions in life. THEN we add sexual trauma to the mix and all bets are off. We're dealing with shame and fear that make every decision a minefield. I'd say to OP, keep doing your healing work and trust that things will get clearer, especially if you're able to find a healthy relationship with yourself.

I was an outstanding student not because I applied myself but because I was smart. But I didn't finish university until I was 25 and didn't find a real job until I was 31. I worked at it for over 15 years with some success but never had a full time job again for the rest of my life. I've survived financially but never thrived professionally. I was much too destabilized by early trauma to get my act together professionally or personally.

Be patient with yourself and keep your focus on self-compassion and self-care. If you're able to do that you will find your direction in life. All the best to you on your journey.
 
Was a Firefghter but left due to my orientation. I now work in that industry but selling to fire departments.

Would love to have been a counselor or work for a non profit. 49 now and i try not to look back and do the what if question.

Go with your heart.
 
I'm a 25 year old cook. I have a pretty cynical view of work. Those things might be related.

Work sucks. It just does. You sell your labor to some person at a market rate, and in exchange they get to tell you exactly what to do with your time for the next 6-10 hours. And then do it again the next day. And again. Couple days off, do it again. Repeat for 40-50 years. Sound fun?

I am just trying to find something that is bearable and doesn't sap too much of my energy so that maybe I can find an enjoyable hobby. Cooking professionally is not that thing.

@Teddyboy1969 I believe in you
 
I'm retired now (I'm 66). I worked for many years in the court system. Superior Court. I was working at a local university at their school of medicine that was connected to the hospital associated with the university. I was there 13 years and each time I tried to move on, my request for transfer was somehow "misplaced" come to find out. That's when I decided to return to school - at age 50. I worked days and went to night school for 2 years before I could secure a paid internship in my field - addiction & mental health. I found one and began my work - and I was beginning to feel pretty content with where I was. I began at a great agency, after 2 years was allowed to move on from the misdemeanor clients to the ones with felony drug charges and there to what is called drug court and worked with the mental health side. Eventually I was asked to work both in the superior court system and the local prison. Oddly enough, I greatly enjoyed my work. It was never part of my life, but I kept at it and began to excel. I stayed for just over 16 years. My advice, look around. Investigate local school/college programs. Go to school at night while you work during the day or vice versa. You don't have to like the part time job but stay at it - it will give you some money while you work toward your occupational goal. Most people don't find their ideal occupation the first time out so keep at it. Take it from those of us whose runway is shorter than it was yesterday - time passes quickly. Don't waste it because you can't get it back.
 
Was a Firefghter but left due to my orientation. I now work in that industry but selling to fire departments.

Would love to have been a counselor or work for a non profit. 49 now and i try not to look back and do the what if question.

Go with your heart.
smc - Please read my response. You're 49, I was 50 when I returned to school to get into the type of work I wanted.
 
Sherlock,

I read the books "The Millionaire Mind" and "The Millionaire Next Door" (Thomas J. Stanley) and it changed my life. This made me want to have my own business.

I wanted to go into technology. Here is what I like about tech: If you sell televisions, you have to buy the parts, build a TV, put it in the window, and when you sell it you have to buy all the parts and build another. With technology, you build it, you hit "copy," hit "paste" and you made another. You hit the button "add new user" and you made another sale.

I really loved when I was doing safety and risk management (before going back to school and writing my web app). It was hands on and I served a variety of clients all over the US in different industries. I was in nuclear reactors, laid buoys in the keys, was in the California desert at a construction site, of the roof of a warehouse being built in Joliet, IL. So much more...

Technology is securing my retirement. You do not want to lose sight of that.

Someone once told me that if you do something that you love, you will never work a day in your life.
 
I just started a new career as a hairstylist and I’m turning 41 this week. I previously worked in another totally different career for newly 20 years. Both careers were/are my passion and I enjoy getting up and going to work.
That for me is the most important part is loving what I do and that’s what I tell my kids find something you love doing and be proud of telling the world your work.
 
As a caveat of sorts : I normally, as a teenager, didn't listen to my folks too much - the usual teenager antics. However, I did listen when it came to working. They both always told me that if I plan to remain at a position for a length of time, participate in the employee retirement program. I'm glad I listened for once - I had one job I stayed at for 10 years, the next one was a state job (the one at the university I wrote about in my last response here) and it lasted 13 years. My final one was around 16 years. In those places of employment I had so much taken out of my paycheck - and it has paid off now that I'm retired. I have Social Security and 2 retirement payments each month. Granted, we don't live in a palace, but we're not hurting, either. Just a word to the wise - plan it out. You'll be glad you did. So many of my generation did not want to live like their folks, just "live for today" and do whatever feels good. That can only last so long then when you have children, need a car, have to buy clothing, live in someplace that has heat and clean running water and like to sleep in safety at night..........it all takes money and that comes from working.
I always worked - my first job at 16 was as a bus boy in a steak house - at least I had one good meal a day and tips each night from the waitress I worked with. Sometimes I didn't like what I had to do, but it was money until what I wanted showed up (and I kept looking around, too).
 
Take it from those of us whose runway is shorter than it was yesterday - time passes quickly. Don't waste it because you can't get it back.
WG, i am glad you posted and asked me to read it. I know i need to do it as i have made excuses for years and yet if i had gone back 10 years ago i would be there now. Ironically this was part of a conversation today with my T, my lack of faith in myself yet i encourage and talk positive to others yet not myself.
 
nothing anymore as i retired last summer due to covid but at 22 i had just gotten out of a 4 year hitch in the marine corp's, i tried short order cook too many hours a week 6 days 13 hours a day (screw that lol), then i had a 3 state delivery route for a couple of years then got a state job for 38 years now i do nothing but hope to have fun when things get back to normal.
 
Hi Sherlock--

I get following your passion but not sure how to fund it or yourself. The other posters have given you some great advice from many different points of view, and if I were you, I would truly consider them because you can do them from starting a business to taking classes (maybe not even for a degree but just to get to a goal) or if you choose to enroll for a degree but if it doesn't feel like the time, don't spend the time and waste your money. You have to decide what you want, not what somebody else is wanting for you (whether that is a parent, a partner, a school counselor, whatever). YOU. In your gut. That will tell you the right decision. Whether that is some type of day job so you can write at night and on the weekends, or maybe when COVID lifts, you decide to wait table or go into the service industry and flip and work nights so you can write during the days. Or get a job where you work nights so you write during the day and weekends or some day off during the week. And that job uses some skillset that you have that you ENJOY and feel CONFIDENT with. So I agree with others, so unless you have a partner and you are under his/her/their insurance, you can be on your own insurance, plus other benefits like WG said like retirement such as 401K. I know you can do it, I think you just need to put your foot out there.

This might help you, I took a couple of these and they were really good: https://www.writingclasses.com/

This also might help you, it's all startup companies looking for help and they are pretty active on their jobs: https://angel.co/jobs

If you haven't, consider putting a profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/

Hope this helps,
GH
 
WG, i am glad you posted and asked me to read it. I know i need to do it as i have made excuses for years and yet if i had gone back 10 years ago i would be there now. Ironically this was part of a conversation today with my T, my lack of faith in myself yet i encourage and talk positive to others yet not myself.
Hey smc1972 - Good for you for discussing this with your T. Now that you have some better perspective on it, continue the job search. It's out there - keep looking. Ask others who are in the profession you're looking into - ask them how they got started or if there is any sort of schooling involved. If schooling is involved, look into a grant or scholarship (you don't have to pay those back but you DO have to pay back a loan so don;t get a loan since you'll have debt when you graduate - DON'T). If it doesn't work out right away or there are set-backs, it's just how life works, it isn't because you yourself are a failure or a bad man, it's just how it goes. Keep trying. Don't look back, don't give up.
 
After 20 years on disability I am now retired last year in January. I worked as and off shore fisherman for many years and then went into my own business as a cash buyer of Mushrooms and other secondary forest products Harvested products for food, medicine and floral supply. I loved both of those occupations and worked all the time. I hid at work from my past had no time to think about the past while working.
 
...I hid at work from my past had no time to think about the past while working.

Though I didn't remember the past this line definitely speaks to me. Work really held my focus... except when it didn't. I certainly found satisfaction in the work I did but I couldn't sustain the commitment or the attention and turned to sexual acting out I now understand was rooted in the trauma I didn't remember simply to sustain myself. It was a gut wrenching experience in many ways because my job involved very public responsibilities while my acting out was sordid. Had anyone discovered what I was doing when I slipped away from the office, it might easily have ended up on the front page of the local newspaper. I appeared there on one occasion but not for what was most shameful about my life. I wouldn't have ended that career in my prime had I been emotionally healthy. It was challenging and rewarding on many levels, but I needed to leave after a few years in therapy that gave me a bit of insight in my past. Of course, unpacking it all has taken decades and brought me here.
 
Work really held my focus... except when it didn't.
Oh I can relate to this post Visitor. While fishing was a good time for me and I never had to deal with the public. In fact the skipper knowing how easily I would go off at people trying to knock the price down. I would tell them to fuck and get the hell of of my dock. He sent me to the bar and would call when he needed me to through up more fish while we sold fish to the public waiting for our delivery time.

My next occupation put me on stage working in front of people that would go on for 8 hours or so and I would get drunk ager work to pass out. I never had time to get away to act out but really wanted to. I loved the job but it took a lot out of me. I burned out and my neck let go after several years and that was the end of my working life and then everything started to come back on me. I still feel I am very immature for my age but that could be as I am looking though my younger selves eye. Very confusing for me, I guess maybe that little kid in me is still front and centre. At least that is why I think I make so many poor mistakes that I should have learn not to by now.

I have never done well in therapy and don't have a T at this time and it has been awhile now, I am under the care of a Psychiatrist but I don't talk to her about that kind of stuff mostly just how the medications are working. This place is a good place to come and tell your story make friends and be able to talk about the hard stuff in our past and present.
 
My official job title is "Engineering Assistant" and called "drain inspector" by everyone besides Human Resources. Personally, I like to call it "Puddle Eliminator".

Nothing like watching a 80 acre "puddle" disappear.
 
You remind Bill of the time I was working for the state highway department at a time when the freeway system in and around the metropolitan area was under construction. I worked on a survey crew during the winter when we would to topographic surveys. I also was assigned the task of going down into the storm drain lines beneath a freeway under construction to measure the flow of water. I'd enter the manhole and climb down sixty or seventy feet, then walk along the main pipe to measure water coming over weirs that had been placed in smaller pipes. The main pipe would be six feet high when I started, then five feet, then four feet. I was wearing hip boots and carrying a flashlight because it was pitch black. The only good thing about it was that though it was 20 below zero on the surface, it was in the mid-fifties at the bottom of manhole. What a strange thing to remember... your "drain inspector" triggered the memory.

Amazingly, all the experience I had as a construction inspector as teen, then into my twenties when I was at university allowed me to qualify for an examination to become a civil engineer when I was first job hunting in California. I didn't get the job but was happy for the recognition all those years working for public agencies and private testing laboratories was seen as valuable. It certainly proved to be so when I did finally get a job. That experience probably helped me advance in that career. Such a long story, but then by the time we approach eighty years of age there are quite a few that could be told...
 
For anyone thinking about going back to school or changing careers, I have been seeing a lot of opportunity for grants and free schooling, especially in the healthcare fields. Checking with the financial assistance department at colleges, universities, technical schools or with the recruiting department of hospital/healthcare systems is a good place to start. The pandemic and economy has created a need for healthcare workers and there is assistance for people whose employers may have shuttered permanently.
 
I also was assigned the task of going down into the storm drain lines beneath a freeway under construction to measure the flow of water. I'd enter the manhole and climb down sixty or seventy feet, then walk along the main pipe to measure water coming over weirs that had been placed in smaller pipes. The main pipe would be six feet high when I started, then five feet, then four feet.

Reminds me of a topographical survey (my first metric job), I was measuring drops, calculating inverts and came to a very large pipe. I had to walk down the pipe to locate side taps and measure for invert. I came to one line and a.great gust of air came out, I boogied upstream in the main pipe. It was the discharge pipe for the pumping station on the expressway. It was close.


Besides being warm down there in the.dead of winter, manholes (especially 8'dia) are a life saver in 100°+ weather.


I hate 42" pipe. 36" pipe I crawl. 48" is big enough to hobble through. 42" pipe is just big enough to think you can hobble through.


Working in the soils and materials lab was probably my favorite job. Designing concrete was enjoyable, especially 90 pounds/cft concrete. Spending 18 hours on an asphalt mat was my least favorite part.

I taught at the concrete association for several years.
 
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