people nagging me about jobs

[Lifetimespirit]

hi, im 20 years old and currently, i dont have a job and im not in school. now before you ask why, ill explain this even though im tired of saying this. im not in school because i cant drive and i have nobody to take me to school. my piece of **** sister makes fun of the fact i cant drive. she's 36 and been giving me a hard time about finding a job which i been doing for months. her and everyone else been getting on my nerves about not working and my effort to find a job is not good enough for them. im sick of people telling me to find somebody to teach me how to drive, telling me to grow up and be responsible and giving me all these damn lectures. it makes me feel bad and im ready to snap. i just want to run away and say **** everyone. if you're just going to give me som lecture bout my life, then dont comment. i already get enough of that **** where im at. sorry for sounding like this but it drives me nuts that people look at me like i dont want to do anything with my life and i do. sometimes i rather be homeless than deal with this ****.

 

[Tarragon]

Wow! Thats angst alright!

Driving is overrated anyway. costs tons of money and means you need a job to pay for the car! You are only 20, which means you have plenty of time to discover what you want to do with yourself, so enjoy!

Sounds like you needed to let off some steam....

 

[Ste11aeres]

If you're looking for employment, nobody has any legitimate reason to criticize you for not having a job. Job-searching is a long long long process.

 

[total-recoil]

You know, you have a point. I'm a lot older than you and I got to thinking that, in actual fact, the hype about jobs these days is rooted in social brainwashing. In this society you are somehow considered the lowest of the low if you're not a wage slave. And that's the point. My beef is it's one thing to have an interesting career you enjoy with respect, status and a decent wage but nowadays many people work all hours for a minimum wage, no trade unions, undervalued and so on. In many cases this is all based on the ideology of endless consumerism - produce a product to sell to an increasing market. Yet most of this work demands little skill or technology or need for education so we have a scrap heap of graduates who are forced into unskilled work as well.
I guess I'm saying something is very wrong. If the communist dream was supposed to have died at the end of the eighties, seems to me the capitalist dream is coming to a similar sticky end.
What seems sadly lacking these days is education and technology. Also I'd like to see work devoted to conservation and wildlife or technological progress than these dead end consumerism jobs we are told are a must for social acceptance.
Find what you really want to do and do it.

hi, im 20 years old and currently, i dont have a job and im not in school. now before you ask why, ill explain this even though im tired of saying this. im not in school because i cant drive and i have nobody to take me to school. my piece of **** sister makes fun of the fact i cant drive. she's 36 and been giving me a hard time about finding a job which i been doing for months. her and everyone else been getting on my nerves about not working and my effort to find a job is not good enough for them. im sick of people telling me to find somebody to teach me how to drive, telling me to grow up and be responsible and giving me all these damn lectures. it makes me feel bad and im ready to snap. i just want to run away and say **** everyone. if you're just going to give me som lecture bout my life, then dont comment. i already get enough of that **** where im at. sorry for sounding like this but it drives me nuts that people look at me like i dont want to do anything with my life and i do. sometimes i rather be homeless than deal with this ****.

 

[Spinning Compass]

Yes, it might be social brainwashing and all that, but the bottom line is that's reality. I don't know about anyone else here on this site, but I happen to like having a warm house in winter, decent food on my table (not the expired stale crap you get from the food pantry and believe me, I know, I volunteer at one), clothes on my back and other things. I'm definitely not into being homeless although some people seem to be. I'm not going to lecture, but as my mother always said, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it." If you'd rather be homeless, well, that's pretty easy to accomplish. Just make sure you live in a place with a warm climate. From experience I can tell you it sucks not having power or heat when the temperature drops below freezing.

What I would like to know, being the lazy sort that I am, yet not willing to give up all my little comforts, is how one can maintain said lifestyle without working, especially when you don't have any family members or friends who are willing to feed, house, and drive you around places. If anyone can tell me how to achieve that, I am all ears.

So it looks like either a sucky life or homelessness (which personally I consider more sucky than having a lame-brain job).

 

[total-recoil]

We could get into a deep philosophical discussion about this. It just seems to me there is this big problem today with the masses not questioning the status quo and just being slaves to the system as it stands. I think my point is that in the sixties, people did question the status quo and did have the desire to break away. I mean the tune in, turn on, drop out mentality where younger people got into music and peace movements. True, there was an alternative in the USSR at the time but really the system there was repressive in the other direction so defeated the object.
You stated you work out of fear of being homeless? This is now the main reason people I know or see around me work. I mean, I have picked up on this fear people have today of losing jobs, losing homes and so on. Is insecurity a viable basis to build a society? I mean, what happened to working to build a career that offers an affordable wage?
I don't want to come over as awkward or radical but you could say I don't like the way we are heading today. I would love to see people start questioning stuff and coming up with alternatives but most of what you hear today in the media is the mass fear of unemployment and I suspect this is what suita many politicians so they can drive down wages to minimum.
Anyway, yes I do sort of have alternatives of my own. I live on a steel boat with my own electric supply if I need it. I have a friend who is buying a yacht to go out to sea with his wife and imagine he will work in different places as he cruises from place to place. Yachting is just one way to escape the rat race although I recommend being as self sufficient as possible when it comes to DIY or even diesel repairs.
There was also the film called The Beach that dealt with this issue, the one with Leonard Di Capprio as a young guy who took off to Thailand and found this commune of people on an island.

 

[Spinning Compass]

I am simply stating economic facts. Not everyone has the option to live on a boat and travel from place to place. I don't work simply to avoid homelessness; but I do know that if I don't work, I will be homeless unless I can find someone to live off of.

I am not sure how old you are, total-recoil, but I am old enough to remember the 1960's quite well. And I noticed that many of those who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out came from relatively affluent families. The hippie movement did not attract many who were already at the bottom of the social stratum, the ones who could not afford college deferments. If you look at those who protested the war and those who were not able to avoid going to war, they came from quite different economic backgrounds. Yes, some people questioned the status quo, but they were unable to come up with lasting solutions. But, there were a great deal more people--the ones you never heard about on the news--who did NOT tune, turn on and drop out, especially in the American Midwest. I'm afraid that there has been a lot of mythology about those days and that they were greatly idealized.

For example, the music and peace movements that you mentioned. At the very same time that the hippies were spreading their gospel of peace, love, sex, drugs, drop out, everything's groovy, man, major American cities were going up in flames. It's funny because we were having a conversation at work the other day about the 1960's antiwar movement. Someone asked me and another person who is my age if we participated in any antiwar protests. My friend's answer was no. There were no antiwar protests in our town at that time. But there WERE race riots. That's what I remember about the 1960's. Yes, there was a sizeable group of people of both races who wanted nothing to do with each other or "the system", so "burn, baby, burn." And burn they did, till anyone with the means to do so fled the inner cities . . .

 

[Spinning Compass]

I just want to add that this "drop out" mentality is a young person's dream. I haven't seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie you mention, but I'd bet that most of the people on that island were under 40 years of age, maybe 30. When I was young and 30 seemed so old, there was a saying, "Never trust anyone over 30." Except, what happens when the generation that told the world not to trust anyone over 30 turns 30 itself?

I have seen over a half-century of living and there is a funny thing about getting older. You start thinking differently. You find that physically you can't do everything you used to do even if you are in good shape. And jobs that were once so easy to come by, aren't any more because they are taken by younger people. It's one thing to work your way around the world doing odd jobs when you are in your 20's. I don't know anyone who is over 50 who is doing that sort of thing. Simply because they can't compete with the younger ones. When I was in my 20's I ran off and worked as a hot walker on a racetrack. I could not do that today. In the first place nobody would hire me. In the second, I am no longer physically capable of doing such work. I have physical issues that require me to take medicine every day in order to function. This medicine is not cheap. I could not afford it on a hot-walker's pay. But when I was in my 20's I did not think about those things. I believed that unlike everyone else I would remain forever young and healthy, able to live on next to nothing. I gave no heed to the morrow, just lived for the moment.

So, enjoy your freedom on your boat while you can. Because when you start getting older and the muscles start aching and the strength is not there anymore to do the things that used to come so easy. There are a few die-hard hippies out there over 50, but not very many. Sooner or later, most of us end up back in the rat race. Those that had the option of leaving to begin with.

 

[Judge]

When I was young and 30 seemed so old, there was a saying, "Never trust anyone over 30." Except, what happens when the generation that told the world not to trust anyone over 30 turns 30 itself?

I have seen over a half-century of living and there is a funny thing about getting older. You start thinking differently.

It's ok to change with age. It's a process, and there's nothing wrong with it.

There's even a charming film about it called "The Big Chill".

 

[joshuaturbeville]

If your sister wants you to have a job, then she should be the one to help you to know how to drive. She's nuts!

 

[umbrellabeach]

I'm in almost the same situation. No one nags me about jobs or driving (although when I was 15 no one could shut up about driving), but I'm unemployed, out of school and I live with a verbally/emotionally abusive family. My current dream is to just get out of this horrible place and into a house of my own. I might get a job soon but my mom says I won't be able to move out this year. :unhappy:

 

[Tarragon]

I just want to add that this "drop out" mentality is a young person's dream. I haven't seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie you mention, but I'd bet that most of the people on that island were under 40 years of age, maybe 30. When I was young and 30 seemed so old, there was a saying, "Never trust anyone over 30." Except, what happens when the generation that told the world not to trust anyone over 30 turns 30 itself?

I have seen over a half-century of living and there is a funny thing about getting older. You start thinking differently. You find that physically you can't do everything you used to do even if you are in good shape. And jobs that were once so easy to come by, aren't any more because they are taken by younger people. It's one thing to work your way around the world doing odd jobs when you are in your 20's. I don't know anyone who is over 50 who is doing that sort of thing. Simply because they can't compete with the younger ones. When I was in my 20's I ran off and worked as a hot walker on a racetrack. I could not do that today. In the first place nobody would hire me. In the second, I am no longer physically capable of doing such work. I have physical issues that require me to take medicine every day in order to function. This medicine is not cheap. I could not afford it on a hot-walker's pay. But when I was in my 20's I did not think about those things. I believed that unlike everyone else I would remain forever young and healthy, able to live on next to nothing. I gave no heed to the morrow, just lived for the moment.

So, enjoy your freedom on your boat while you can. Because when you start getting older and the muscles start aching and the strength is not there anymore to do the things that used to come so easy. There are a few die-hard hippies out there over 50, but not very many. Sooner or later, most of us end up back in the rat race. Those that had the option of leaving to begin with.

Wow, that's an unusually strong negative vibe coming from your here Soup :spin:

I know several people who live on boats well into their 70s. They don't complain. I guess old age catches up with everyone eventually, but there's definitely something to be said for living life without regrets. Personally, I would hate to not have tried something different just out of fear of old age. I fully intend to take up skydiving when I hit 70. If I get to 80 it's shark wrestling for me!! :bounce:

 

[total-recoil]

The problem is that today our society is founded on the wrong values and this system of values was actually questioned and challenged by younger people in the sixties whereas today nothing is happening. By "wrong values" I refer to the whole concept of human beings considered successful or failures on the basis of material gain and economic status. And it is that whole mistaken philosophy that leads to greed, pollution, crime and even war. I think in the sixties they had this saying "keeping up with the Jones's". It meant that if the guy next door has just bought a new Jaguar, you need to get one too. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to the concept of personal property or owning a nice home so long as everything has a sense of balance and proportion. What I dislike is greed and rivalry and trampling on others under the notion that materialism is the priority. This whole ideology is promoted from the classroom onwards where people are graded and valued on basis of performance and I imagine many people on this site may have felt the bitter sting of not measuring up. That is, we aspies don't normally do so well in a social setting and because of that we often experience discrimination at school or at work.
So, I think the sixties was a much better time for questioning. I can recommend a really good film for you all to see if you can get hold of it. I jhaven't seen it in ages but recall it was a very entertaining, thought provoking film starring Norman Wisdom. He plays a successful office employee who meets a really exciting hippy girl and decides to drop out. Here is the link:
'' the pretty things '' - what's good for the goose film - 1969.. - YouTube
I suppose there have been articles written about the sixties cultural revolution and its origins or successes. My own theory is that the whole hippy, drop out scene may well have been destroyed by the Manson Family just at the end of the sixties when the whole dream turned sour. The murder of Sharon Tate in Hollywood by Manson's group was the first sign that drugs had a darker side.
Anyway, basically I'm not telling people they ought to drop out but I still always think it's sad to see the younger generation so passive today and never seeming to challenge the status quo to try and make the world a better place with more tolerance and less emphasis on material gain.

I am simply stating economic facts. Not everyone has the option to live on a boat and travel from place to place. I don't work simply to avoid homelessness; but I do know that if I don't work, I will be homeless unless I can find someone to live off of.

I am not sure how old you are, total-recoil, but I am old enough to remember the 1960's quite well. And I noticed that many of those who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out came from relatively affluent families. The hippie movement did not attract many who were already at the bottom of the social stratum, the ones who could not afford college deferments. If you look at those who protested the war and those who were not able to avoid going to war, they came from quite different economic backgrounds. Yes, some people questioned the status quo, but they were unable to come up with lasting solutions. But, there were a great deal more people--the ones you never heard about on the news--who did NOT tune, turn on and drop out, especially in the American Midwest. I'm afraid that there has been a lot of mythology about those days and that they were greatly idealized.

For example, the music and peace movements that you mentioned. At the very same time that the hippies were spreading their gospel of peace, love, sex, drugs, drop out, everything's groovy, man, major American cities were going up in flames. It's funny because we were having a conversation at work the other day about the 1960's antiwar movement. Someone asked me and another person who is my age if we participated in any antiwar protests. My friend's answer was no. There were no antiwar protests in our town at that time. But there WERE race riots. That's what I remember about the 1960's. Yes, there was a sizeable group of people of both races who wanted nothing to do with each other or "the system", so "burn, baby, burn." And burn they did, till anyone with the means to do so fled the inner cities . . .

 

[checkered past]

"Misery loves company" they say, which is why most working people think everyone should have a job and be willing to be exploited by the business world like they are - underpaid and taken advantage of due to their desperation to survive in a hard, cruel, world where most people are exploited and taken advantage of by being overworked and undercompensated so that the elite ruling class can have ever higher profits through lowering production costs by driving down wages.

 

[total-recoil]

Our whole society really does seem to be taking this path. My own belief is that probably it was the fall of Communism as an alternative to capitalism that sparked off a certain arrogance amongst politicians to go to the very opposite extreme. Yes, communism was equally repressive and failed to promote human rights and freedom but I figure it did act as a brake against extreme capitalism. There was always the fear the peaceful hippy movements and anti war groups in the West could go over to the other side alomg with trade unions and so on.
Even more ironically, the USSR abandoned its ideology mainly because they could see minimum working wage, pensions and social security systems in capitalist countries but it now appears all of that wasn't sustainable. In short both systems seem to have failed but whether Europe will inevitably experience social unrest remains to be seen.
Of course, it's not yet the case that there aren't decently paid jobs and careers to be had just the fear they are diminishing somewhat.

"Misery loves company" they say, which is why most working people think everyone should have a job and be willing to be exploited by the business world like they are - underpaid and taken advantage of due to their desperation to survive in a hard, cruel, world where most people are exploited and taken advantage of by being overworked and undercompensated so that the elite ruling class can have ever higher profits through lowering production costs by driving down wages.