A Life Question

Of course if one wants anything in life they have to work for it. The general population has no one to rely on but themselves. If you want something you need to do it yourself to make it happen right?

Well, how does one get ahead in life when one works essential to live? I work jsut to pay my bills. I have nothing left after this. How in the world am I supposed to have anything in life when I can barely get by working fullitme as it is? I have no formal education, I can not afford school nor would I want to attend a classroom. My only real joy is psychology and reading people. I have no hopes or goals. How does one obtain these things when neglected as a child?

As others grew up with the intent to be a policeman, or a doctor or a graphic designer, I grew up with no plans and later grew to be a 15 year old pregnant student with no direction. Ten years later I realize the importance of credit and owning a nice car and a nice house and being able to buy things...........although I have none.

I work hard, I have never called into work and I barely can live. I dont want to work at a fast food chain for the next twenty years.......I am not one to want to find someone to take care of me, I care less about material things than the average person. Basically I just want to be comfortable in life. I want to have apurpose in living. i want my children to be proud of me, I want to be proud of me.

How do I find direction? How do I get ahead? Is there any hope? Where do I begin? All my life I have struggled against myself, never anticipating this part of life and now I find myself lost, wanting to live and being ten years behind everyone else...............where do I begin............can someone just write me a blue print............where to begin...........

I was abused six ways to Sunday as a child and yet I have a master's degree and a professional job. You do what you have to do to make it happen, if you really want it, even if it involves things you aren't interested in, like going to school.

(((vl))) Please contact a social worker (maybe free through the local hospital? they have so much knowledge about HOW to do things in society, resources and help available to YOU! Go for it: the brass key!

Have you ever thought of starting your own business?
I was struggling just as you are until I started working for myself. I'm by no means rich now but I now own a pretty nice used car and can buy myself little luxuries I could never afford working for somebody else who only wanted to pay me $7/hour.
You have to really want it and be persistant. Finding clients initially will be the most difficult thing but once you start to get referrals from word of mouth, your business will take off.
I don't know what you like to do. It could be cleaning houses-as I do-or walking people's pets and minding them when they leave for trips or it could be washing exterior windows or carpet cleaning.
Look in the yellow pages to get some ideas. Then pass out some flyers directly to people's houses and with that post some of the flyers on bulletin boards in the food marts and gyms.
If you can afford the fee- try an ad in the classifieds.

Don't throw in the towel because of your childhood. You make yourself a new start.
Believe in yourself, be dependable, honest and thorough and you'll be buying yourself that nice used car and other luxuries soon enough.
Hope this helps. Good luck!!! (((((((vulgerlove)))))))))

There are professionals who are called "life coaches" and I think that they are helpful in helping folks set goals and then suggest pathways to achieve those goals. I do not know where you find life coaches but I've heard of them.

The best pathway to obtaining better paying jobs is through education. Not all education has to be classroom and not all classroom training is like it was in high school.

Many community colleges offer continuing education courses that you can take that will expose you to the many different career paths available. Usually continuing ed courses are either pass/fail or simply no grade at all. You might qualify for financial assistance.

Many community colleges and area businesses will offer "job fairs" where you can walk through and see what kind of job opportunities are out there. You might see something that grabs your attention as something that you might like to do for a living. Then you can find out how you can qualify for whatever. Many times, some companies actually hire in at a low salary and then send you to training. Once you pass all the training then you get a bonus and a raise.

Check community colleges in your area and find out when the next job or career fair is scheduled. You might find something.

good luck

Hi -- I've known of community colleges in two states that offer either free or low-cost personality indexing that will analyze a person's skills to help them find work that is suitable for them. Best wishes with your quest.

((((((((vlove))))))))

If you are in Canada, your local HRSD office would provide career counselling for you to help figure out what you may want to do in the future. Also, you are pregnant so you would have other options at this time....maternity benefits for up to a year and then an employment officer would help you work out a career plan (upgrading education, skills, etc).

Here is a link for Blueprint for Life offered through HRSD Canada HRSD Blueprint for Life/Work skills

There is hope and you are reaching out here....that is a huge step and you should be proud of yourself.

I was thinking of accounting............anyone know anything about this............expierence in it............ I would love to start my own buisness but doing what would be the question............hmmmm....The only thing about accounting would be the schooling factor........I know if I want it bad enough I would go to school, if I had the money and if I had the time I think that maybe it would be a possibility but I dont have either so how do I do that? What about online degrees..........are those jsut as good......I mean you get to work at your own pace right?

There is financial aid available for school, both federal and state.

Adult education is the hottest thing going these days. Pretty much every university has a "professional studies" program. They go by different names depending on the school, but basically, you take classes one night a week (or on Saturday sometimes) for 4 hours. Classes last 8 weeks. I finished my bachelor's that way. It was tough, as I was also working fulltime, but I wanted it bad enough, so I did it.

Candy

i think LOCATION (where you live) is very important. if you live somewhere there are many jobs, then your opportunities and career choices aren't so limited.

i've lived in 10 different places in the last 12 years. where i live now (near Washington DC) has soooooo many jobs. there's subway/train/bus for public transportation. most metropolitan areas that have subway systems usually are great starting places for finding suitable employment.

i believe many people who live in rural areas have difficulty reaching their full career potential because they are stuck and unable to see the ENDLESS WORLD OPPORTUNITIES other cities can offer them.

there is hope! keep talking to people. keep searching within yourself. it takes networking and reaching out to others to find your place in life.

((((huggs))))

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vulgerlove said:
I was thinking of accounting............anyone know anything about this............expierence in it............ I would love to start my own buisness but doing what would be the question............hmmmm....The only thing about accounting would be the schooling factor........I know if I want it bad enough I would go to school, if I had the money and if I had the time I think that maybe it would be a possibility but I dont have either so how do I do that? What about online degrees..........are those jsut as good......I mean you get to work at your own pace right?

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I finally sat down & did sort of an inner personality survey. I really would like to become a mortician, it's something I literally dream about, but in order to do so I have to move out of state, which is a financial impossibility. So I started thinking... What, if anything, am I actually good at? Do I have any talents at all?

I'm only good at one thing - I can find and fix other people's mistakes, so that leaves me editing - or what I'm doing now, which is hotel night audit. I enjoy working with numbers, finding patters, more in the numerology sense than the math sense, but it ties together. Numbers run the Universe in a way... I have a logical & analytical mind and am possibly a schizoid personality, so I can work by myself in a dimly lit basement w/no human contact for long periods of time w/out a problem.

I hate school, always have. But I'm just not making any money with a GED - I make a decent amount doing what I do now, but there's never anything left over at the end of the pay period. I'm always juggling the bills vs. the income. I've also accepted the one thing about myself that everyone seems to think is a bad thing - I like money. Money makes me happy. When I have money, I feel so secure and at ease - as opposed to always wondering how the electric bill is going to get paid, or how we're going to eat for the next week. Money is a wonderful thing that I've never had quite enough of to live on... Yeah, I know, everyone always says, "Money can't buy happiness... It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you have', all those old saws, but I am ready & willing to accept that one personal truth - a great deal of my depression is directly linked to too many years of no electricity, no hot water & dumpster diving for my next meal, and the constant threat of ending up in that position again somehow. Having enough money would also mean being able to get out from under the thumb of my mother-in-law.

Soooo, I started looking up money, numbers & finding/fixing other people's mistakes. If I make a sacrifice, which is about 6 years of school, I can get a CPA or CMA & make 6 figures a year. Even w/a 2-year associate degree in Accounting, I can double or triple my current salary. And, if I'm good enough, if I stick with it for the next few years, become determined to meet the right people I can combine my desire to help the dead with my ability to catch errors & branch into forensic accounting or document examination.

Of course, I'm only in my 2nd month of school & feel completely swamped by the first 4 chapters of my Accounting textbook, but things are starting, slowly, to make sense. And now that I have a specific goal, school isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It also helps that 2 of the 4 classes I take are online. The school has tutoring services & additional webpages for practice quizzes & practice questions, so there are a ton of resources available.

If you want anything more specific, go ahead & PM me - I could go on for some pages, otherwise....

Best of luck in whatever you decide.

Isn't school expensive, though?

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Jax2923 said:
Isn't school expensive, though?

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It depends - a credit at the community college I go to is $50, so a 3-credit class is $150. I was lucky enough to have socked away last year's income tax return &amp; we still hadn't done anything w/it when I had my inner midlife crisis... And books are ridiculous, but I got one of them on half.com for $30, where the school was selling used copies for $100.

But I've still put in an application for a student loan which will hopefully be processed before the end of October.

yeah it is.........i cant get finicail aid though, this stupid law that someone created baout being a drug offender....i mean, murders and other law breaking people are fine but not petty drugs, I got busted for an eighth of weed so i am a terrible criminal who cant get aid

You could always do what I did -- work your *** off, get good grades and get scholarships. And yes, I *do* have an answer for every excuse someone wants to offer ;-) -- you can't do a damn thing without an education. I worked long enough at crap jobs to find that out, so I went and did what I needed to do. It's not hard. Really.

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this stupid law that someone created about being a drug offender....

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Ohhh, ouch. That sucks. I know Las Vegas doesn't have very many resources for people who are trying to get their lives rearranged - we have one agency that's kind of like vocational rehab through the unemployment office. They offer training & sometimes funding for school, but I don't know if your area would have anything like that.

i would love to work my butt off like all the time but i have anine year old daughter who i jsut resumed guardianship of and so have already missed so much of her life and do not want her to grow up without a mombecause i am too busy working to spend time with her, and i am very very picky about who i let watch my child due to trust issues and statistics and well I am overprotective and have so far to my knowledge have had that be a benifet to my daughter. I am also pregnant. And a single mom. My daughters father is a sex offeneder, went to prison for six years for having sex with me and does not see her. So I am on my own. Now I have gotten myself pregnant with a married man's child who probably won't be there either. I have hardly no family and really no friends and so being overprotective of my children I find it to be a challenge. These are not excuses just obstacles. I would love to work at home but doing what? And although I dislike people, I enjoy them too. A great oxymoron. Isn't there some type of career that one can just obtain by being smart? Like testing out? Ya know, without going to school jsut learning it on your own, taking a test and BAM you are qualified? I mean, why waste your time if you can don' thave to? or am I dreaming?

People skills are very important. That and school are the answer for your questions anything else is just a dream....You do not like people you state and do not want to go to school...Having made some bad choices with a married man well unless you are going to DO something different than what you have done so far ....then it is a done deal you will be right where you are. Sadly you have another child on the way...Take the advice given to you and find a way to go to school...Also maybe once you like yourself you will like other people..Good luck

I am sorry, it's not that I don't like people it is just depends on my mood. I have a problem sometimes clarifying things....sometimes i jsut would rather not be around people.....I jsut want to take a test and get a degree..........why can't it be that simple? In the end that is what you do anyways......can't someone just take the bar exam without going to law school? I mean why should it matter if you went to school for eight years as long as you know that law? ya know?

No offense Girlfriend but that's called delusional If life were that easy you would have a brain surgeon who got his degree watching ER

Wasn't it Einstein who never finished school? I know it is dellusional but it is Plausible, is it not? I mean for seriously real, in some states can't you take the bar exam without any prerequsite? How about Real Estate...what does one do for that?

I don't know...I don't think Einstein took in enough bank to have a decent lifestyle like you wish for you and your kids... just because he was bright didn't make him wealthy or EVEN close. .I think Real Estate is not a ticket for a great income in MOST cases....JMO

Some schools will let you 'challenge' a course, but you usually still have to pay the fees for the semester in order to do so - it's basically where the professor works up a special 'final exam' & if you pass it, you pass the class w/out all the going to class in the meantime. However, from what I've heard, most of those 'challenge' exams are designed so people can't pass them - so you've blown about $300 for nothing.

It just depends on what you want to do - like I said, anybody w/the know-how & general knowledge could be a bookkeeper or accountant for a smaller company & make decent money, working on the basis of otj training. But if you want official professional certifications that say you know what you're doing in the big world, you have to make the personal sacrifices.