I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to want. I don’t know what my purpose is. I don’t know why I should be alive. I am 22. I am going to University for engineering. I am working on my senior project. I’m not particularly good at it. I don’t really know what I’m doing. The only really good thing I know to do is get people who knows what they are doing. That’s honestly the only thing that I’m good at. Bullshitting. I don’t know where am I going. I am applying for Graduate School. I am way out of my depth. I’m scared to go get a job. I don’t think I’ll be good at it. I’m afraid of screwing up in graduate school. I don’t think I’ll be good at it. I should change myself, but I don’t. I should try harder, but I don’t. I think I want an easy life, but I don’t know what that means. I am ashamed that I want an easy life. I think I try to find my meaning in another person, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think there is a person out there who will show me what my life is supposed to be or give it meaning or anything like that. Maybe that’s why I’m not really great at making friends or figuring out relationships. I’ve never been in a relationship. So I don’t really know what it means to have a person like that. I’m sure it’s nothing like I think it is. I just feel like I’m tumbling through nothingness. I feel a sense of urgency that I don’t know what’s going on, but feel at ease because in my head I rationalize it that I have time since I’m only 22. I am in this weird middle space where I don’t know what I am, but I feel like I should by now. I don’t know anything.
11 comments
Sounds to me like you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re graduating with an engineering degree, that’s a major accomplishment.
Everybody with even a modicum of intellect feels imposter syndrome sometimes. It’s because of the chronic devaluation of the individual that has been going around for the past few decades. You got through, you survived, you are by definition a winner in that regard.
It’s okay to be confused. It’s okay not to know what is coming next. I graduated a year and a half ago, worked a job for eight months, and now I’m trying to figure out where to go professionally… I might just stop here. The debt I carry is more than I can ever pay off, or even service with how low wages are out there.
Do the work that interests you. Then when you aren’t paid enough, at least you’ll have satisfaction in your work. College isn’t there for your benefit, it’s there to certify ability. If you get into grad school, they already want to certify your ability [or take your money, if they are a for profit institution.] You want a job that requires higher certification? You’re going to have to pay either with time or money for those credentials.
You’re finding out now while you have time to change things. I, too, have an engineering degree (B.S., Chemical Engineering). Like you, I went into engineering because I was ‘smart’, but what they don’t tell you is that engineers make a LOT less than sales and marketing and work longer hours and have all of the liability.
Anyway, I’m 49 and fucked and I’ll be killing myself next week (oddly, after my dentist appointment a week from today) but you’re still young enough to start fresh.
I don’t usually favor asking people to stay, but as an effectiveness obsessed individual, I also have that feeling of being used up…. what’s the point?
The problem is that this economy is completely upside down, so things that should work out don’t, because the rules shift to favor the overlords. We’re the fricken hobbits, obsessed with family and good food, out to prevent the evil of the devaluation of human life. Sadly, no one ring that I know of, and we don’t have a mountain to throw it into if there was.
I’m not sure if your comment is directed at me or the original poster; I think it’s me so that’s how I’m going to answer. The point is that there is no point. Society values extractors more than producers; in fact, producers get fucked. It’s insane.
Society doesn’t value what I enjoy and after 49 years I have had enough. I read a book on reincarnation a bit ago and while I’m not “converted” it did make me ponder the possibility. If there really is some sort of “reincarnation” if I see anyone from this life on the astral plane I’d rather not even make eye contact. Just keep on flying past each other to our future lives as if this one never happened.
As I thought about it while typing ^, I’m realizing there is more to the answer. The main point in killing myself next week is that I want to hurt my father. I want him to know what a shitty father he really was/is and that he should have let me be my own person growing up.
It is after the dentist appointment I have scheduled and the dentist is a really good dude and I don’t want him to think anything is weird. And, Tuesday will give enough time for me body to decompose so the smell hits the neighbors by Thanksgiving and my dad, who is dying of cancer, needs to know that his son killed himself before he dies in the near future.
That is the truth: “Society values extractors more than producers; in fact, producers get fucked. It’s insane.” It makes me think of arrogant managers, paid large sums, pushing around the engineers who figure it all out. Is that something like what you meant by it? Good saying.
That’s exactly what I mean by “Society values extractors more than producers”.
(and thanks, I’m glad you like it)
A company might start off with good people at the bottom, some extractors in the middle, and decent people at the top. Give it a few years and the extractors run off the decent middle managers creating an environment fit only for extractors. Trouble is a brewing. Then the company goes sideways and people like us can be in a world of hurt as we reel from a mess that need never have been. Some of my darkest moments came from wondering what on earth I would do if my employer collapsed while putting up with ever more needless difficulty day to day at work thanks to the extractors.
(Sorry to the Mods if this is too much discussion; I the purpose of this forum is not lengthy discussion but this seems like appropriate advice)
The younger (or however old/young) folks here might not be familiar with Jerry Pournelle’s “Iron Law of Bureaucracy” –
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
This has been stated in many places. Here is an early one.
It has been quoted many times.
This helps explain why those who support the goals only rarely get the rewards due them while the “company” people reap much greater rewards.
I’m pointing out ^ in the hopes of helping the original poster. Don’t feel as though you’re missing out on anything by not pursuing a graduate degree in engineering. In the real world your talents are going to be put to use by someone smart enough to not go to school for engineering and let you incur the debt and then they’ll have you sign an NDA agreeing that all of your designs belong to the company, not you.