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Hi everyone, I've been around here a bit and am very glad to be part of this community. This is my first post in The Respawn Point, and I just wanted to make something clear first: I have not let my fitness and diet go (although it's Christmas so I'm a little more relaxed with my diet at the moment), so I don't need to respawn with that. Improve, always, but not totally respawn. No, I need to respawn in a different way. I guess you can call it a re-roll or a redistribution of my experience points. WARNING: This is long, so don't feel obligated to read or respond. I'm sort of ranting. It's therapeutic. >>>>>>>>>>> Right, so down to it. I am 22 with two children under two. I am aspiring to be a successful novelist. I used to live in the country, but when I got laid off from work, there was nothing left for us there. No jobs, poor access to medical care (found out we were having our second baby and I don't drive yet), and lack of education were the three reasons we decided to move to the city. I am now a stay-at-home dad while my girlfriend goes to school, which is great. So why do I feel like such a failure? I'll try to explain the best I can: I have always felt like a failure at life for various reasons. Being bullied for 15 years comes into play. I have never went to college. I was too scared to get my G2, so I can't drive without someone else in the passenger seat. I've worked a lot of shit jobs just to get by. I've watched my younger siblings surpass me financially (none of them have kids and are peaking early because they have no desire to obtain more in life and are okay working in a scrap yard and a factory forever but I'm still upset by this) and I'm worried I'm going to end up like my father (young dad, shit jobs, depression and a slave to the system in his 40's with no way out). My siblings are constantly bragging about how much stuff they have (my youngest brother leaves for cuba in a couple hours...again), and I just feel like I'm doing nothing and going nowhere. All of my high school friends have surpassed me in an even greater way. They're living the high life at the moment, full of trips to mexico and casinos, and don't really have time for me. I'm just the boring guy with kids, even though there's this passionate, fun, adventurous guy just raging to break free and fly (cliche, I know, but it's how I feel). My girlfriend is in school so she can have a solid career, so that's awesome. If I end up not going, at least we can tell our kids one of us went. A couple months ago, I decided that once my girlfriend was done school in August, I would start a 2 year program to become a personal trainer. I finally felt like I had something to prove I wasn't a loser. And then I discovered that where we want to be has 0 opportunity for any new personal trainers. The market is so heavily saturated that people are turning to Facebook and Kijiji to get clients in a Freelance manner. That risk is too big for me to take. If we stayed in the city, I'd be fine. But the whole point of coming to the city was so that we could live a better life back in the country, which is our home. If I'm going to go into thousands upon thousands of dollars into debt and keep my family here an additional 2 years minimum, it better be worth the risk. And it's not. I'm trying to figure out another program I could take that would make me feel fulfilled and where there are actually jobs, but I'm having a hard time with it. Writing doesn't pay the bills yet, so I can't rely on that. And my family thinks I'm a joke. They've shittalked me for so long, and I want so badly to prove everyone wrong. I have so many goals in life, things I want to strive for, and I feel like I'm getting nowhere. And I want to respawn and get stronger at this. It's been a problem that's plagued me my whole life, the feeling of immense inferiority, and it's time that I overcome it and move on. It all starts with small steps, and I will be writing out detailed step by step mini-goals to achieve my large ones. This is definitely key. But right now, I'm just trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. I just want to be somebody my kids will look up to. I used to be the one supporting us, and now the roles have reversed. But one of my biggest problems is that I measure my own success by the success of others. I need to stop this. I'm struggling so hard to beat these feelings of not being good enough. My fitness successes so far have been helping. But that's something new and nobody in my family (not gf and kids; I mean mom, dad, and siblings) cares. They just make fun of me for being so strict with my diet and routine. There's just so much to say and explain. I feel so overwhelmed. Some of my goals are: -Conquer Mt. Kilimanjaro (I was going to do this, even paid $3000 for the trip, but it fell through last minute. One of my biggest life regrets so far. Gets me every day.) -Found a non-profit organization to help young parents have the basic necessities for themselves and kids, and to provide means to better themselves on mental and physical levels. -Become a successful novelist (by successful I mean earn a full-time income from it) -Maintain a high degree of fitness and health -Start a website meant to help young parents in all aspects of young parenthood (monetize it when it's worthy) -Get my full license -Get an education in something that fulfills me -Start a business (a bookshop cafe) -Hike on trails and mountains worldwide -Travel -Increase literacy in youth by providing easier access to quality reading material through some sort of non-profit organization Basically, I just want to inspire my kids and make the world a better place. I'm just a mess right now with figuring out what to do. Do I go to school to become a personal trainer and risk being far up shit-creek with nothing but debt to paddle, while keeping my kids someplace we don't want to be, or do I figure something else out. But as for me, I feel like a rotten leaf caught in life's current. No clue what to do or where to go and slowly disintegrating in the passage of time. The only time I feel in control and that I'm not failing is when I'm exercising, so I'm alright on my workout days. But on my rest days, like today, I get anxious. And then this mess of a post happens. I need to respawn from this, but I don't know how. There's an immediate need for decisions that affect the rest of my life, and more importantly, my kids lives. I don't want to be another statistic. "oh yeah, I remember Matt. He was that fat kid who had a couple kids young and never went to school. Guess he's going nowhere, just like we said". I refuse to accept this as my reality. Ah, hell. I'll get there. I just need someone to tell me I'm being an idiot and already have the answer. I probably do, but just don't see it yet. I'm too close to the situation. There's so much more to it, but that's the basics. If somehow somebody has read this whole mess, thank you very much. You're awesome.