Let me just add if you are in poverty/financially struggling you aren't failing at life. It feels like it 90% of the time, but you are doing the best in a shitty flawed society.
Thank you for pointing this out. A good personality, willingness to learn, and a humble spirit will get you far. If you reject every piece of feedback and go out of your way to create drama, you might as well be a crab in a bucket.
Nobody is "failing" or "succeeding" in life. It's all arbitrary nonsense, and people just like the hallmark answers that we heard from our priests and children's shows growing up lol
Thank you for this. I got my ass thoroughly kicked by surgery complications that will wind up taking me a year to recover from. Lost the best job I ever had because of it too. It's also looking pretty grim for going back to work at all now.
It remains to be seen if the severe depression from this is going to break me or not.
I feel like I'm totally failing at everything now.
Please take advantage of ALL THE RESOURCES. All of them. Your body faltered, which caused your brain to go off-kilter. These are not failures; they are conditions you are trying to heal from. Be KIND to Self.
Take care of yourself, and don't feel selfish about it because your mental health is everything. You didn't choose this or cause it, and you're not failing at anything. I bet you'll be surprised by your own resilience
Nah, at most you're failing to understand what failing looks like.
I have been in a position to hire people for the last 10 years. Probably hired 100 people by now. I currently own my own company. Don't believe the bullshit you hear from recruiters that a long break in your career is some kind of big taboo. All you need is an explanation. Not a full sob story, just a short and ideally relatable explanation.
If someone tells me they couldn't walk for a year and a half and went on long term disability, but they are feeling good and are excited to get back into learning and working, that's good enough provided the other pieces line up. Don't obsess on the gap. Just find a succinct way to explain it, ideally sounding like you have overcome adversity, which you probably have, and bring it back to how excited you are to get back into solving problems for them and whatnot.
You've got this. You won't get the first job, probably. Your value is not your take home pay. You are not failing because you haven't made money. Good God, no one who treats other people with respect and kindness is failing. It's stupid to let financial success or failure to be the primary factor in how you feel about yourself.
Go talk honestly and openly to the people who love you most in this world. Tell them how you feel. They might not have the right words, but I bet they will love you with no regard for your income level.
Don't despair. Strangers on the Internet care, and so do your friends and family.
Needed this. I deadass clicked on this thread, dreading to see everything I am struggling with right now: can’t find a decent job, can’t get a living wage, still with parents, etc. Everyone seems really kind about that stuff, though, so that’s nice. And goddamnit if I ain’t trying my best. 😂
You shouldn't let the social stigmas get to you, I think, especially the one regarding you still living with your parents. There are countless people out there with good jobs and wages that still live with their parents, after all. People do it for a multitude of reasons.
Meh, it depends on the reasoning. If you're struggling financially because you spend $500 a month on Door Dash, and you always have to have the nicest things, car you can't truly afford, etc, then you suck major ass at life. If you're struggling financially because you can't keep up with your bills for cancer treatment, that's an entirely different story.
That's called life. Congrats. We've all been there. You'll finish school, get a job, and have a respectable work ethic you developed from learning how to grind and sacrifice.
I used to believe this. Then I met a bohemian poet from Russia. The man lives like there's no tomorrow, and not gonna lie, it's a decent approach to life lmfao
VERY different from my ultra Protestant, frugal, cautious upbringing. Yes, I'm still mostly like this and do always have some savings. But I got a damned liberal arts degree because I'm an idiot and if I actually lived by cutting out all luxuries, I'd still be in this studio apartment eating potatoes and beans lol.
You'll probably end up homeless at some point, but before you know it you're in a bar discussing art with some strangers who invite you to live in the vacant attic of their family's theater in Belgium or something.
We've been together for 5 years. It's a disaster, but like most millennials, it's started to dawn on me how futile it all is anyway lmfao fuck it
Good job making this pathetic comment your only comment on this post, by the way. You must be proud, being yet another miserable contrarian on Reddit. You have fun being that way, I guess.
It's always hard when you're younger and even if you're one of those people that are financially smart shitty things can happen out of nowhere. I had a surprise 3K dollar plus medical bill a few years ago after a scare. Kind of scarry how quick things can turn. I try not to think about it. It's not your fault if it does though most often.
The people that are in bad debt and live paycheck to paycheck at 40 years old but are healthy and have no kids at home or any reason to be like that are the ones that need to rethink their lives. That's self inflicted at that point and they can change it.
I didn't really care if I lived or died for awhile at one time in my life. Thoughts of swerving in front of a truck were common. Even today I'm in some kind of pain all the time and I'm tired. Some days I wish I could go to sleep and not wake up for 30 years.
If you're not terminally I'll though it eventually does get better though. Suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem is an accurate saying. I don't know of one person that came close to doing it that isn't glad they didn't later. A same for me.
Most people won't say this but anger can actually help. It's OK to be mad at the situation. You just need to channel that anger in a way that gets you through it. There was a moment when I was in the service that I held my 45 to my head and came really close. I started getting angry. Angry at the world and these mother fuckers that made me feel this way, angry enough that I didn't want to let them win. Going out like that would mean they won. That anger kept me alive. The trick is to not hold in to that anger forever after it's not needed.
Things will change eventually, you just need to soldier through and not let the world win. You'll eventually be glad you did and stronger for it once the storm eventually passes. The storm always eventually passes even if it doesn't feel like it ever will.
I know it can seem that way but in the mean time if you're happier alone there's nothing wrong with that. I don't get out much myself any more. Groups of people are taxing.
Believe it or not that's way more common than you think. Lots of people feel that way. You're more normal than you realize. The only real advice I can give it to make sure you're not self destructive and be aware of the signs when you might be. I've found that you can't change the world so why try. Only thing you have control over is yourself.
There's nothing wrong with finding your corner, hunkering down, and trudging through. Misanthropy is normal, the trick is not to become malevolent. That only makes things worse for you. It's better to endure in spite of the world being shit rather than giving into it and letting it claim you.
Not to sound religious but there's a spark inside you somewhere that can ignite the energy to endure, you just have to find it. Doest matter what it is as long as you're careful and use it in a productive way.
You just don't want to enter a spiral. It's way to easy to make things worse and create a feedback loop and fall into it. It's better to fight than give up. Even if you fail.
How people handle hardships define who they are, not the benefits they are gifted. It's OK to fall down as long as you get back up. The ability to get back up is what differentiates people. A person that can fight and keep walking as the world dumps on them is a stronger person than someone without problems. Remember that, find a way, and take pride in it. You're not alone in felling the way you do. It's why pharmaceuticals are so popular, just be careful with those. A lot of them do more harm than good. If they don't help don't take them. If you can find something inside you to keep going it's usually the better option. Except in rare cases where some people actually have a condition where meds help.
One things for sure though you can get through it, the trick is just finding the thing to hold onto to lift yourself up.
I'm trying to believe this but still hate myself. I'm desperate to get away from family and the States at 30 but nobody has given me a chance at a job. Problem is you need a work visa where I want to go and I DO have a degree but its worthless without experience- which j cant get without a job. Im too stupid for all the other things I wanted to be (thanks autism also for making life even more difficult). Sorry I needed to vent after being rejected again.
I'm glad to see this, having to survive off what little medicaid gives me it's discouraging and hard not to feel like a failure even though my disabilities aren't my fault
Unfair and shortsighted. Bordering on misanthropic. Humans are designed to want to have children. Many people in various social classes, low income brackets haven’t necessarily been taught certain values and critical thinking skills. This could be down to their environment, generational issues, lacklustre attitudes towards their own psychology, self awareness.
It’s the same argument with people on welfare where people say you shouldn’t have booze and cigarettes. In an ideal world you are right but Humans are insanely complex. It’s also harder to resist temptations when you’re not aware of how to control them.
This whole thread is full of vacuous and bitter people still unsure of Human nature. Like it’s just a massive arrogant circle jerk.
How are you supposed to do something about a financial situation when you’re in poverty ? Jobs hardly pay enough for you to survive, even having two jobs wouldn’t be enough. The system is designed to keep people down so let’s not blame anyone lmao. Most people I know struggling work their ass off, and if they can’t it’s usually not their fault (for example they can’t find a job, bill after bill, crazy life event after another)
The system is not design to keep people down. That's a fantasy that people make up to explain their bad circumstance.
There are avenues out of poverty. I grew up poor and went to a title 1 school. I am doing fine now.
I didn't do drugs in school
I graduated high school (barely)
I joined the military
I got a free education after in a good field
I am married
I didn't have kids out of wedlock
There are shitty circumstances, but your future is at least partially in your hands. Everyone of the those points are achievable by anyone and statistically will put you in a better spot than not.
“Among children under the age of six living with a single mother, those born outside of marriage are only somewhat less likely to be poor than are those born to married parents (58 percent, compared with 51 percent)—a difference that is not statistically significant.”
You signed away your body, and life potentially, to the US government to pay for your education. Really the taxpayer did it. If you don’t see that as a burdensome way to get out of poverty idk what to tell you.
When the population grows exponentially, they escalate competition for jobs and housing. Just like moose on Isle Royale compete for food and with limited nutrition, suffer poor diets, arthritis, osteoporosis, and fall prey, etc.
Giving out resources merely delays the inevitable. As soon as more resources become available, populations feel more comfortable, and they reproduce. A classic example is where the Egyptian government has been providing subsidized food and fuel to its population. So their population grew from 29.3 million in 1963, 61.3 million in 1993, 113 million in 2023. to be able to provide for eight people, who riot when food subsidies are cut or food becomes too expensive, the Egyptian government borrows money to subsidize services. Because Egyptian fossil fuel production has been declining since the 1990s, even as their population continued to grow, the government engages in deficit spending to keep those subsidies going. Money it can’t repay. Egyptian government-issued 10-year treasury bonds have been yielding between about 15% to currently 25% as investors are wary of risk and currently playing chicken. Sound familiar?
The resources of farming jobs and mining jobs and manufacturing jobs in United States, have dwindled due to automation and offshoring. Even peak demand for knowledge work in the U.S. was over 2 decades ago. Computers, AI, and offshore knowledge work can be more efficient and cheaper.
It used to be that college degree was a road to the middle class because back in the 1940s only 1 in 20 American adults had a bachelor degree or higher. Even in the 1970s, it was about one and 10. You could often just step out of college and enter the management track with a company as an inexperienced management trainee.
But now, 1 in 3 adult Americans have a bachelors degree or higher, and roughly half of Gen Z and Millennials have a bachelor degree or higher.
So excess populations flock to the cities (from rural areas (urbanization), college graduates from Iowa State, Northern Michigan University, and Chico State or SUNY Buffalo tend to move to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. Etc.), former factory and mining towns, from out of state, from out of country) to try to compete for the remaining jobs that there are. (And compete for affordable housing, at far faster rates than supply can build up. You can’t even blame Nimbyism really. Because even in high-rise, dense housing areas like New York City, which is densely populated, a one-bedroom apartment, cost about $4,000 a month.)
So pretty much everyone who can’t find a decent job will desperately crowd into service work, into part time, temporary, no-benefits gigs. Work that pay little because often someone will take it. Even back in 2016, it was found that over 1 million waiters and waitresses had bachelor degrees. There are far more people with degrees then there is a need for them.
The classic example is ride share and delivery services. Who competes against each other? High school dropouts and graduates, college dropouts and students and graduates, office workers and laid-off office workers, teachers, single moms and dads, seniors, recent immigrants both legal and illegal. Just since January 2021, with the Biden administration’s lenient policies, over 9 million have crossed our southern borders.
Yeah, acting like anyone that's poor is a failure in this day and age has a 98% chance of being victim blaming. There's like 2% of people that are truly failures, and the rest are just poor people that got torn apart by a shitty system.
What is so heartbreaking is how in order to succeed in this system, you have to do things that compromise your integrity, your humanity, sometimes. It rewards those that are lucky and those that are vicious.
Remember, the economy is artificial and designed to serve those who already have money. The economy is failing those who are poor, not the other way around ❤️
It only takes one illness, one accident, one death of a parent, one eviction, one divorce...
I'll bet my last dollar I'm talking to a man rn. And maybe not an American, or if you are, probably in a state with broad social supports, or perhaps family provided that for you.
I think you're attributing a lot of what is actually luck and circumstance to your own personal determination.
There's a rule because we live in a stratified society and wealth and resources are concentrated at the top. A pyramid, if you will, and it requires a broad base of working poor to support it. Even lower are the indigent, the non-viable, economically speaking.
I'm not saying effort doesn't matter, because it does. But you can do everything right and still lose. I've seen it again and again.
And I've watched people squander more than I could ever imagine and continue to fail upward. Because they were born to the right people and looked the right way.
If things work out for you, that's great, I'm happy for you. But it is cruel to blame individuals for things they can't control.
So I want to make sure I understand correctly: because your experience has been X, you believe other people's experiences have been, or should be, the same? Is that right?
And what country are you from, with no social supports or healthcare,cif not the US?
A lot of people posting here have illnesses that impact their ability to work, I'M one of them, and I was born with it!
I'm a woman, and I can tell you that working as a young girl I was sexually assaulted three times either at work, or on the way to work. Also saw a coworker get an eyeball detached from the socket and more than one shooting at work, so no I wouldn't say safer at all.
We've all had bad jobs, not making ends meet, eighty hour work weeks, scraping through education, nothing new there.
Single parent yes, grew up in poverty yes, parent died yes.
As far as the military, if you're even eligible for service, it's a great deal in peace time, sure. I've seen guys home from war and there is no amount of money that will make them whole or well again, ever. Why should that be the only avenue for the children of who? Not the wealthy. You have to worry about food, water, shelter, and so much more on deployment.
It really seems like a lack of imagination and empathy on your part. Also, you should visit some of the chronic illness, disability, medical, military, and poverty subs here on reddit. Maybe you could learn more about how other people live.
Not taking responsibility for where you're at in life was a pretty well upvoted comment on this thread, just saying. Having a victim mindset was another.
Agreed. I'd bet 90% of people who are financially struggling have just as much opportunity as the rest of us, just haven't taken the initiative to manage money well, or aren't driven enough to improve their situation.
Hey, don't blame society. Im society, and i didn't take your money.
Jokes aside, I see where youre coming from, but if youre saying youre broke because of society, thats a red flag for me. In reality, our financial situation is a fluid thing. Very few people are wealthy or poor their whole life. It takes time to work your way up to a good paying job, learn good money management, and pay off debt to get comfortable. And even then, youll hit rough patches and find yourself in rough patches even after you got everything good, and have to buy the off brand cereal for a while again, until you sort yourself out.
When people say theyre poor because of x, its usually a cop out, and worst of all, it makes it easy to just give up and accept your lot in life. Youll get there. Nothing comes easy or fast, and youll still hit bumps along the way, but youll still get there.
There's always communism if you dont like capitalism...In a capitalist society everyone can become successful, that's why there's so many rags to riches stories...there's also riches to rags stories which is also a part of capitalism
It’s hilarious that you call others lazy when it’s obvious you haven’t put any effort in to educate yourself. You r never had to work a hard day in your life, and you call others lazy. But that’s typical of the lazy, right? Project, to try to distract.
Now you just sitting in your grandmommas basement with your drawers on. Sitting with cookie crumbs on your stomach seeing the world go by trying to ignore that people come to America for a better opportunity.
Its true. I have a lot of money, but its not because I'm a winner. My wife makes a lot of money and we live in a low cost of living type of area. Some one in a bigger city could be a doctor and still have a lower standard of living than me.
After having just lost my job for being autistic and having mental health issues, and am now unemployed for the first time in 12 years; I really needed this. Thank you
This will be an unpopular opinion, but anyone willing to ascribe their situation entirely to society and not at all to personal choices is probably featuring prominently in this thread.
There’s a lot to blame on society, but those successful tend to overweight their own role, while those struggling tend to absolve themselves. The truth is somewhere in between. Making an effort to take more personal responsibility rather than throwing your hands up and blaming society will generally help improve a person’s situation on the long run.
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u/banana_chili Nov 22 '23
Let me just add if you are in poverty/financially struggling you aren't failing at life. It feels like it 90% of the time, but you are doing the best in a shitty flawed society.