Seeking Guidance on Life's Next Steps as a 19-Year-Old

[furman]

Hi,

I seek advice on what path should I follow. I know it's probably not the best place to do it, but I feel so much lost in life right now which brings me a lot of mental pain.

I live in Poland (Europe) and am going to study business management. I know this field of study is useless as you learn only theory, and still, I will go there because of family pressure, or at least this is what I say to myself. At the same time, I'm going to study Sales and Marketing part-time at the university where all of the lecturers are entrepreneurs. It has very good opinions and I can meet many like-minded people. However, daily studies feel like so big waste of time, money, and energy. Especially since I'm not going to study things like law, medicine, cybersecurity, etc.

I feel like I'm living constantly under mental pressure which completely takes away my pleasure from life. Everyone says that I should make my youth longer or that if I go to work now I will stay as some entry-level worker for the rest of my life, and even though I know it's not true, it influences me unconsciously so much that I feel dread and fear constantly.

I was the typical wantrepreneur for the last two and a half years and only now, after reading Unscripted, I started to focus on giving value instead of reading another and another book about marketing or sales.

I thought about going to work and part-time study while focusing on giving value either through freelancing or creating some products. This would give me real-world experience and at the same time, I would save some money. However, my mind is so brainwashed that right now I feel like I will lose in life if I don't study daily.

Right now I help as much as I can with my mom's business and work on some of my projects related to marketing and web design. After I finish one project I will try with creating websites for some local companies in my hometown as some of them don't have one and maybe it would be valuable for them.

However, I know that I won't have time for this if I go to the university. I'm going on holiday to Ireland and I have this hope that something magically will happen and I'll meet some person to whom I will be able to provide some value and work my a$$ off there, but obviously, the chance is close to zero for that

Thank you for reading it and for all the advice you give. I want to just say that this forum and the people here are amazing. M.J. changed my entire worldview which I am truly grateful for. Have a good day.

 

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[Jobless]

Appreciate your style of writing. At 19 you have a lot of potential, and your main obstacle is probably your own mindset and attitude (in a general sense). If you practice the habit of thinking big, and taking small steps, you can accomplish a lot.

Find people doing "law, medicine, cybersecurity" at university, and you, being wise to business, can be the one to bring their ideas and hard work to market. They will bring their skills, but what can you bring? Are you good at leading and organizing people? Can you do sales? Understand market needs? Marketing? Raise investor money? It's good if you figure this out.

You make assumptions in your posts that you may look back on later and question.

1. Why should you follow a path when you can make your own?
2. How can you "give away value", when value is created ONLY through the excess mutual benefits created in an exchange/transaction of two volunteers?
3. Is pleasure the meaning of life? If it matters, how much does it really matter on your list of priorities?
4. Why do you feel "mental pressure"? Is it stress hormones? Shame? An external threat?

People fear the unknown, so that is why they seek a path. It’s proven to work and they don’t need to worry or think for themselves.