Ya know, I’m utterly… lost. Who can a 20-something go to for some advice and guidance these days?
It’s kinda silly that I’m posting to a random message board asking strangers for life advice, but truthfully, I’m not sure where else to go. So bear with me for a sec, if you would.
I’m 22, at college, trying to work my towards a degree and trying to have a bit of fun on the side. Sounds about normal, right? 'Course, things aren’t all smooth beneath the surface and lately, there’s just this nagging “What the hell am I doing…?” feeling lingering at the back of my head.
Is this a normal thing at this age? I look at my peers, and everyone seems to be doing a-OK… taking classes, working jobs, enjoying time with friends, etc. and then I look at my own life and see how much of that I’m missing. Seems like the world is expecting me to effortlessly step into adulthood and tackle the world like a man, and on good days I have no problem doing just that. But once in a while, I look in the mirror and all I see is an angsty, utterly confused… kid. It’s like I never got the “Yo, you’re not a teenager anymore!” memo and I’m still stuck in high school (and in a way, I am – never finished the last two years of it).
(Rant)What happened? It’s like I happened to fall through the cracks of society, one of the few who “the system” simply wasn’t designed to accommodate, and now, try as I might, I can’t seem to find a place in the world. Is this normal? Should I just keep doing what I’m doing and hope for the best, believing that someday the pieces will magically fall together?
I mean, sure, I’m still young and my whoooole bright future is ahead of me, blah blah blah, but lately that future isn’t so bright anymore and it seems more likely that I’m going to end up homeless and addicted to various substances. Earlier in my life, I would’ve been an “at-risk” kid and somebody somewhere might’ve cared, but ya know, once you’re 18, society really stops giving a damn. My life is up to me now, I realize that, but I don’t know how to do any better. It’s like there’s something I just don’t “get”; I know I don’t want to end up alone huddled on a park bench on a street corner in LA, but I really don’t know how to change it either and just lead a “normal” life.
Sorry for being so vague up to this point. Honestly, I hate whining and I didn’t want to bore with details. But I suppose a few would help clarify things, so I’ll try to be informative yet brief!
It’s been a year since this thread when I last came here for some advice and I asked much the same thing then as now. Then in one short year, partially because of that thread, I went from a complete stay-at-home loner to, I dunno, adventurer of the year? I went on a roadtrip up the stunning coast of California, spent an amazing month in France in a study abroad program and made a whole shitload of friends, spent a week on the coast of Mississippi feeding people displaced by Katrina and made a few friends, worked for my school newspaper as a writer-photographer, met John Kerry and his gang in person (and forever swore off politics!), took a girl on a spur-of-the-moment camping trip all around California, helped start and run a club on campus, won a minor prize in a Halloween costume contest, made a couple dozen more friends just by reaching out to people… and that’s just the beginning.
Those were the good times.
During the same period, I also went from being an A student to failing at least seven classes and dropping out of the rest, drank so much that I slept in the car three nights a week, lost touch with my acquaintances one by one, pissed off my best friends and lost all of them, got rejected a half-dozen times, got myself into thousands of dollars of debt, and… well, it gets worse.
It’s like everything took a 180 for six months and I went to heaven and back only to end up right where I started a year later. I’m back to the same old place with zero friends, lonely nights, months of missed classes, and make-believe happy days. Everything went so well for a while and life seemed like a miracle, but now… I ask myself if any of that even happened. Where did all the zest go?
(End of rant)
I’m usually an independent guy and I hate dumping my issues on other people, especially strangers, but I suppose this is an act of desperation because I’ve given myself all the advice I could give and I guess it wasn’t enough. I really don’t know what to do. Feels like there’s a fork in the road and it could go either way, but I’m so afraid I’m going to be dragged unwillingly down the wrong path by my own stupidity.
Why is it that, no matter what I do or how many people I meet, I always end up… different… from everyone else? Can’t maintain steady classwork, jobs, or relationships. What am I doing wrong? Is there anyone I could talk to for some guidance at this age? Somebody who might actually pretend to give a damn, or am I really just on my own now? Scary thought. Or is anything really even wrong? Am I just making a bigger deal out of this than it really is, and if I stopped thinking about it and just focused on… something… things would be fine again?
Yep. I’m confused alright. 