Self stuck any advice or general comments appreciated

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m going to try and not think much and just say what I think I should say, though it seems evident to me that I’ll come off as a spoiled-brat, which is in no doubt true, at least in part. I’ve been born pretty well off in life and although this may seem good at first glance, it can be pretty detrimental in the medium-to-long-term. I’ve never been a good student, though I’ve gotten better and now I’m close to finishing a Phd in philosophy funnily enough.

My basic problem, I think, is that I’m just too damn comfortable and doubtful to do anything but things that I enjoy or have significant comfort in. Now I should look for a job to start earning income, and begin to socialize again. I tend to find that a good deal of the time, if not always, when I deal with people after a while I mostly focus on how that person is annoying: I too quickly look for faults instead of letting people be people. I get bored very quickly and I avoid arguments like the plague, I’m only content when I’m reading or discovering stuff on my own: I find safety and comfort in myself, but it is now beginning to enter danger territory, because, about half the time my thoughts start ‘letting loose’ and I feel pretty damn worthless.

As I finished College and got a Masters degree, I’ve been leaving most friends aside - I have about 3 or 4 good friends or so, but I don’t talk to them often enough, and am not too ‘motivated’ to find more people in real life. If I continue like this, I doubt I’ll end well, being 30 and continuing not to have a job for instance, is not good for my confidence or my mind, sometimes my thoughts just go crazy and it’s hard to control them. I think I should help people out, lord knows I’ve studied enough and people tell me they find me interesting when I talk about things like politics, philosophy, science, etc. I considered becoming a teacher, but dealing with students and going to conferences is too much. I’m unsure what I should do, but if anything were to happen to my parents for example, as of today, I would not be good for much, if anything. As everyone I know around me continues going on in life, getting married or getting decent jobs, I find myself ‘staying behind’, as it were, though I don’t feel ***too ***bad about this yet. I think a career in writing or editing would be interesting, so I’m looking in that area, albeit occasionally.
In short, I don’t want to whine too much, but I’m having trouble trying to get out of this self-created ‘comfortably numb’ situation. I’m stuck between liking to be by myself and needing to have a life and a proper job, and my age and circumstances are not getting much better with time, I just don’t know how to bring myself around to caring more about myself than I do.
I have a very vague idea of what I should do, but I’m going about it too slowly, not caring enough, but this needs to change, or I’ll soon be a teenager at 40 and worthless. Any thoughts or general advice would help.

2

I might catch hell for this, but what the heck… Do yourself a favor and find a government job, any government job, and stay there (working diligently!) the rest of your life.

3

I am certain to be out of place saying this to someone experienced in philosophy, but in my opinion, guilt can only be valuable when it leads fairly directly to a change in action. Guilt that just lingers without changing anything is an unpleasant kind of poison, so I say either change something right away, or drop the guilt and declare in no uncertain terms that being as you are is OK for now.

If you are convinced that a change is the better way to proceed, but don’t know which change to make, then you have the welcome privilege of thinking “What would be a truly good thing to do right now?” - and to just do it.

Right things for you to do will satisfy all three of these:

  • You care about it
  • It fills a need (someone else’s or your own)
  • You have (or can get) the resources necessary to accomplish it
    The government job: I say, why not? Go for it.
4

I am curious, what’s your thinking behind me getting a government job?

5

Volunteer. Get out among people. Find something you care about and offer your sevices. Library’s often need help.

6

“I’m unsure what I should do, but if anything were to happen to my parents for example, as of today, I would not be good for much, if anything.”

Sounds like this is the case whether they are alive or dead: You’re not good for much. However, your phrasing makes it sound as though you think you’re good for much with them alive? What am I missing?

Are they enablers here?

.

7

That’s a very acute observation. Basically I’ve spent my whole life studying, only really worked for about a year, about 5 years ago. I guess I’m good doing research and speaking to an audience, other than that, no, I don’t think I’m too useful, so the answer to your question would be that they are enablers, to some extent, but the other side of that, the bigger part- is me just not caring too much about things in general, though starting to care enough to see I need to change this year.

8

Leverage that caring. In whatever way you see fit.

9

It’s based on the vibe I’m getting from you in addition to past experiences and observations I’ve made of family and friends with government jobs. I don’t mean this as a dig to you or government workers in general, but it’s basically the best place where intelligent people with poor social skills and a lack of ambition can still be productive and a functional member of society with a sense of purpose. In the private sector, you will likely either not like your job(s) and/or your job(s)* won’t like your attitude/lack of ambition.

I’m not sure how inclined you are to take my advice, but if you can’t think of any other occupation or jobs to apply to, I urge you to just jump into testing/applying for whatever government job seems the most interesting/available to you. Just do it and it will be done.
*Job(s) - because unless you get into a government job now, you will likely be having to do job searches on the regular in the future.

10

Philosophy develops highly-specialized mental tools.

So (metaphorically) it’s like you studied highly advanced metalworking and now here you are and all you’ve been given to start you off is a piece of wood and a sandwich. This stuff does not relate to your metalworking education, obviously.

You might choose do nothing at all.

You might choose to eat the sandwich and use the wood as a makeshift chair.

You might look around, see that there are other people, decide you’re not hungry right now, sell the sandwich, pocket the money, and use the wood as a club for hunting.

You might find a group of poor people hard at work trying to build a house, give them the wood and share the sandwich with them.

You might apply modified metalworking techniques to the piece of wood, make it into something valuable, and sell it.

You might do none of those, but just start walking in some direction looking for a metalworking shop where you’d hope to find a good job.

The only wrong course of action IMO is to do nothing at all.

See what I mean?

I do agree with the government job idea: good pay, job security, intelligence useful. Plus, as I said before, in all seriousness why not?

11

-Create a list of the things you can picture yourself doing regularly.
-Check off anything that has some tie-in to something that can earn you money… via a paycheck or commission, as an employee or contractor
-Think about those things, and consider all the reasons you could do them.

I gotta say, maybe you’re overestimating the effort or social skills required to be successful (a subjective thing anyway).

Let me tell you this: You don’t need to do much of anything to satisfy many employers. You’ve done them already! Your school was analogous to an employer. Do X, get Y.

Guess what? Most people can get by their first five years of employment by showing up regularly and on time. Dress ok for the job. Speak well. Write well. Don’t do anything illegal. Repeat.

In today’s social media world, everyone paints a picture of them as a hero worker, triumphing and doing all sorts of wonderful things.

NEWS FLASH: Employment in years 1-5 can be easier than what you just tackled. Show up, be on time, dress ok, speak and write well. Have some morals. Period.

After five years, you can graduate to your next level, although you’'ll probably do it in 1-2 years.

It’s not like you dropped out of high school in junior year. You already have been working.

.

12

In my very limited and very non-representative experience, finding and getting a job has usually been, subjectively, about a hundred times harder than keeping one. I put a lot of useless worry into searching, but a lot of care and effort too. You are currently in what’s always been the worst part for me - the “now what” stage. It gets easier.