So, here's my story; I tell it occasionally when stories like yours come up.
I had no college experience, but did manage to jump right in to a good I.T. job while I was still in high school, and from there into an even better I.T. job in another state where I made more money than I knew what to do with. (I've never been good with money, and didn't understand what "savings" meant.) I worked there until suddenly one day I went on a camping trip with family, came back, and decided I hated computers. I quit that job, and the industry.
Then the dotcom bust happened.
So, at about your age, there I am, living back with my parents. They at least were supportive, but it took me a while to get my feet back under me. I took some simple jobs, took up rock climbing as a hobby, eventually became a climbing instructor, learned a whole bunch of skills but got paid next to nothing.
Eventually all of the credit I had amassed during my previous life in I.T. ran out, and I was deeply in debt with not enough income to manage it. My parents had moved away, and I ended up moving with them. Again.
Not my proudest moment.
It took months, applying to nearly every job and place of business in the area, but eventually I got a simple retail job. I lied about my past experience so that they wouldn't tell me I was overqualified to operate a cash register.
I let my bank accounts and credit fall apart. There was nothing I could do about it but start over. So I did.
Eventually, I was ready to re-join I.T. and happened by dumb luck across the perfect job opening for me -- about 6 hours' drive away. I patched up my car enough to get me there, and took with me the bag of spare change I had accumulated over a year or so.
The boss and I hit it off, and I got the job. It was one of the most challenging jobs I've ever had -- I was a one-man I.T. department for a store & restaurant that had no budget for anything fancy. All patchwork, all the time. I had gotten pretty good at that by then.
I was homeless at that point and my car barely got me there, but I happened to have some friends in the area so I stayed on their couch and made up for it by cleaning while I was at home. My first paycheck got me living expenses, the second got me the new radiator that my car needed, and so on.
Several years later, I've gone through a couple more jobs (a step up each time), started my own business, my credit is slowly rebuilding, the business is supporting two other people. It's still a struggle every day, but it's an uphill struggle. Every year is better than the last.
So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends. You've made a mistake -- maybe, you won't really know for sure for years -- but you have an opportunity to gain experiences that others never will. If I had never been a climbing instructor, I never would have developed the people skills that I needed to be an effective manager, let alone a business owner. You don't know what the future holds, so there's no sense in admitting defeat yet.
I won't try to lie to you, the next few years could be rough. Real rough. There could be an awful lot of days where you don't want to get out of bed, you don't want to do anything. Depression certainly doesn't make it any easier -- I know that from experience, too. But, if you keep trying anyway, you may discover that your best days are ahead of you yet.
Also, you're really not an idiot. People that never take a risk rarely end up in great places in life. You took a risk, it hasn't worked out so far. But, you didn't know what was going to happen before you did it. An idiotic decision is one that you know is bad when you make it. Unless you have an unusual power of foresight, you're not an idiot for making the decision you made.
Keep working on the freelancing. Keep getting better, keep making connections with other people. You have to become very aggressive now; it's not like a regular job where somebody else is doing the marketing and management for you and setting a schedule. Learn to start recognizing little victories. If you made enough money this week to pay a bill that you couldn't pay last week, that's a victory. Learn to get good at operating within razor-thin margins. Make sure you take a real hard look at all of your expenses; people that aren't accustomed to this style of living often have expenses that they believe they must have. At one point, my expenses were literally: food, and gas for the car. And that was it. I had no bank account, I got my checks cashed at the grocery store, I kept the cash in my wallet with a little extra hidden at my crash space (because paranoia), and so I knew exactly how much money I had to spend and live off of. If I had an extra $20 come payday, that was a real good week.
If you're lucky enough to be in an area with good public transit, ditch your car. Those things are money sinks. The moment you can't afford your insurance or registration, you will get pulled over. It's like magic, really bad magic. And the fines and fees just pile up, and there are no sympathetic ears when that starts happening.
Let go of everything that you think you have to hold on to -- your sense of importance, of self-worth, anything that might be holding you back or keeping you from making the hard decisions that have to be made -- and just decide that you'll buy it all back later.
Then just take your life one day at a time for a while.
"So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends."
This.
OP: Sounds like your friends are a little insecure or uncomfortable around risk takers like yourself. They're not cut from the same cloth. Truth is, most people in our society aren't. They're play-it-safe types, and to them, stepping outside the lines is tantamount to insanity. Many of these folks will take corporate jobs, or law jobs, and lead lives of reasonably well-compensated misery. None of them will be paid nearly what his lost days and months and years are actually worth; this is felt intangibly, in the back of his mind, like a dull pain whose cause he can't quite pin down.
Learn to draw strength from within, and not to depend so much on external cues of approval or disapproval. Because guess what? Most people in your life are always going to disapprove of entrepreneurial decisions, or outside-the-norm inclinations. If you're always looking outward for validation, you're never going to get it.
Unfortunately, failure is the risk we outside-the-norm types face. We roll the dice, even if we try to roll them intelligently. And so, you failed this time. The dice came up empty. It sucks. I can't possibly tell you it doesn't, and I won't try to sugar coat it. It cuts you to your very soul, and it weighs you down. It makes you feel worthless and helpless. I've been there myself, and I know the feeling all too well. But the important thing is that you don't let a failure become failure. Learn from this one. You'll need time to get back on your feet, rebuild, and distance yourself from the emotional impact of this failure. But eventually, when you're strong enough, you're going to want to revisit it. Because you'll find quite a bit of experiential knowledge in it. When you confront your failure and really get to the bottom of it -- really understand why it happened -- you'll know what not to do next time.
The difference between people who fail, and people who are failures, is that the former learn from their mistakes. They draw wisdom from them, so they don't repeat them. That's what matters.
Not sure about "healthy", but "totally normal" or "completely acceptable" instead fit. Also, responds really well to self-guided treatment like cognitive behaviour therapy.
Many of these folks will take corporate jobs, or law jobs, and lead lives of reasonably well-compensated misery. None of them will be paid nearly what his lost days and months and years are actually worth; this is felt intangibly, in the back of his mind, like a dull pain whose cause he can't quite pin down.
Very poignant and well written. If you had a blog, I'd read it.
OP: "Friends" who can't respect the stones it takes to quit your job and seek your true calling, and furthermore, who insult instead of supporting you emotionally when the shit hits the fan - well, they can go straight to hell. They aren't your friends, they're asshole leeches who don't have the stones to do it themselves and instead seek to bring you down because of it.
Swallow your pride and find a (shitty if necessary) job and make new friends there.
Thank you! Blog possibly to come. Actually, a lot more writing to come. (Speaking of hare-brained leaps of faith to follow our callings, I'm actually working on a novel right now).
"
OP: "Friends" who can't respect the stones it takes to quit your job and seek your true calling, and furthermore, who insult instead of supporting you emotionally when the shit hits the fan - well, they can go straight to hell. They aren't your friends, they're asshole leeches who don't have the stones to do it themselves and instead seek to bring you down because of it."
While I agree with you in spirit, I think there's a crucial point to be made: if you step out of the box to do your own thing, all of your friends are secretly going to think you're a little nuts. The trick is figuring out which ones think you're crazy like a fox, and which ones think you're just crazy. Relish the relationships with the former, and avoid getting dragged down by the latter. The good news is, your friends will make known pretty early, and vocally, which camp they sort themselves into.
Funny tidbit, the original version of my post was something along the lines of "If you wrote, a book, that snippet would make me want to read it." So yeah, make sure you post to HN, or shoot me a tweet or whatever (@jessegumm) when it's done. You've piqued my interest.
if you step out of the box to do your own thing, all of your friends are secretly going to think you're a little nuts.
Agreed, but that's no excuse to berate a you, at least if they wish to be considered a friend. It's one thing to express disagreement, it's another thing entirely to poke fun at a friend's misery.
People that never take a risk rarely end up in great places in life. You took a risk, it hasn't worked out so far. But, you didn't know what was going to happen before you did it. An idiotic decision is one that you know is bad when you make it. Unless you have an unusual power of foresight, you're not an idiot for making the decision you made.
This struck a chord with me in two ways. First, it is easy for people to pass judgement in hindsight. Let them wallow in their cesspool of after-the-fact self-righteousness. Second, it is easy to remain in a comfort zone; we do not grow and get to those great places if we remain in that comfort zone.
"People that never take a risk rarely end up in great places in life."
True - though as a condition of this truth, there are many risk-takers who end up in far worse states than if they had played it safe. If careers follow a somewhat normal distribution, for every massive startup success there are an equal number of failures for whom the risk didn't pay off.
I agree with edw519 - get a safe job for a while, at least until you can take another risk. Good luck to you. I'm 21 and involved in the startup game, and would be happy to talk at any point. Feel free to email me (email in profile).
Just wanted to point out that assuming careers and business success follows into a normal distribution is probably a poor assumption. Given the tremendous successes and wealth some people have created for themselves, the average working person is essentially just a few steps above zero. I know a few millionaires, but I don't know anyone who is personally in debt millions of dollars (although I'm sure they exist) with no hope/skills/connection to make money again, as they obviously had something going on to get in that position in the first place.
There is a quote by Donald Trump, something about how during one of his darker moments in his business life, he walked by a homeless guy on the street, and thought "that guy is worth a billion dollars more than I am". Obviously that is true on paper, but the homeless guy also did not have the resources to get their in the first place, much less make it back and become successful.
You are absolutely right, almost all of the tech communities are, pardon the expression, but a technical dick waving contest. What makes HN totally different and the reason I gave up hope on the rest of them is the positive vibe among it's members. You see it almost instantly when a new member comes on and thinks it is just another tech forum. Not in a rude way but in a way that brings about a profound realization in those new members, some stick others don't and that is what makes HN great.
As for the author, he should take comfort in the fact that he has experienced something that 99% of people never will, he has insight that is very valuable, it sucks while you are going through it but it will help form a better you, guaranteed. Failure builds character, that is one of life's few constants. He seems to be hung up on the fact that he has no formal training and is young, but neither of those are a serious disadvantage in this field.
If it where me personally I would be using the opportunity wisely, there is no better time in life to rebuild it the way you want it to be, than right after you have burnt you old life to the ground. I wish my family would have been more entrepreneurial oriented. I was never given the wisdom that the best path to Independence is to create your own future and that there is no better time to do that than when you are at home with you parents and do not have a life to maintain. Wisdom in his current situation could lead to a profound change in his life. There is not better time for opportunity than in his current situation.
"So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends."
Yes to this 100%. Most people go through life trying to pull others down to their level. Fuck them. There are also plenty of people who support each others' dreams.
> At one point, my expenses were literally: food, and gas for the car. And that was it. I had no bank account, I got my checks cashed at the grocery store
How much were you paying to cash your checks at the grocery store? This is more expensive than depositing the check in a bank or credit union (I think it's on the level of payday loans, gouging lower income because they don't understand the relative size of the fee).
> So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends
Knock it off, maybe. Find new friends? That seems silly. Grow a thicker skin and joke right back at them.
With friends like that, who needs enemies? I mean the guy is down in the dumps, "rock bottom" if you like, and his friends are attempting to kick him while he's down to elevate their own self-esteem a bit. And you think that this is a good set of people to be around?
Also advice like, "grow a thicker skin" to someone that's in the throes of depression, might as well be advice to, "just stop being depressed."
When your credit is shot banks are really reluctant to take you on as a new account. He probably owes his current bank tons of money so probably doesn't want to deposit his only income there. Opening a new account requires a background check (when I opened mine they told me it was to verify I wasn't blacklisted from writing checks) and possibly a credit check.
Sometimes the check cashing store is your only choice. And they aren't all bad. They may get you on the check cashing fee, but a ding at a regular bank can put you in an even worse position ($29 overdraft fee, $35 NSF fees).
The check cashing stores are popular in poor areas because these people may only get $200-400/month and charge $5-20. It's a fixed cost that anyone can factor in quickly. Keeping a mental register of how much you have in the bank is harder than knowing what's exactly in your wallet.
At the time, grocery stores would cash your paycheck for you without taking any fees. I usually bought a few groceries, signed the check over to the store, and got the difference back in cash. This was 5 or 6 years ago, not sure if it's still do-able. No harm in asking though.
Check cashing places are of the devil, and a great way to prolong your financial trouble. If possible, try finding a friend or family member willing to cash your checks for you instead.
I had no college experience, but did manage to jump right in to a good I.T. job while I was still in high school, and from there into an even better I.T. job in another state where I made more money than I knew what to do with. (I've never been good with money, and didn't understand what "savings" meant.) I worked there until suddenly one day I went on a camping trip with family, came back, and decided I hated computers. I quit that job, and the industry.
Then the dotcom bust happened.
So, at about your age, there I am, living back with my parents. They at least were supportive, but it took me a while to get my feet back under me. I took some simple jobs, took up rock climbing as a hobby, eventually became a climbing instructor, learned a whole bunch of skills but got paid next to nothing.
Eventually all of the credit I had amassed during my previous life in I.T. ran out, and I was deeply in debt with not enough income to manage it. My parents had moved away, and I ended up moving with them. Again.
Not my proudest moment.
It took months, applying to nearly every job and place of business in the area, but eventually I got a simple retail job. I lied about my past experience so that they wouldn't tell me I was overqualified to operate a cash register.
I let my bank accounts and credit fall apart. There was nothing I could do about it but start over. So I did.
Eventually, I was ready to re-join I.T. and happened by dumb luck across the perfect job opening for me -- about 6 hours' drive away. I patched up my car enough to get me there, and took with me the bag of spare change I had accumulated over a year or so.
The boss and I hit it off, and I got the job. It was one of the most challenging jobs I've ever had -- I was a one-man I.T. department for a store & restaurant that had no budget for anything fancy. All patchwork, all the time. I had gotten pretty good at that by then.
I was homeless at that point and my car barely got me there, but I happened to have some friends in the area so I stayed on their couch and made up for it by cleaning while I was at home. My first paycheck got me living expenses, the second got me the new radiator that my car needed, and so on.
Several years later, I've gone through a couple more jobs (a step up each time), started my own business, my credit is slowly rebuilding, the business is supporting two other people. It's still a struggle every day, but it's an uphill struggle. Every year is better than the last.
So, if your friends are giving you a hard time, tell 'em to knock it the hell off. Or find new friends. You've made a mistake -- maybe, you won't really know for sure for years -- but you have an opportunity to gain experiences that others never will. If I had never been a climbing instructor, I never would have developed the people skills that I needed to be an effective manager, let alone a business owner. You don't know what the future holds, so there's no sense in admitting defeat yet.
I won't try to lie to you, the next few years could be rough. Real rough. There could be an awful lot of days where you don't want to get out of bed, you don't want to do anything. Depression certainly doesn't make it any easier -- I know that from experience, too. But, if you keep trying anyway, you may discover that your best days are ahead of you yet.
Also, you're really not an idiot. People that never take a risk rarely end up in great places in life. You took a risk, it hasn't worked out so far. But, you didn't know what was going to happen before you did it. An idiotic decision is one that you know is bad when you make it. Unless you have an unusual power of foresight, you're not an idiot for making the decision you made.
Keep working on the freelancing. Keep getting better, keep making connections with other people. You have to become very aggressive now; it's not like a regular job where somebody else is doing the marketing and management for you and setting a schedule. Learn to start recognizing little victories. If you made enough money this week to pay a bill that you couldn't pay last week, that's a victory. Learn to get good at operating within razor-thin margins. Make sure you take a real hard look at all of your expenses; people that aren't accustomed to this style of living often have expenses that they believe they must have. At one point, my expenses were literally: food, and gas for the car. And that was it. I had no bank account, I got my checks cashed at the grocery store, I kept the cash in my wallet with a little extra hidden at my crash space (because paranoia), and so I knew exactly how much money I had to spend and live off of. If I had an extra $20 come payday, that was a real good week.
If you're lucky enough to be in an area with good public transit, ditch your car. Those things are money sinks. The moment you can't afford your insurance or registration, you will get pulled over. It's like magic, really bad magic. And the fines and fees just pile up, and there are no sympathetic ears when that starts happening.
Let go of everything that you think you have to hold on to -- your sense of importance, of self-worth, anything that might be holding you back or keeping you from making the hard decisions that have to be made -- and just decide that you'll buy it all back later.
Then just take your life one day at a time for a while.