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It was just a store job while I trained to be a lecturer (spent 2 years lecturing, was great).

As for what happened, still not sure. Over a year of tests and the best we've got is nerve damage all over (the tumour in the spine scare last month was fun). Possibly due to a pretty rare reaction to a drug I was prescribed at the time, but correlation doesn't equal causation and all that. All I know is I feel like I'm on fire in my lower half a lot of the time, I have close to zero balance, blah blah the list goes on (seriously, the list is huge).

MrDwhitey wrote:It was just a store job while I trained to be a lecturer (spent 2 years lecturing, was great).

As for what happened, still not sure. Over a year of tests and the best we've got is nerve damage all over (the tumour in the spine scare last month was fun). Possibly due to a pretty rare reaction to a drug I was prescribed at the time, but correlation doesn't equal causation and all that. All I know is I feel like I'm on fire in my lower half a lot of the time, I have close to zero balance, blah blah the list goes on (seriously, the list is huge).

Damn. Sorry to hear that. I won't suggest anything as i'm sure you've followed other paths.

cincydooley wrote:I hate to break it to you, but its how you represented yourself:

I ask because i wanted to have some kind of direction or reassurance by the time i hit 30. I'm not there yet mind! I did some "travelling" for 3 months and it certainly helped my thinking, and not my wallet. I've never "moved out" and don't have "qualifications". Actually right now, i don't have a job.

The strange thing is, i do like just doing the things i enjoy (sport dedicated, xbox), and never having enough time to do everything. I remain focussed on that, and careers/ work/ education, never really get much of my focus. I just find it impossible to imagen a life which is different from what i do now. In my experience, hearing from and watching others, it's primarily luck that has people in a position of happiness/ content that i'm jealous of. (except one or two who i know worked hard).

I don't have any interests that are viable to work in; low wage and pure chance of having good work buddies. I like my local area, it has what i want/ need, friends, etc. But i know for certain this can all change, by sport can come to an end through injury as an example.

I mean, the summation there is, "I live off my parents and I'd rather play video games than work hard and it doesn't even matter because it's not my fault because I'm just unlucky."

I hate to break this to you, but being happy and successful often require sacrifice, and if you're unwilling to make an sacrifices, I don't know what else we can tell you, especially since you seem so content living off your parents.

I did follow up with another post realising i had given people an opportunity, that mistake was obvious... But those people seemed to not bother to read the measly few pages before posting their wild accusations. And just to be clear, after my correcting post is when "those" people chimed in their opinions. It might have been wise to ask before hand, "dude your parents paid for you to go travelling?" or something else related, or again, read the thread, maybe!?

I'm not going to ask you, but being successful doesn't mean financial wealth. Hell the words: wealth, successful and happy can be all put under financial if you're that way inclined.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i put forward some questions and merely said, "the people i know who are happily got lucky". I never mentioned what their successes were, and i wasn't looking for people to jump into my thread with negativity.

So regardless people be [see forum posting rules]. I'd like this topic to stay on track as i said before, i have enjoyed reading people experiences.

So, this is a comment from the reply you're referring to, from you:

I do think this is where a lack of drive does come from too. I barely even have to look after myself to be perfectly honest.

So, basically, you've never had to be responsible for yourself and have never been held accountable for anything. Are we supposed to feel bad for you because you can't muster up any sort of intrinsic form of motivation?

I'm not going to ask you, but being successful doesn't mean financial wealth. Hell the words: wealth, successful and happy can be all put under financial if you're that way inclined.

Not necessarily, but I'd be hard pressed to find anyone that categorized sitting on the the couch and playing xbox or playing rec-league dodgeball (or whatever your 'sport' is) as successful.

Sure, there are plenty of places one can be successful, and you can be successful in your job without being well rewarded financially. Hell, I started as a teacher (and I know we have others here that are as well) and my wife is still a teacher, and she sure as gak isn't accruing massive amounts of financial wealth. But she's an incredibly successful teacher.

I make more money than her, and have nearly doubled my salary, as well as been given other promotions, since I've been at my present place of business. My wife is much more quantitatively successful at her job than I am (she's won multiple teacher of the year awards and has the highest test scores in her district for three straight years), but I'm still compensated more.

Additionally, I believe she and I have an incredibly successful relationship that yielded, and very fortunately so, a healthy and beautiful child.

But do you know what the common thread throughout all of those things is? Not luck. Sacrifice.

In order to become teacher of the year, she works her ass off, continually takes classes to become a better teacher, and goes above and beyond, often at the expense of watching TV or playing games or going out.

In order to advance in the manner I have, I've stayed late at work and come in early, I've taken seminars to further my knowledge base regarding our products, and I've spent numerous hours reading regulations to better understand them. I worked for 4 hours on two separate days AT GENCON.

And if you think there isn't sacrifice involved in maintaining a healthy, positive relationship, well, I have some Oceanfront property in Oklahoma to sell you.

So again, I've read your posts, but we've hit a point that it seems fairly clear that you're unwilling to do the things and make the sacrifices required to be "successful" by any metric society typically defines it.

But who knows. Maybe you could become a world famous video game player, and all that sitting on the couch could completely pay off.

I applied to the military coming out of high school. At the time, my motivation was to get a free education. My parents had some money set aside, but I had two younger siblings that would also need that money, so I figured I'd get the government to cover it in exchange for years of service.

I had to pick three potential trades on the spot at the recruitment center, one of them being pilot (the other two were artillery and armoured, because guns and tanks are cool). I got accepted into the program, and when the realization dawned on me, I buckled down and worked hard for the next seven years through university and pilot training. For all those years, I spent every day knowing all my work and training would pay off with a sweet job flying helicopters for the military. There were a lot of long days, and days where I very nearly threw it all away due to my own stupidity. I moved three times to three different provinces, all of which was spent away from my then girlfriend/fiance.

I didn't know what I wanted to do in life until I got the phone call telling me I was going to be a pilot. From then on I worked every day to make that happen. It was long, occasionally painful, and frustrating, but it was incredibly rewarding and I shared it all with some amazing people.

Life is what you make of it. Like anything you'll ever do, you'll get out of it what you put into it. That whole 'reap what you sow' rings true.

I don't make oodles of money, but my wife and I are comfortable. I love my job, and I live in the city I wanted to because I topped my course and selected my preferred base.

But hey, everyone has different experiences, though I imagine most people who are happy and successful in their career have done so through no small amount of work.

Success is wanting something and working toward it.

Not wanting anything is a waste of potential.

Really nothing I can say to add to this view.

 Albatross wrote:

 Kali wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
People like you are the reason I vote Conservative. Get off your arse and get on with it.

Work is the cancer that eats at your soul. We have no need of ceaseless toil and certainly no want of it.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind. Could you bring our food over now please, we've been waiting over half an hour....

What does a Liberal Arts grad say to an Engineer?

Do you want fries with that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 eskimo wrote:

I don't have any interests that are viable to work in; low wage and pure chance of having good work buddies. I like my local area, it has what i want/ need, friends, etc. But i know for certain this can all change, by sport can come to an end through injury as an example.

So i ask, as with the initial question, have you followed any sort of path with your life? Have things turned out well randomly for no reason? Did you feel lost once as do i?
That last question is quite laughable to type

Go to whatever England has in the way of a Vocational/Technical school. Plummer, Electrician, etc. Make decent money, come home at the end of the day and leave your job where it was, have time (and reasonable cash) to blow on the weekends.

Did i think I was going to work for a major manufacturing company's R&D facility as a researcher when I graduated with a ChemE degree? No way. I thought I'd work in manufacturing plants for 30+ years. Was it luck? Nope. I got this job through networking, taking every project I could, and not being a dick to people. Hard to believe from my posts, I know.

With a good job, comes good money to party with.

 kronk wrote:
Nope. I got this job through networking, taking every project I could, and not being a dick to people. Hard to believe from my posts, I know.

The phrase "don't burn your bridges" is just as true as "not being a dick" when looking for work. That little 1-day job might have had the same manager as you're stuck with for years.

With a good job, comes good money to party with.

Less time to party, but yeah. Choose your poison, as you'll be able to afford to with a good job.

cincydooley wrote:So, this is a comment from the reply you're referring to, from you:

I do think this is where a lack of drive does come from too. I barely even have to look after myself to be perfectly honest.

Unfortunately i had to go back and read, cause that seemed a little odd. And way to take it out of context, the reply was in relation to the poster talking about having a family to care for.

cincydooley wrote:
So, basically, you've never had to be responsible for yourself and have never been held accountable for anything. Are we supposed to feel bad for you because you can't muster up any sort of intrinsic form of motivation?

Hang on, do you have some kind of problem here? You've written a bit below about your life which is what the topic asked for, so i appreciate your input there. But your quite odd negative remarks about me are just that, odd. I'm taking the presumption just as you have, saving to go travelling and keeping a car on the road don't come under financial responsibility then. "Feel bad for me?" Sure, go ahead, send me some chocolates in the post

cincydooley wrote:

I'm not going to ask you, but being successful doesn't mean financial wealth. Hell the words: wealth, successful and happy can be all put under financial if you're that way inclined.

Not necessarily, but I'd be hard pressed to find anyone that categorized sitting on the the couch and playing xbox or playing rec-league dodgeball (or whatever your 'sport' is) as successful.

Sure, there are plenty of places one can be successful, and you can be successful in your job without being well rewarded financially. Hell, I started as a teacher (and I know we have others here that are as well) and my wife is still a teacher, and she sure as gak isn't accruing massive amounts of financial wealth. But she's an incredibly successful teacher.

And this is another reason why i started the topic, (some elaboration given), what's wrong with coming home and playing xbox to relax and save money (i bought Halo 4 on release in November 2012 and played that till i bought Destiny, which was released a few weeks ago) and using a sport to earn extra money, be social, stay fit, go places with friends, (hell i've even been paid to go places).

But i didn't think this elaboration was needed because i thought other people out there may just do a simple 9-5 job and when they come home, a few basic indulgences was all they needed to have a happy and therefore successful life. Being young i cannot speak from experience if this is something that may be something i'd enjoy doing in 10/20, hell even 30 years. So maybe others did this, then changed. Or still do this. Or just do a low paid job and come home, see misses, play Warhammer, next day repeat. Or somebody had worked to be well paid, but then sacked it all to live on a canal boat, or something.

Plus i didn't think people would feel the need to take my post "word for word" and instead of answering questions, for some odd reason, get all worked up about it.

Talizvar wrote:Success is wanting something and working toward it.

Not wanting anything is a waste of potential.

Really nothing I can say to add to this view.

But when you get there, what next?
Jokes ignored, i guess that you should really decide for yourself (myself), what success is wanted.

 eskimo wrote:

Talizvar wrote:Success is wanting something and working toward it.
Not wanting anything is a waste of potential.
Really nothing I can say to add to this view.

But when you get there, what next?
Jokes ignored, i guess that you should really decide for yourself (myself), what success is wanted.

What? You are aspiring to one goal at a time??
A bunch of short term goals leading to long term ones I find make for great motivation and makes the time pass well (to be of note and memorable)
You may do this to some extent with your sports already.

It may be a generation thing but self-sufficiency has been a priority for me, to let others decide your living conditions (like parents) could at times be an unacceptable state of affairs.
I had reasonably well-off parents so "sponging" off them would have been no hardship to them so that moral concern was not as much of an issue which is probably what cincydooley was pointing to.

I could see that it could be viewed as not being "grown-up" if you are capable and healthy to choose not to "stand on your own two feet".

I guess if your parents are happy to support your present lifestyle and you are happy there is no harm or foul.
The main flaw I see in this is at some point it may not be sustainable.

I would suggest looking after yourself, get all buff with your sports and find a nice sugar-mama! I did (mama, not get all buff...), but I do not need her marvelous income so I have some negotiation space.