I'm in my early 30s. I spent my 20s in Los Angeles, producing short films, skits, and acting in many independent film projects but it contributed to a lot of credit card debt since the film industry is an unending marathon for those who aspire to be in the club. I miss it greatly but after 10 years and debt, it felt unattainable and foolish to continue even though it's what I've been educated in and seemed like the only real thing I wanted to do.

While I was pursuing acting, my family and their business was going through a hellish and ill-advised bankruptcy in which their assets were sold off by lawyers with facades of humanity and dripped with greed. My parents went from owning the property their business operates on to renters with ridiculously landlord-friendly terms ($30K/monthly rent and all expenses, repairs, etc. paid by the tenant). I was still living in California when we lost our business property and eventually lost our home that I'd lived in for 27+ years. My sense of stability was severely rocked.

Now I've moved to the East Coast, working as a rideshare driver to clear my debt. I'm good at the job, the money is decent, but I hate it; there's no advancement, there's no camaraderie with fellow drivers or corporate, it's just me, in my car, faking pleasantries for rider after rider, 10 to 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm inconsequential and anyone could be doing this job just as well. I'm not sought after, I feel like I just exist to exist, I don't have a goal or a dream or even an idea anymore. I don't have a significant reason to get up in the morning.

(Property ownership keeps coming back to me as important to me but I think that's more trying to reclaim a piece of what was ripped from my family, rather than a passion pursuit. It seems an equally lofty goal as trying to make a sustainable career in the film industry.)

If I went back to school, I don't know what I'd go back to school for, what I want to pursue, and I'm scared of going back into debt after spending these many weeks working hard to clear it off my credit cards. I have an Associates Degree in Film Production; it made sense then but now it seems the degree has no purpose, it may as well not exist. I'm afraid to make that mistake again, pursuing an education in something I can't get sustainable work in though those seem to be the career paths I enjoy; artistic pursuits like photography, writing, etc. Those seem like needle in a haystack jobs that require far more schmoozing and networking to attain rather than technical prowess.

I was isolated from risk before, my parents were in a position to absorb small risks and mistakes, but now I'm scared to take the step on my own because of what I've seen, what I read, and I just don't know how to go forward or what to go forward with.

I'm lost and alone at 30 and most help seems geared towards those younger than I am and usually at an expensive school. I need help figuring out how to figure what I want to do, I don't have passion anymore; destroyed by practicality and monetary pursuits, those seem like the only important aspects anymore, to be practical and be sustainable.

I lived my life on the incorrect assumption that you only needed to work hard and do well, I did those things but I never realized until far too late that working hard and doing well needed to be focused, channelled into a specific path; otherwise, you're just floating in the ether, hoping to be plucked by some unseen savior who sees your value and potential in a path that would be right for you.

I don't know how to undo what I've done with my life, I've squandered it and I'm desperately trying to fix it with no real idea of what I'm doing. It's everything I didn't do in my teens and 20s, but what are those things? How do I start again from where I am; disillusioned, scared, and utterly lost.