Ask Lemmy

41523 readers

876 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world

7) No Hit-and-Run questions.

Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.

8) No Bots.

Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

Asudox@lemmy.world

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

ModeratorCan@lemmy.world

neidu3@sh.itjust.works

asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev

candyman337@lemmy.world

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

215

As a young person, how can you achieve any sense of stability when it feels like no career path or job is stable? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by sprigatito_bread@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I (23M, American) feel completely paralyzed from a career perspective because I have no idea what the hell to do. If I choose the wrong degree program, I have to pay back all the debt with nothing to show for it. Even if I get a job, there's no telling how long that will last. Everything keeps changing so fucking fast and it seems like any field I could go to college for could cease to be viable by the time I finish. On top of that, I have chronic health conditions to worry about that limit what I can even do.

(Edit: Basically I have POTS and a neck injury, so it’s hard to do physical labor and I suffer from dizziness, brain fog, and fatigue from being up for an hour or so. I don’t know my exact limits yet, since the severity of my condition varies by day and there appear to be ways to partially recover from the fatigue without having to lay down.)

I think stuff like urban planning and designing walkable environments would be cool, but I'm not sure if that's a viable path in 2027 and beyond. I also used to be interested in programming, but ever since AI and mass layoffs hit the scene, I've become disillusioned and stopped pursuing that path.

I used to feel like the world was stable and I could pick a career based on my passion and be fine. But ever since 2020, everything has felt increasingly more uncertain. The world seems to be losing its collective shit and that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

Is staking your sense of stability on your career the wrong way to think about this? Should I be trying to find close friends or some kind of supportive community that could act as a safety net? Or is everyone too hyperindividualist to look out for each other?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

I know my parents didn't think the world was stable when the Korean war and then Vietnam were going on plus Cold War, acid rain, ozone depletion and women had very few rights. Blacks couldn't vote in the USA so that caused spillover problems in Canada. When I was your age it was a recession, gas had been horrendously expensive, interest rates were high teens or 20s, recent university grads were going on to second degrees because there was no work to be had - although post secondary debt wasn't as high as now because you literally couldn't borrow that much money unless your parents were rich and could afford to pay it.
What I'm saying is that very rarely does anyone in your age group feel like the world is going their way. Figure what you able to do, a combination of your talents and your likes, and figure out the cheapest way to learn how to do it if it means post secondary education or trades or your own time. Most people cannot find something they LOVE to do that will also pay the bills. Or even if you do love it, making it pay the bills is a good way to eventually hate it. In regards to bills, what life do you, not your parents/friends, want to live? Your needs might be less or more than anothers. One person can have a great life on $50K and another "needs" $200K. Where do you need to live? Many people get stuck on staying where they grew up but if you look to previous generations, many had to move to get to where their job and their life aligned. There are probably many, many jobs that you have never heard of and therefore haven't considered. Career counselling can help.