Hey everyone,
My name is Dave. I'm a 24 year old from the province of Quebec in Canada. I signed up yesterday but I wanted to be in a fresher state of mind before writing something so long and honest. I was pretty damn tired. This is going to be a post where I pretty much let all of it out on top of being an introduction. I had my FTE before/during new years and I'm still raw from the emotion of it. I feel the need to just have a deep reflection of my life with this post. Why do you ask? Well, to figure out where we're going we have to know where we're from right? Trying to change something is pointless if you don't know what lead to it.
I'm putting this here also as a way to keep myself accountable to the feelings I have right now. I never ever in my life want to have to deal with the kind of shit I'm dealing with right now. If reading this again doesn't invoke the current feelings I have in myself and pushes me further than nothing will and I can honestly tell my future self he's a lost cause. I hope those words alone will kick me in the a$$ when needed. I can't say for sure it won't ever happen again in my life but this needs to be my new definition of rock bottom.
It's hilarious to me how sometimes things just align. I suppose if there's a silver lining to where I'm at right now it would be just that. I'm currently in between jobs. Starting another one soon but that's besides the point as it doesn't help this situation in this present moment. Being between jobs is why this whole thing even got so bad and happened. Maybe I should be thankful? Or maybe somewhat like my brother I'll look back to this shitty moment as something that led to greater things. I'll get into what I mean by that later.
Anyhow, as I was saying. Being currently between jobs and tired of working the shitty jobs I've been working I was browsing youtube and stumbled upon MJ's interview with John Sonmez (was looking at how to learn to code) which lead me to spending some money on TMF . I don't think I've ever resonated with a book this much up until that point but I still hadn't reached the point a week ago where I am now where I can truly appreciate it. I instantly picked up Unscripted right after.
I plan on redoing thorough readings of both after this situation is better dealt with and I can focus on moving forward. I need to imprint all of it to memory where I don't have to refer back to the book after.
So what lead to this rambling awkward already long before it even started post you ask?
Like nearly ever year when I go home for the holidays I have this feeling of not belonging. As such I always try to stay for as short as possible. In this case I got fed up right before new years. For context, the drive to my hometown from where I currently live is about a 6 hour drive, 4 of which are in the middle of a forest with a small town smack in the middle. No cell reception in those 4 hour stretches unless really close to the middle town. Being further up north and higher elevation the whole place is frigid cold even when the weather is already frigid cold. Think -30 Celsius before wind chill.
Of course as fate would have it, my car broke down in the middle of the second 2 hour of forest stretch. I was stuck, on January 31st, on an already not that driven through road, late at night in -30 Celsius weather. I won't lie. I panicked. I did not have the winter clothing/blankets needed to get through a night in those conditions, much less go outside and walk in the frigid windy cold back to the small town which would have been ridiculous considering it was very close to 100 kilometers behind me at this point. The bright side is my car engine would still run enough for warmth but I didn't have much faith in it staying that warm in idle with how cold it was.
After about 30 minutes of just being in silence I just opened my backpack and put on a ton of layer of clothes to try to at least have that. Turned on my hazards hoping someone would come through and afterwards I just sat in silence and started to think as to how I ended up where I was at, from beginning to end. I'm going to go through this again on here as this is a moment I need to etch into my mind.
Family context or maybe how denying one's origins and roots might make you go slowly insane
I grew up in a family of entrepreneur. I don't know if that's why but maybe there's something there to be said about how it might be in my DNA and ignoring it could only lead to being unhappy. Maybe it's not the case at all and I'm just trying to fit this illusion with this story, of how I got to where I'm at. It's hard to say even with hindsight.
My dad was a general construction contractor. There's not much to say here in the whole what he did and what not. He went bankrupt when I was still too young to really remember. He had a stroke and lost everything as his business partners were quite literally incompetent. It's sad to say but where he is today is a perfect example of what to not be and I dread ever being in his place.
My mother owns a gift shop/ clothing store/ chocolate factory. It's changed so much and been all over the place over the years. It's hard to explain as it's evolved so much over the 20+ years they've been in business. I might go into more details later in this post. I'm really just laying this out as I go.
My brother... Well that's the interesting case. Or at least one that affects me much more I think. Before I go into that, I have to explain that I've most definitely compared myself to him in a very unhealthy way over the years. I of course have no one to blame but myself for this but I need to acknowledge it first. We have a big age gap, 11 years to be exact. I've had this obsession of comparing where I am in life compared to where he was at my age. I don't know why. Maybe it's because he's more of a father to me than my dad ever was and I respect him? Maybe I just see it as a very unhealthy competition? I can't say. This is one that still eludes me. All I know is that we're such different persons in every aspect that honestly doing so is hurting me much more than anything else. We're almost polar opposites.
Going into the specifics, my brother graduated a technical college for civil engineering straight out of high school. He worked his a$$ off and started a family really early. Then about 8 years ago his house burned down and he lost everything. All thanks to a cigarette. I still remember my mom waking me up in the dead of night saying my brother's house was on fire and asking me if I wanted to come with her. I was so groggy and it felt so surreal at the time that I thought I was dreaming. I just grumbled and went back to sleep. I woke up next morning and bam! Brother, pregnant girlfriend and his 2 kids are there. That was an interesting morning.
After that well. My brother had a ton of issues with rebuilding because of the city. Something about how his house wasn't "burned down" enough and since he'd demolished it, it was no longer grandfathered in (he lived in a rural road next to agricultural fields). All this despite the home being declared a total loss. He had hired a contractor to rebuild it since he had full insurance on it. The city halted the construction and threatened to demolish what had been rebuilt if they didn't stop. Contractor and brother lawyered up of course. There were politics involved between the mayor telling my brother to resume building even though he never said so on paper while the city's person responsible for that was trying to sabotage the mayor. It was a fun ride.
During this time my brother drank a lot as well to cope. I'm all too familiar with that now. He got a DUI and lost his license. His job as a civil eng tech at the time needed him to drive around the entire region where we lived or else he'd lose his job. I drove him around that entire summer even though I didn't have my full driver license yet. I'd pose as his "intern" on sites since I wasn't supposed to be there and didn't even have cards. I couldn't legally be there. There were a few close calls but we managed.
My brother eventually won considering he'd taken notes of everything and what not in true CYA fashion concerning the house rebuild. This in turn really impressed the contractor he had hired and he offered a partnership to my brother to grow their business in a Civil Engineering direction. My brother accepted of course.
The company was originally only doing general construction with some very basic civil engineering. They had about 20-30 employees and were in the low 7 digit gross per year. In 7 years, they turned into the biggest local "construction" company. They now do general/commercial/industrial construction, government civil engineering projects and damage restoration. The company now has 100+ employees, 60 of which are under my brother's supervision and run in the mid 8 digits gross per year.
A perfect example of a shitty moment turned into momentum is it not? I doubt my brother would have looked at you with a straight face if you told him 8 years ago that his house burning down would be the best thing that would happen in his life.
Well... Maybe I should start talking about myself now.
I thought starting at this point would be easy. Turns out it's really hard to form coherent enough thoughts to lay it all on this post.
I've never really felt like I belonged anywhere. Even going as far back as elementary school. I apparently was a really outgoing child, the complete opposite of what I became over the years. It's really crazy how lasting and how important the effects of not fitting in with anyone in school can change a person if it's true.
I've always had a crazy curiosity. Which lead to me always looking at things beyond my years? It's hard to explain. As a result I never really fit in with other kids and was considered an odd ball. The same is also true of family. Not so much my immediate family but it's definitely true with my extended one. Which is fairly big. I'd get all the "smart" labels and all those things which made it even worse. I got bullied over most things and even though I was nearly twice as big as most kids I didn't even have the spine to fight back. I still wonder why to this day. I think I was too busy trying to rationalize it.
I became addicted to video games. It was my escapism. It's grim but I can say with confidence that if I didn't have video games when I did I would have probably killed myself. This lasted all the way up until fairly recently but I'll get into more of that later.
It's really true what they say. With the whole labeling someone as "smart" means they become afraid of failure. I still feel it to this day. My work ethic has always been shit as a result. I just cruised through classes like nothing and never really had to work for it. Did the bare minimum and always ended up above average. Not like it means anything anyway but I think it's part of why things are this way now and again, I have to acknowledge it.
On the polar opposite, my best and only friend from those years struggled with everything. He had an insane work ethic though, just like my brother's. After a crazy bunch of turns and never giving up he's now studying to be a doctor which I would have never expected in a thousand years from him if someone had told me that. More comparing I know... It just feels important to acknowledge how important hard work is. For myself if anything.
Anyhow. My parent split before I was born. My dad never really cared for his family until before he had his stroke. I guess losing everything made him reconsider his priorities. I've always felt at odd with my dad because of that. I'll blame the history between him and my brother for that which makes it even more ironic now that my brother is the one who employs my dad. I always felt like I was his "shot" at redemption and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I can't recall the last time I ever said I love you to my dad. Just thinking about doing so makes me feel weird.
As a result, my brother was more of a father to me than my own father until I was about 6 years old. I don't have many memories but I do remember my brother carrying me with him anywhere he went when going to the nearest "snowmobile relays". I don't know if that's the right English word for it but basically a bar/stop close to big snowmobile trails. Not nearly as frequent as they used to be but there's still some kicking where I'm from. This is also how I met my only childhood friend I mentioned earlier.
My mom was always busy working on her business as a result. I don't recall seeing her much as a young kid honestly. I went to a babysitter on days off or for lunch on school days. I'd then stay there until my mom was done working and we'd go home. At which point she was too tired to really interact with me as a child so I'd just go and escape into my video games.
That escapism lasted all the way until I dropped out of high school. Yep. I dropped out. I never felt like I really belonged and was bored throughout. I hated how everyone was fit into one mold and the same results were expected. I dropped out to join the military but considering what made me drop school in the first place it's kind of a blessing that I chickened out of it in hindsight. I would have never fit the military life.
I don't know if that's a small bit of vindication but that moment felt that way for me. Years later I met the daughter of the one teacher I respected. We were in the same year and she told me she'd brought out how much of a loser I was to her dad which her dad answered with that I just didn't fit the mold of traditional schooling. I had to be driven by need or curiosity to learn. To be challenged. Else I just got bored. I was mind blown when she told me that. Which is probably why I remember it so clearly. I have a hard time figuring out if I'm just using that as a pretext to pat myself on the back but I feel that saying how I feel about it is important to acknowledge.
The last 8 years
After dropping out I learned of "adult school". It's essentially a school for adult that allows you to get your actual high school degree in a self paced way. As such I went back to do so. I cleared most of what was remaining in less than 6 months but the school still closed for summer. I didn't finish in time to get my degree and as such would have to wait a whole extra year to go to college like I wanted to do at that time. In hindsight, I didn't want to go but everyone told me I'd be a loser if I didn't get a college degree or end up breaking my back like my dad did. Feels familiar to anyone?
As such I caved in. Being impatient I went straight to college even though my high school degree wasn't complete. They have a thing where they let you in regardless if the amounts of credit you have left in your high school degree is very low so I got in that way. I moved an hour and a half away from home to go to college and my mom, being the saint that she is, supported me financially. I only finished my high school degree last year. This should be enough to say how college went.
I went into a "technical level" computer science degree. I had a shit work ethic and for the first time of my life actually had to work to get things done. I fell face first. The college workload + my remaining high school credits were too much and I was woefully prepared for that. I couldn't plan. I didn't know how to prioritize and it was my first time living on my own and having to actually take care of everything. I was a spoiled kid in that regard. I won't lie to myself. So I dropped out.
I spent a few months just playing video games to ignore my problems again. I then learned that there was a "certification". It's a bit weird to explain but think a college degree that carries about the same weight but is aimed at professionals or people switching careers. Carries the same weight as a regular college degree but is different in that it includes no general classes. 1 year, 30+ hours a week, an internship and then boom, you're a programmer analyst. If I was to compare it to anything, I'd say a bootcamp that's actually recognized with a lesser workload.
So there I went. I always had an easy time with computers having played video games and all that. I was the go to family guy to fix computers so I figured sticking with computers was a good move. I lasted 6 months and dropped out. I got depressed. I tried again and dropped out. This was also a private school so after a year, dropping out twice and a ton of debt... I had nothing to show for it.
In hindsight, it wasn't that I didn't like it. It was that feeling of structure again. My learning wasn't driven by need or curiosity. I went because people told me I should go. I didn't have a F*cking spine.
And so I kept trying in that way. I paid tribute to the definition of insanity. Over and over. I even moved to where I live currently trying to break that cycle and I still fell back into it. This post is a part of this attempt at moving forward. A deep reflection on why I ended up here and why your books resonated deeply with me MJ. Especially now, at this very moment.
I worked odd shitty jobs through the years as well when I wasn't doing those attempts. I worked in sales. I worked for my mom during the summer, doing sales/ making chocolate/ dealing with tourists ( I worked in the more touristic of the 3 locations). I worked in factories. Making steel cans, the one you use to drink soda or even pressurized aerosols. I made rubber. I made snowmobiles. Rubber is the one that stands out to me still as the worse job I've ever had and the one that turned me into an alcoholic. That job got so bad and my existential dread so high that I turned to alcohol on top of the video games to just last through it.
Those two addictions have left me where I am now. 15k in credit card debt to fuel them. 17k in student debt. No money in the bank and stuck between two jobs. It's a wonder I haven't went bankrupt yet. Or even missed a minimum payment... Of course, in true addict fashion, I've never told anyone this.
My name is Dave. I'm a 24 year old from the province of Quebec in Canada. I signed up yesterday but I wanted to be in a fresher state of mind before writing something so long and honest. I was pretty damn tired. This is going to be a post where I pretty much let all of it out on top of being an introduction. I had my FTE before/during new years and I'm still raw from the emotion of it. I feel the need to just have a deep reflection of my life with this post. Why do you ask? Well, to figure out where we're going we have to know where we're from right? Trying to change something is pointless if you don't know what lead to it.
I'm putting this here also as a way to keep myself accountable to the feelings I have right now. I never ever in my life want to have to deal with the kind of shit I'm dealing with right now. If reading this again doesn't invoke the current feelings I have in myself and pushes me further than nothing will and I can honestly tell my future self he's a lost cause. I hope those words alone will kick me in the a$$ when needed. I can't say for sure it won't ever happen again in my life but this needs to be my new definition of rock bottom.
It's hilarious to me how sometimes things just align. I suppose if there's a silver lining to where I'm at right now it would be just that. I'm currently in between jobs. Starting another one soon but that's besides the point as it doesn't help this situation in this present moment. Being between jobs is why this whole thing even got so bad and happened. Maybe I should be thankful? Or maybe somewhat like my brother I'll look back to this shitty moment as something that led to greater things. I'll get into what I mean by that later.
Anyhow, as I was saying. Being currently between jobs and tired of working the shitty jobs I've been working I was browsing youtube and stumbled upon MJ's interview with John Sonmez (was looking at how to learn to code) which lead me to spending some money on TMF . I don't think I've ever resonated with a book this much up until that point but I still hadn't reached the point a week ago where I am now where I can truly appreciate it. I instantly picked up Unscripted right after.
I plan on redoing thorough readings of both after this situation is better dealt with and I can focus on moving forward. I need to imprint all of it to memory where I don't have to refer back to the book after.
So what lead to this rambling awkward already long before it even started post you ask?
Like nearly ever year when I go home for the holidays I have this feeling of not belonging. As such I always try to stay for as short as possible. In this case I got fed up right before new years. For context, the drive to my hometown from where I currently live is about a 6 hour drive, 4 of which are in the middle of a forest with a small town smack in the middle. No cell reception in those 4 hour stretches unless really close to the middle town. Being further up north and higher elevation the whole place is frigid cold even when the weather is already frigid cold. Think -30 Celsius before wind chill.
Of course as fate would have it, my car broke down in the middle of the second 2 hour of forest stretch. I was stuck, on January 31st, on an already not that driven through road, late at night in -30 Celsius weather. I won't lie. I panicked. I did not have the winter clothing/blankets needed to get through a night in those conditions, much less go outside and walk in the frigid windy cold back to the small town which would have been ridiculous considering it was very close to 100 kilometers behind me at this point. The bright side is my car engine would still run enough for warmth but I didn't have much faith in it staying that warm in idle with how cold it was.
After about 30 minutes of just being in silence I just opened my backpack and put on a ton of layer of clothes to try to at least have that. Turned on my hazards hoping someone would come through and afterwards I just sat in silence and started to think as to how I ended up where I was at, from beginning to end. I'm going to go through this again on here as this is a moment I need to etch into my mind.
Family context or maybe how denying one's origins and roots might make you go slowly insane
I grew up in a family of entrepreneur. I don't know if that's why but maybe there's something there to be said about how it might be in my DNA and ignoring it could only lead to being unhappy. Maybe it's not the case at all and I'm just trying to fit this illusion with this story, of how I got to where I'm at. It's hard to say even with hindsight.
My dad was a general construction contractor. There's not much to say here in the whole what he did and what not. He went bankrupt when I was still too young to really remember. He had a stroke and lost everything as his business partners were quite literally incompetent. It's sad to say but where he is today is a perfect example of what to not be and I dread ever being in his place.
My mother owns a gift shop/ clothing store/ chocolate factory. It's changed so much and been all over the place over the years. It's hard to explain as it's evolved so much over the 20+ years they've been in business. I might go into more details later in this post. I'm really just laying this out as I go.
My brother... Well that's the interesting case. Or at least one that affects me much more I think. Before I go into that, I have to explain that I've most definitely compared myself to him in a very unhealthy way over the years. I of course have no one to blame but myself for this but I need to acknowledge it first. We have a big age gap, 11 years to be exact. I've had this obsession of comparing where I am in life compared to where he was at my age. I don't know why. Maybe it's because he's more of a father to me than my dad ever was and I respect him? Maybe I just see it as a very unhealthy competition? I can't say. This is one that still eludes me. All I know is that we're such different persons in every aspect that honestly doing so is hurting me much more than anything else. We're almost polar opposites.
Going into the specifics, my brother graduated a technical college for civil engineering straight out of high school. He worked his a$$ off and started a family really early. Then about 8 years ago his house burned down and he lost everything. All thanks to a cigarette. I still remember my mom waking me up in the dead of night saying my brother's house was on fire and asking me if I wanted to come with her. I was so groggy and it felt so surreal at the time that I thought I was dreaming. I just grumbled and went back to sleep. I woke up next morning and bam! Brother, pregnant girlfriend and his 2 kids are there. That was an interesting morning.
After that well. My brother had a ton of issues with rebuilding because of the city. Something about how his house wasn't "burned down" enough and since he'd demolished it, it was no longer grandfathered in (he lived in a rural road next to agricultural fields). All this despite the home being declared a total loss. He had hired a contractor to rebuild it since he had full insurance on it. The city halted the construction and threatened to demolish what had been rebuilt if they didn't stop. Contractor and brother lawyered up of course. There were politics involved between the mayor telling my brother to resume building even though he never said so on paper while the city's person responsible for that was trying to sabotage the mayor. It was a fun ride.
During this time my brother drank a lot as well to cope. I'm all too familiar with that now. He got a DUI and lost his license. His job as a civil eng tech at the time needed him to drive around the entire region where we lived or else he'd lose his job. I drove him around that entire summer even though I didn't have my full driver license yet. I'd pose as his "intern" on sites since I wasn't supposed to be there and didn't even have cards. I couldn't legally be there. There were a few close calls but we managed.
My brother eventually won considering he'd taken notes of everything and what not in true CYA fashion concerning the house rebuild. This in turn really impressed the contractor he had hired and he offered a partnership to my brother to grow their business in a Civil Engineering direction. My brother accepted of course.
The company was originally only doing general construction with some very basic civil engineering. They had about 20-30 employees and were in the low 7 digit gross per year. In 7 years, they turned into the biggest local "construction" company. They now do general/commercial/industrial construction, government civil engineering projects and damage restoration. The company now has 100+ employees, 60 of which are under my brother's supervision and run in the mid 8 digits gross per year.
A perfect example of a shitty moment turned into momentum is it not? I doubt my brother would have looked at you with a straight face if you told him 8 years ago that his house burning down would be the best thing that would happen in his life.
Well... Maybe I should start talking about myself now.
I thought starting at this point would be easy. Turns out it's really hard to form coherent enough thoughts to lay it all on this post.
I've never really felt like I belonged anywhere. Even going as far back as elementary school. I apparently was a really outgoing child, the complete opposite of what I became over the years. It's really crazy how lasting and how important the effects of not fitting in with anyone in school can change a person if it's true.
I've always had a crazy curiosity. Which lead to me always looking at things beyond my years? It's hard to explain. As a result I never really fit in with other kids and was considered an odd ball. The same is also true of family. Not so much my immediate family but it's definitely true with my extended one. Which is fairly big. I'd get all the "smart" labels and all those things which made it even worse. I got bullied over most things and even though I was nearly twice as big as most kids I didn't even have the spine to fight back. I still wonder why to this day. I think I was too busy trying to rationalize it.
I became addicted to video games. It was my escapism. It's grim but I can say with confidence that if I didn't have video games when I did I would have probably killed myself. This lasted all the way up until fairly recently but I'll get into more of that later.
It's really true what they say. With the whole labeling someone as "smart" means they become afraid of failure. I still feel it to this day. My work ethic has always been shit as a result. I just cruised through classes like nothing and never really had to work for it. Did the bare minimum and always ended up above average. Not like it means anything anyway but I think it's part of why things are this way now and again, I have to acknowledge it.
On the polar opposite, my best and only friend from those years struggled with everything. He had an insane work ethic though, just like my brother's. After a crazy bunch of turns and never giving up he's now studying to be a doctor which I would have never expected in a thousand years from him if someone had told me that. More comparing I know... It just feels important to acknowledge how important hard work is. For myself if anything.
Anyhow. My parent split before I was born. My dad never really cared for his family until before he had his stroke. I guess losing everything made him reconsider his priorities. I've always felt at odd with my dad because of that. I'll blame the history between him and my brother for that which makes it even more ironic now that my brother is the one who employs my dad. I always felt like I was his "shot" at redemption and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I can't recall the last time I ever said I love you to my dad. Just thinking about doing so makes me feel weird.
As a result, my brother was more of a father to me than my own father until I was about 6 years old. I don't have many memories but I do remember my brother carrying me with him anywhere he went when going to the nearest "snowmobile relays". I don't know if that's the right English word for it but basically a bar/stop close to big snowmobile trails. Not nearly as frequent as they used to be but there's still some kicking where I'm from. This is also how I met my only childhood friend I mentioned earlier.
My mom was always busy working on her business as a result. I don't recall seeing her much as a young kid honestly. I went to a babysitter on days off or for lunch on school days. I'd then stay there until my mom was done working and we'd go home. At which point she was too tired to really interact with me as a child so I'd just go and escape into my video games.
That escapism lasted all the way until I dropped out of high school. Yep. I dropped out. I never felt like I really belonged and was bored throughout. I hated how everyone was fit into one mold and the same results were expected. I dropped out to join the military but considering what made me drop school in the first place it's kind of a blessing that I chickened out of it in hindsight. I would have never fit the military life.
I don't know if that's a small bit of vindication but that moment felt that way for me. Years later I met the daughter of the one teacher I respected. We were in the same year and she told me she'd brought out how much of a loser I was to her dad which her dad answered with that I just didn't fit the mold of traditional schooling. I had to be driven by need or curiosity to learn. To be challenged. Else I just got bored. I was mind blown when she told me that. Which is probably why I remember it so clearly. I have a hard time figuring out if I'm just using that as a pretext to pat myself on the back but I feel that saying how I feel about it is important to acknowledge.
The last 8 years
After dropping out I learned of "adult school". It's essentially a school for adult that allows you to get your actual high school degree in a self paced way. As such I went back to do so. I cleared most of what was remaining in less than 6 months but the school still closed for summer. I didn't finish in time to get my degree and as such would have to wait a whole extra year to go to college like I wanted to do at that time. In hindsight, I didn't want to go but everyone told me I'd be a loser if I didn't get a college degree or end up breaking my back like my dad did. Feels familiar to anyone?
As such I caved in. Being impatient I went straight to college even though my high school degree wasn't complete. They have a thing where they let you in regardless if the amounts of credit you have left in your high school degree is very low so I got in that way. I moved an hour and a half away from home to go to college and my mom, being the saint that she is, supported me financially. I only finished my high school degree last year. This should be enough to say how college went.
I went into a "technical level" computer science degree. I had a shit work ethic and for the first time of my life actually had to work to get things done. I fell face first. The college workload + my remaining high school credits were too much and I was woefully prepared for that. I couldn't plan. I didn't know how to prioritize and it was my first time living on my own and having to actually take care of everything. I was a spoiled kid in that regard. I won't lie to myself. So I dropped out.
I spent a few months just playing video games to ignore my problems again. I then learned that there was a "certification". It's a bit weird to explain but think a college degree that carries about the same weight but is aimed at professionals or people switching careers. Carries the same weight as a regular college degree but is different in that it includes no general classes. 1 year, 30+ hours a week, an internship and then boom, you're a programmer analyst. If I was to compare it to anything, I'd say a bootcamp that's actually recognized with a lesser workload.
So there I went. I always had an easy time with computers having played video games and all that. I was the go to family guy to fix computers so I figured sticking with computers was a good move. I lasted 6 months and dropped out. I got depressed. I tried again and dropped out. This was also a private school so after a year, dropping out twice and a ton of debt... I had nothing to show for it.
In hindsight, it wasn't that I didn't like it. It was that feeling of structure again. My learning wasn't driven by need or curiosity. I went because people told me I should go. I didn't have a F*cking spine.
And so I kept trying in that way. I paid tribute to the definition of insanity. Over and over. I even moved to where I live currently trying to break that cycle and I still fell back into it. This post is a part of this attempt at moving forward. A deep reflection on why I ended up here and why your books resonated deeply with me MJ. Especially now, at this very moment.
I worked odd shitty jobs through the years as well when I wasn't doing those attempts. I worked in sales. I worked for my mom during the summer, doing sales/ making chocolate/ dealing with tourists ( I worked in the more touristic of the 3 locations). I worked in factories. Making steel cans, the one you use to drink soda or even pressurized aerosols. I made rubber. I made snowmobiles. Rubber is the one that stands out to me still as the worse job I've ever had and the one that turned me into an alcoholic. That job got so bad and my existential dread so high that I turned to alcohol on top of the video games to just last through it.
Those two addictions have left me where I am now. 15k in credit card debt to fuel them. 17k in student debt. No money in the bank and stuck between two jobs. It's a wonder I haven't went bankrupt yet. Or even missed a minimum payment... Of course, in true addict fashion, I've never told anyone this.
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