I have some issue I want to ‘vent’ about. Normally i’d talk to a friend but as I said in this thread I don’t want to talk to my old/usual friend about it. So why not discuss it on an anonymous message board filled with 40 year olds from Europe? Why not indeed.
My older brother is now 26, and turns 27 this november. He is also having his first child pretty soon, late november/early december. He is also changing careers. He currently has an undergrad and masters in advertising (some advertising related subject) and works at a radio station, but because of lack of job security and lack of job fulfillment he wants to quit and go to dental school. He has already fulfilled most of the pre-reqs for dental school from going to school part time in the last year and from his undergrad degree.
Right now i’m somewhat worried that all the pressure is getting to him. He is having his first child and he knows it will change his life permanently at the same time that he is trying to undergo a major career change. Quitting a field you dedicated 5 years of education to in order to try to get a different career that will take 4-6 years to train for while you are about to have your first child must be hard as hell for him.
I emailed him a few weeks ago about some dumb shit (money saving related in case anyone wonders, being cheap is heritage for us) and he didn’t respond to my email. I don’t know if i’m reading into it but I figure maybe he is under too much stress and forgot to email, because when I am under alot of stress I ignore small things like responding to emails too. Then again maybe (hopefully) he just forgot. He also normally teaches a class at the college near where he lives but said he wouldn’t do it this semester because of stress. He has to juggle a pregnant wife, an unfulfilling job w/o job security, the fact that his life will change drastically soon due to having a child, him trying to get into dental school with the consequences of him actually getting in like him having to move to a new town (he has lived in the same town as my parents for 24 of his 26 years only taking 2 non-consecutive years for grad school and undergrad), having to devote large amounts of time to studying while trying to maintain a family and not knowing where he’ll end up as a dentist if he gets into school for it.
So what, if anything, could I do to help him out? I have experienced large amounts of stress myself and I do not like it at all, but I don’t know how I could help him out. We are not a communicative family, my younger brother and I are the only ones who really talk and we only do it via email (we don’t really discuss deep emotional things in person, just via email).