So here i am, fulfilling my promise to come back to finish the three parter about my miserable life, a cautionary story. In this part.... well, the lessons i've learnt and the cautions i want to convey to all young people out there.
Education
For the love of all that is good, take every opertunity that is available to you for getting educated. I know, school suck, school's boring and bla bla bla... take it from me, by the time you realize how much of a difference an education for which you have the certificates, diplomas or degrees make in the course of your life the opertunities for getting said education will have reduced significantly.
By the time you're in your 20's your chances for starting an education are not even 5% of what they were when you were 13, 14 or 15! So if you can, get as much of those diplomas or certifications as you can and if you are lucky enough to be able to go to college or university: Realize you are part of the lucky few, AND DO IT!
For those who are working a job right now, and have the opertunity to get on the job training, or have company sponsored education opertunities: TAKE THEM! You can NEVER go wrong with getting more educated, trained, schooled or whatever!
Take the chances you get when you get them. Don't think you have time to do things later!
If opertunity comes across your path, take it. Don't think there will be time enough later to do things. Before you know it you will be looking back on your life thinking about all the things you could have done but didn't and realize that you will never have the opertunity for those things again!
I could have taken jobs that would have taken me abroad, to scotland or south africa. I didn't take the opertunities because i was young, having fun and thought i'd have lots of time and opertunity later in my life to do something like that. Well, i was wrong.
Having fun is important. But don't let it be the only thing you do.
I had lots of fun in my life. In fact it was the only thing in my life i lived for. Be it gaming, coding, hacking, cracking, house parties, raves, Lan-events.... whatever it was at that time i was in to it, it was the sole purpose i lived for. The jobs i had, the work i did, everything was for the purpose of being able to have fun. Not just to have fun, but have fun NOW, screw later.
This worked fine for a while but in the end it made me not take education opertunities, not take job opertunities and not be ambitious to grow and build a future.
So when my luck ran out, and aversity came across my path, i had nothing. I had to try and survive, to fulfill my responsibilities and overcome the adversity with NOTHING but whatever i could manage to get at that moment. No reserves, nothing to fall back on and nothing to use as a foundation to rebuild my career, life and future. Learn from that!
Have fun, sure, but think about your future too! Be ambitious! Don't assume that what is sufficient for you now will be so in the future! The qualifications i had with which i went through my career now are not sufficient to get me the same jobs i had ten years ago. Because now i am not a young professional like i was back then. Now i am a middle aged former professional, with the qualifications for a young professional.
You know what that translates into?
Unemployed!
So what am i planning to do about it?
After being depressed and pissed and having self-pitied for a couple of weeks after my trip down memory lane with you in the last 2 parts of this series i have ofcourse given much thought on my life right now and also about the future.
I simply asked myself: "How long do i expect to live?" and "Do i want to spend that time in the same way i am living now?"
Answering the first question, at age 47 (next month), i realized that i probably have 2 or more decades left to go at the most. Twenty years. Which is a hell of a long time when you're as miserable as i am right now. Do i want to spend 20 years being miserable?
Heck no!!
So what will i do to make sure the next 20 years aren't as miserable as the past 10? First of all i will be trying to get help in getting a job from the government. They have programs and projects that might be able to help me either by getting re-educated or by subsidising companies for hiring people like me with "A hole in the Curriculum Vitae" which i haven't been actively persuing for years now out of dissapointment.
I'll also be starting to follow online courses and training that prepare me for taking certification exams, and selecting courses which offer free or very affordable certification exams and certificates. I am going to focus on security focussed courses and certifications, as that seems to be the fastest growing demand in the IT sector at the moment and in the future.
I shall also be focussing on developing my writing skills and trying to increase the reach of my writing, social media and persue opertunities to at least add to my income through writing and maybe through monotizing that increased reach on social media.
I will continue to work with my debthelp councilor to get my debt cleared and return to a financial state in which i will be able to sustain a debtless level, and grow financially, by myself without outside assistance. The journey will be long, up to ten years at today's pace, but i will do everything i can to shorten it. Getting a paying job will be another step in the right direction.
To summarize my future plans in a sentence:
I want to be able to show my son that his father is a contributing member of society, working full time and paying taxes, instead of an unemployed debtridden failure that society needs to support to stay alive.
And i will achieve that goal before he turns 18! (which gives me 6,5 years to do it)
Thanks for your time and interest. I hope that someone, somewhere, sometime will benefit in some way some how from these 3 articles. If there is only one person who benefits from them, it will have been worth it.
Stay healthy and stay safe!
AnonSunamun.
