I feel like I have wasted my youth

Forgetaboutthelonely · 2021-09-03T21:15:23+00:00

I'm not entirely sure how this is related to men's issues. you'd probably be better off posting this in /r/mensupportmen

MathematicianNo4277 · 2021-09-03T15:14:44+00:00

I'm so sorry you got led to believe putting your life aside was going to pay off. It is not even remotely true. Employers always prefer the candidate with good social skills and a network.

There is however no point to cry over spilled milk. Nothing is lost. You are very young. Some people reinvent themselves after 40.

Take the lesson. You need adventure.

You're finishing a master's thesis, why not do a phd somewhere far away? It's paid work but also the life of a student. You could totally catch up on the missed partying, friend-making and experience having. And the hard work thqt you did in your studies will not go to waste in an academic setting.

BreakThings99 · 2021-09-03T16:07:38+00:00

I wrote 2 posts about how schooling is an oppressive system that needs to be destroyed. You just prove my point.

It's okay to be angry. Fuck those systems. They weren't meant to help us, but keep us down. We must unlearn what they did to us and oppose them.

(I did have a much better experience in university, but universities are serious institutions and not brainwashing like schools).

Sydnaktik · 2021-09-03T15:34:21+00:00

I assume you're in the US in which case psychiatric help isn't going to be affordable? Otherwise do try and get some help. From what I understand Cognitive Behavior Therapy is the most reliable if it is applicable to you. This can really help you get your life back on track.

If that's not possible for you, here's some advice I can give you based on my own experiences. The thing is, everyone's different and what's worked for me may not work for you.

Manage your brain energy expenditure. If you spend it all on work, you don't have any brain left for yourself or social behavior.
Do not underestimate the difficulty and complexity of social tasks. They may seem simple because people "dumber" than you can do it easily. But it's like learning a language, if you learn when you're young it's more or less automatic, if you learn when you're older you need to explicitly figure out the rules and apply them for a few months before they become automatic. Many rules and concepts are morally gray, try not to shy away from those and get too hung up on doing the "right" thing all the time.
In my experience anxiety is caused by needing to understand something to an impossible degree. This would be very common for relatively simple social tasks (e.g. ordering a beer at the bar). It's deceptively complex so I wouldn't put in the effort to explicitly think about it while at the same time any social interaction is infinitely complex because anything is possible. By combining my lack of reflection on the subject and my need to completely understand a situation before acting, I would dump all the problem solving onto my subconscious which just couldn't handle it. Causing anxiety. And also, experience is incredibly helpful at making sense of these. So think more explicitly about even simple social interactions and make a habit of acting proactively in social situations even if you don't know what's going to come out of it.
Judge your success based on your past self. Look to others to identify opportunities for improvement. If you see someone else that has something you want or can do something you want to be able to do, look into how they achieved it. Watch out for luck, it's not something you can rely on, just consider those people to be cheaters and you're not a cheater. Otherwise figure out how they pull off what they do, and see what it would take for you to be able to do the same, if it's something that you're willing to do and commit to, go for it. Otherwise accept that you can't get the benefit you're looking for in the same way. There might be other ways to get it, or it may just not be worth getting for you.
I think 30-40 is men's 20-30 for women. I'd recommend you aim for that. Don't worry too much about financial success. Money is extremely important, yet overrated at the same time. There are a lot of ways to live a fulfilling life without financial success. The key is to spend the time to make sense of it.

Algoresball · 2021-09-03T15:17:17+00:00

25 still very young. Maybe it wasn’t for baby boomers but in this day and age you have everything ahead of you.

wrekd · 2021-09-03T17:32:18+00:00

You could always turn that high end degree into something the military could use (not for everyone). That time is not wasted if it earns you a higher rank. You will work, gain useful experience, and toughen up your body.

You'd at least be able to pay off any loans.

TheMaskofMan · 2021-09-03T17:40:11+00:00

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

You cannot change the past, but you can change the present and so the future.

Besides twenty-five is still plenty young. It's all about starting good habits to replace bad ones and then slowly reaping the rewards.

Take some chances, ask the girl out, invest, test the limits of your body and mind, learn to fail and learn to get up again. This is what is means being antifragile, to grow from adversity. Not break down from it, not merely resist it, but to grow from it.

ANTIFRAGILE SUMMARY

a-man-from-earth · 2021-09-03T21:28:07+00:00

I invite you to /r/mensupportmen, a community to support fellow men. Many young men struggle with issues like this. So we can sympathize. Both the job market and the dating market can be harsh.

BloomingBrains · 2021-09-03T21:28:28+00:00

For what it's worth, I'm sorry you're going through this. It sounds terribly unfair and hurtful. One interesting thing about your experience though is how you report less qualified people getting jobs instead of you--this is a concrete example of how looks are a major contributing factor to success in society. Yet people still have doubts about this, somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a component of stigma against male nerds to this as well, so its very much a mens issue.

Title	I feel like I have wasted my youth
Author	freebird1811
Upvotes	27
Comments	19
Date	September 3, 2021 1:55 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/ph5n2o/i_feel_like_i_have_wasted_my_youth/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/i-feel-like-i-have-wasted-my-youth.1067116 https://theredarchive.com/post/1067116

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