How did you decide what you generally wanted to do with your life?

Comments

• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Some people are born with purpose, but for the rest of us, don’t be afraid to try different entry level jobs before deciding. Work in retail, food service, trades, factories, sanitation, whatever! I learned a lot on every job I’ve had, and it helped show me what things I was good at, and what I was really bad at. Some things I thought I would enjoy were torture, and others were better than I expected.

  I’m finally somewhere I think I’ll be happy for a long time, but it took all the contacts and experience from my other jobs to get me here.

  Good luck, and don’t forget to have fun!

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• NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Don’t waste your time on jealousy;
  Sometimes you’re ahead,
  Sometimes you’re behind.
  The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

  […]

  Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life.
  The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
  some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

  ~ Baz Lurhmann

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• whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Don’t let yourself become a caricature of yourself, step outside your self expectations and find ways to face your fears.

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• Cruxifux@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I chose something that I respected other people who do it. I always thought construction guys were super tough and manly, and I always wanted to be that tough manly guy. So that’s what I did, and now I own my own construction company at 35.

  My advice is look to people you like and respect. Who do you idolize? Who do you want to be like? What does that person do? Then go do that.

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• kersploosh@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I started with basic goals:

  • I want to make enough money that I don’t have to worry about money. Not like “annual tropical vacations” kind of money, but “if my car is stolen tomorrow I can buy a new one without having to worry about covering other expenses” money.

  • Do work that is creative and technical.

  • Do work that somehow benefits society.

  When I got to university I pulled up the list of majors and started highlighting ones that sounded interesting and would likely fit those goals. I ended up going into engineering. And after bouncing around in industry, for a few years, I found a niche that fits me well.

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• Lofi_Haze@lemmy.zip ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You need to find a good job. Work to find that. What YOU want to do is irrelevant if you are poor and don’t have disposable income. Work hard in your youth to get a good job in Education, Aerospace, Healthcare, or the Government. Those are your options

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• user224@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I didn’t.

  I have no fucking idea. I just finished HS, still don’t know. So I’ll go to college. Something in IT, I didn’t even check the specifics or subjects until I was already accepted and signed up. All I know is the program is regarded as one of the hardest, described by past students as “Vietnam war”, with one of the first recommendations to pass being “Get a therapist.”

  I’ll probably get kicked out after 1st semester due to math. I am not good at it, and it’s apparently quite hard there, though not the worst either.
  Hopefully not. I don’t know what else to do.

  Now, if my future paycheck wasn’t a problem (i.e. not living in capitalist society), I’d know precisely what I’d want to do, and I known so since 1st year of HS. I wouldn’t even need college.
  Step 1 is getting a driver’s license (just for regular cars), probably just due to bureaucracy. Step 2, sign up for train driver’s course at ZSSK. The course itself is 6 months, then 720 hours of practice and after finishing the state exam, you finally become an actual train driver. So around a year.
  But it isn’t paid so well.

  In IT, preferably something around wireless telecommunications and networking. The faculty I’ll be going to apparently has their 2G, 3G and 4G networks students can play around with (from their website). But when I asked about it on open doors day I was met with “We have that? Maybe.”
  Asking about telecommunications, I got ping ponged between 2 faculties of the same university. Students from faculty of electrical engineering told me that if somewhere it’s something offered on faculty of informatics. Staff of faculty of informatics told me it’s most likely to be found on faculty of electrical engineering.

  So I don’t fucking know what I am getting myself into.

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  • naught101@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Pretty good approach. Most of the most interesting people I know started adult life doing one thing, and eventually switched to another thing. Maybe after one or two years of an undergrad, maybe after 15 years of a career.

    I’ve got one friend in his late 30s who has been a highschool teacher for over a decade, and is still thinking of switching careers to be a train driver. He does public transport activism a bit too. I reckon you could head into the train network with IT skills anyway - maybe as some kind of network operator. Not quite the same thing, but aligned…

    I would say that you should absolutely take maximum advantage of any electives offered to get as broad a taste of what’s available as possible. That’s what will give you ideas about where to head next.

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• Mnem667@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Hell, I’m approaching a half-century, and I still don’t know what I want to do. :P
  Mostly fell into what I’m doing now. Never would have guessed that this is my life, when I was younger.

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• naught101@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  By doing the next obvious thing until I’d tried enough things to be sure where I wanted to be. Took until my late 30s, but the stuff before that was fun and/or interesting too.

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• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Still deciding tbh.

  So many options:

  On one hand, I could be a corrupt lawyer that works for the rich. Or a politician taking bribes.

  Or I could consider becoming a drug dealer, and maybe eventually become a mob boss?

  I always wonder what’s it like sailing the high seas, maybe visit Somalia to experience that a bit?

  Maybe be a Corrupt CEO?

  Revolutionary?

  Maybe a bit of Terrorism?

  Nuclear Dictator?

  Hmm idk man…

  Choices, choices… hard to decide… 🤔

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• AlexLost@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  College. You have no idea what jobs are even possible to do until you put yourself out there. Learn a couple skills, find an avenue that interests you and dive in. I’ve just stumbled into most things but wanted to do something that would be useful in everyday life too. Became a cook then a chef, went to trade school for auto mechanics. Now I run a marina?! PSA: Don’t buy a boat!

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• partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  How did you decide what to do with your life? What free wisdom can you share?

  Try things. Experience everything open to you. Seek out even more experiences. You will find lots and LOTS of things that you don’t like, but the more you do, you’ll start picking up pieces of concepts you like. Those will guide you to making the next set of choices. Rinse repeat until you have a partially formed direction, then follow that direction and see where it leads you. I am shocked how many little “dead end” skills or experiences allowed me to take a next step into something moving me forward. There’s no way in hell anyone could have given me a list and said “these are the experiences that will pay off”.

  Also there are some hard truths to life and you identify skills/talents/affinities you have when talking about your career:

  • You can be good/talented at ThingX
  • You can like doing ThingX
  • There is a market for ThingX and people will pay you good money to do it.

  For a very few number of people, they get all three. Most people have to settle for two and muddle through. You cannot move forward with a specific ThingX if you only have one.

  Also, trying to be the best at something professionally will be nearly impossible. Even if you get there for a moment, the world is just too big, and there will always be someone better than you at a specific thing professionally soon. Trying to scrap to stay at the peak is an unsustainable road to ruin. However, being just pretty good at two different things that intersect is VERY achievable, and you will be competing against a tiny handful of people that have those same two skills. Thats the sweet spot. Your skills and ebb and flow between your two specialties over your career and you can ride the wave professionally when one starts waning, you can lean into the other one. At times, both of your skills will be in demand, and you will be extremely valuable and employable. Cash in when that happens and take the work with the full knowledge that it doesn’t last. Save during the good years and your lean years will be an easy ride.

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• hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It was the only thing I was really good at, and I enjoyed doing it.

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• tisktisk@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Find what you love and let it kill you.
  For me this was philosophy which is the opposite of convenient or helpful especially in our current era. It led to me consistently blundering my way forward but it serving as an initial point is the critical lesson to be learned, I think.

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• baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It was an accident

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