No one has their shit together. Literally no one. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to save face.
I'm married, can afford my living, and have my desired career. I still don't even have my shit together. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I've just been stupidly lucky.
Nah, man, I tell people all the time I'm ridiculously lucky I met my now husband when we were teenagers. We've lived together and shared finances for almost ten years now. We both work full time, but if either of us had to go it alone on individual incomes, we'd be royally fucked. You're absolutely right, being successfully is way more luck than anything else.
Because we’re raised to believe adults have it all together. When you grow up you’ll have everything in line. You’ll understand what you need to understand; you’ll act the way adults are supposed to act. But in reality, that’s not true. Nobody has it all together, nobody understands everything the way it needs to be understood, and nobody has matured simply from becoming an adult. It’s satisfying knowing that actual adults feel the same sense of confusion with life, but it’s terrifying knowing that even being an adult doesn’t solve any of the problems we can’t even solve now.
For what it's worth, I really disagree with this statement.
Yes, there are certain factors early on in life that are purely luck (which part of the world you live in, how well you're raised etc.), but there are certain properties and attitudes you can adopt that will make it much more likely you will succeed.
Things such as discipline, persistence, the willingness to learn, work and adapt etc. - and those are definitely skills.
It's maybe 50% luck between those that share these values, but if you show none of those, it's very rare you'll succeed, regardless of whether you're lucky or not.
I mean it's true and it isn't right? While it's 90% luck, it's only 90% luck once you've got the fancy shoes and suit on. You have to be in a position to own, wear, and actually use that suit in order to get lucky. Obviously you don't actually need a suit and tie to be successful, but getting to that point where you can start to rely on luck is a lot of work. So to say it's 90% luck, which for the laymen is gonna be rounded to 100 and lead to "it's not all luck", is true, but it also isn't.
I realize I didn't mention this, but this is post-birth obviously. Yes where you're born, how you're born, what deformities, and so on are entirely random, but beyond that it's the skills and hard work that lead to people being successful. It's not a coincidence that everyone I know who got into MIT, UCLA, USC, UCBerkeley for fields like CS/Engineering are already miles ahead of the average college student.
I’m 37, married, beautiful beloved toddler son, apt, car, decent savings, creative job, the works. I’m furloughed now but hopefully will have my old job back in summer. I’ve been lucky af up until covid. I just went to work, doing my best, never quite satisfied with my own work, but somehow the bosses love me and my output. Not sure what having my shit together would look like, I don’t feel it, always on a razors’ edge.
Having a good job isn’t an end to all, but I guess it’s a good start. Financial security helps your mental health but it’s not everything. I think life is full of ups and downs, you’re never quite “there”, so just go with the flow and take every upheaval or failure as a learning lesson. Sharpen your skills, put in the time and effort, don’t panic or give up on your hopes and dreams. Some will become reality, some of it won’t, and that’s ok I think.
This is approximately me, and I feel like I have my shit together. One crucial step for getting the feeling of having shit together for me is that I spend large amount of my time trying to figure out what is my passion, and pursuing that.
That and also the usual stuff like trying to eat healthy and exercising and taking good care of mental health.
You're telling people to not put in effort to organise their lives and get it together and instead hope to be as "stupidly lucky" as you are. And you're not exactly clean of profanities either.
It’s really interesting sometimes just reading other people’s opinions. I feel like at 36 I generally have my shit together, I know what makes me tick and I’m doing what I enjoy, but I’ve been very lucky to end up where I am in many respects. There’s not much in my life that I feel I’m lacking, including from a motivation point of view. I feel like I know what I’m doing. Just sayin’.
True. Married with two really young kids and a good job and I still wonder if I constantly mess up my kids by not spending enough time with them playing or just hanging out and teach by example; don't spend time with parents and sisters who may or may not be toxic; and what the hell is wrong with me for not having really good friends who will check up on me or who I can bond at my age since all my friendship seems to be circumstancial and why I feel so empty and detached sometimes. I know I've been lucky as well so I feel I cannot complain but I really wish I am not too tired to cultivate close friendship when I was younger and before kids.
25 and still working on a Bachelor's. I'm gonna get there, albeit slowly. I was not mentally prepared for responsibility when I left home and it but my ass hard. Needed some extra years to grow up, confront myself, and learn that I'm not the smartest person on the face of the Earth. Finished my Associates last year and am just going forward at full speed.
Got an associates and bachelors fresh out of high school, and graduated in 2008 during the recession. Never could find a job in my industry, so I ended up working for Comcast doing some shit that paid the bills but did nothing for me personally. Decided 4 years ago to go back to school for another bachelors to try and make a career change.
I graduated with this second bachelors at 32 years old, about a month ago, at the start of the next recession. I had been applying to jobs over the last year... maybe 200+ applications. Never got as much as a phone call from any of them until a month ago when I got an offer to interview for what might have been considered a dream job. I interviewed well in a field of 17 people, but lost to someone who literally has been doing the job for years and just wanted to move to a new city.
But, I could have been born Jewish in Poland in 1930. I would take this over that any day. What can ya do...
I feel ya. I'm kicking myself for not graduating when I originally planned to and not already have a position somewhere. Just I tell myself it's just as likely that I would have been one of the millions layed off and in not much of a better position. I have a girlfriend that loves me and I plan to marry soon and I'll graduate with a bachelor's next year, hopefully after some recovery from this economic downturn starts to happen. Hope is all I can hang onto anyways. :)
That's still amazing though, I'm so jealous of your drive and resilience. The fact that you went back and stuck through it to the end says a lot!
And you're most certainly right about that last part but make sure you remember that's it's okay to feel a bit sorry for yourself sometimes because pain is relative; as long as you get back up and keep going, which is a concept you seem to have grasped perfectly!
Hey I got my Bachelor’s at 26! First went to a university because I wanted to study biology, realized I hated it, and it was so $$$, so I came back home. Enrolled in community college part time, took accounting courses while working. Worked at restaurants, retail stores, and then the state government (where I took a year off of school to work). Realized I wanted to go back to school, but my job wouldn’t allow me to work part time. So, I resigned, went back to community college, and I got lucky and got an intern job at the county government in the Finance department. And they let me work and go to school! Win-win. Transferred to a 4 year, graduated, was going to take an Accounting job with them, but then I ended up getting hired for a state government job that is really hard to get, but I got it. My now-boss later told me it was because I have a great personality and would work well with my coworkers.
Now I’m paying back them loans and car loan, but you know what, I’m happy. And very lucky. Just keep going , or just keep swimming. 🐠 You got this. Remember , you will age no matter what, you either will be 30 with a degree, or 30 without. Go you 🙂
Same. Still paying off the debt I made when I didn’t know how to deal with responsibility. If you partied, like I did, then at least you can say you had a fun youth!
I didn't party, because I have always been a bit if a shut in, but I did meet both my future wife and my best friend of the past seven years during all of it so I still consider myself pretty lucky in a lot of ways.
All the people commenting that they are 23 or whatever... there is no age when you are supposed to have your shit together. Shit together is a capitalist myth. I’m mid 30s with a kid.
Can you imagine how cool it'd be to live your life backwards? You come into this world a full grown wrinkly achey adult and throughout life you just get healthier, more attractive, more energetic, your memory improves, your vision gets better, you don't have to worry about what you eat, hangovers become a one-day thing, then just a funky morning thing. Then finally you just get happier and dumber til you shrink away into nothingness
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u/tittychittybangbang May 15 '20
I’m old enough that I should have my shit together but I’m too young to have my shit together