Come Read, Its Your Choice.

[seattle420]

they lied to you in school

[zephyrinne]

I didn't know what I wanted to do my first couple years of college. I just took the basic 100 level courses in all subjects. If you're wanting to go to college, this is your best bet. Take a few lower level courses in a bunch of different areas and maybe you'll find what you like. I don't really understand why you CAN'T go to college because of course restrictions?? But then again, if you want to do a certain trade (auto work, plumbing, electrician, you name it..) , a community college or trade school might be best. College isn't for everyone.

But joining the army can help. My ex was/still is in the army reserves.. I'll be honest, he bitches a lot about it, how they screw you over and stuff. But the money he gets is very good.. he doesn't even have to hold a job if he doesn't want to. He served 13 months in Iraq, was there when the 'war' first started. But if you're looking to stay away from conflict, I'd stay away from the army. You know, with all this new stuff developing with Iran and especially with N.Korea.. who knows what Mr. Bush will have planned.

[seattle420]

so does your "ex" know that you smoke pot?
is that why he/she is your "EX"?

the money he gets for killing iraqis is very good?

Cmon.

[Axsum]

Man You must try to look at life from a brighter point, better days will come for sure, You got to rely on Yourself in hardtimes.

Blessings.

[jamstigator]

I'm pretty sure they don't sign you up to kill Iraqis when you join the military. You sign up to do a job, and sometimes that job may or may not involve combat. You have some control over that, in that you can select your job when you join. The higher you score on their tests, the more latitude they give you when selecting your job (or Military Occupational Specialty). The guys who plot and track satellite trajectories and such - they rarely, if ever, see combat. There are many jobs like that too, although you have to be careful because the job names can be deceptive. For example, when I joined, I picked Fixed Station Radio Repair, because 'Fixed Station' sounded like working at a radio station (and in some cases that IS what the job was). What they really mean by 'Fixed Station' though is that it doesn't work while it's in transit, and I ended up working at a 'Fixed Station' during and after the invasion of Grenada, sleeping in a tent for eight months next to a mosquito infested swamp, and listening to the screams of the Cuban POWs right next door to my tent for the first couple of months.

The military does offer quite a lot though: medical and dental covered, meals provided, housing provided, travel discounts, adventure, seeing the world, learning a trade, comraderie, chicks dig uniforms, help with home financing, educational benefits, free CLEP tests, and retirement if you hang in there. The money doesn't seem that great, but if you're single and live in the barracks and don't party it all away, then there's really not a whole lot to spend it on anyway, so you can bankroll some.

Yeah, there are downsides. People shooting at you sucks. And I found the actual act of killing another person to be even harder than having people shooting at you. But if you're smart, and pick the right job, you can get all the benefits and yet greatly decrease the odds of ever even seeing combat. For every person who sees real combat, there are 9 who don't: support personnel, high-tech jobs where the facilities are in the U.S., cooks, whatever. Even if we have a shitty commander in chief now, defending one's ideals and protecting one's loved ones from other countries' aggression is still an honorable job.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd still join the Army. I'd do some things differently (save more money, invest more in the educational opportunities, pick a safer job), but the overall plan wasn't bad, and I don't have any regrets.

[TMBGoofball]

I completely sympathize with what you said (or at least I think I do). The "educational" system pushes you through so fast that unless you're a mindless drone or already have your life planned out, you come out of it going "...huh?"

I still don't know what I'm doing in life, and it's been almost four years since I graduated high school and a couple since I was last taking college courses. I was homeless in San Diego for a few months before talking my parents into letting me back into their house, before getting kicked out again (over a RETARDED argument concerning me leaving my Playstation II at someone's house - fuckers - I digress) and moving into the dump of an apartment I'm now in.

Today I happened to think of a brilliant moneymaking plan (aside from growing and selling illicit substances) - a music notation service over the internet. I like it because it combines things I'm skilled at with things I actually like to fucking do. (Imagine that!) I understand that not everyone is as fortunate as to have something handed to them like that, though. The way the world is set up right now, it's really rough for those who are outside of the box. I wish I could tell you "just follow your dreams", but idealism doesn't seem to be worth much anymore, especially when everyone is handed it from all the wrong sources. ("Want to get in bed with the huge-busted women you've always dreamed of? Sign up for our dating service and get a seven day FREE trial after which you can pay us an arm and a leg to keep up with current socio-sexual norms, i.e. damned if you get laid otherwise, you hideous-looking fucker!")

I think it's sad that people have to choose just ONE thing to do and be in life, and then work at it until life itself is nothing more than a circadian rhythm pounded out by a corporate pacemaker. What's the fucking POINT?! Meh, perhaps when I'm older and "wiser" I will look back on the days when I cared about stuff and force a laugh. But in the now, this all seems so undesirable and I wish there was something that could be done, short of a mass revolution against the status quo (how many people do you know who will even question the concept of systematic power and authority, let alone question it right to the enforcers' faces?)

I hope you don't have to join the military, but I understand that we all do things that are less than desirable in order to attain certain things. Hell, I wish I didn't have to make money at all, but I'm more likely to go back to the streets and die than anything if I give up on that prospect.

[MaryJaneintheCloset]

Wow, you guys sound so sad... and lost. Really, no one knows who they are at 18, or what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I'm almost 25 and still don't know. I question myself every day. Hang in there, just go with the flow, but don't dwell too much on your future... you have the rest of your life to figure it out!

[Big Calhoun]

Hmmmm....

OK, first of all, your head is in the right direction because you realize life is hard and unfair and you also realize that suicide is a punks way out. Kudos for that b/c alot of people don't think that way when in this type of position.

Next...not knowing what you want to do is not that big of a deal. Alot of people are in that position. Alot of people go to school for a specific discipline and never use it! I went to school for Graphic Design....I'm a project manager for a phone company. The only designing I do is my signature for my e-mails.

The important thing is that you know WHAT you want out of life. OK, so you don't know if you want to be a mortician, or a scientist, or a punk rocker....but I'd imagine you have some sort of idea of how you want your life to be: a house? 2.5 kids? pets? wife? married? So maybe the best thing for you to do is to set your goals according to what you want to get out of your life and then work backwards to fogure out how you will achieve it. Think about your skills, what you like to do, etc.

As far as parents and what not...parents always want the best for their kids. They also want bragging rights...most parents want to be able to say that their kid goes to XYZ University. That is something you can't get away from. But, part of this transition into adulthood is making decisions and standing by those decisions. I'd hazard to guess that your family wouldn't care whether you went to school or not as long as you had a well thought out and feasible game plan for getting ahead in life.

But man, I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the mug. I'm the black sheep of my family because I left college and seemingly had no path. But once I explained my goals and how I was going about them, it was amazing how fast the 'good job' and 'I'm so proud of you' started rolling in.

Bottom line: DO YOU!!!

[TMBGoofball]

Wow, you guys sound so sad... and lost. Really, no one knows who they are at 18, or what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I'm almost 25 and still don't know. I question myself every day. Hang in there, just go with the flow, but don't dwell too much on your future... you have the rest of your life to figure it out!

I've had it drilled into my head from my parents that I should figure it the fuck out and fast, so that's where I'm coming from on that.

Although it does seem like if you fuck up during the formative years, you're basically screwed. Nobody wants to hire someone who dropped out of college and hasn't kept a steady job, and then 5 years down the line nobody wants to hire someone who hasn't had a job for the past 5 years.

[Big Calhoun]

I've had it drilled into my head from my parents that I should figure it the fuck out and fast, so that's where I'm coming from on that.

Although it does seem like if you fuck up during the formative years, you're basically screwed. Nobody wants to hire someone who dropped out of college and hasn't kept a steady job, and then 5 years down the line nobody wants to hire someone who hasn't had a job for the past 5 years.

It's all about your attitude my friend. I dropped out of college...I work for a Fortune 50 company and make a hefty grip. My attitude was that I didn't need college to prove that I'm intelligent, a hard worker, or a 'team player'. So when I applied for my job, I went in confident that I had the job.

Now, when I have to interview people for employment, I don't neccasarily look at what's on paper. I'm more interested in how you carry yourself, how you speak, can you follow directions, are you capable of learning, can you handle multiple tasks, etc. Those are things that I'm not going to get by looking at a resume; we have to have a conversation, an interview.

So don't think that just because you didn't follow the age old traditional process of school-college-work that you're screwed, you're not. However, if you continue to think that you are...then you will be and will only have yourself to blame.

Like I said earlier, DO YOU...do what makes YOU happy. 50 years from now, your parents won't be around to judge your life. YOU will have to answer YOUR own questions as to if YOU are at the point in YOUR life that YOU want to be.