The Next Stage of Life

Hi. I'm posting this here as a new thread to come to when I need advice or to share what's going on for me.

There are just about 2 months left of the year. It's 2 months exactly until Christmas Eve.

Last Christmas Eve I said to the two influential people in my life - My parents - that I want things to be different in a year's time. To be better. To be in a better place mentally, physically and emotionally.

Looking back at the past 11 months since that Christmas Eve day I am a bit lost as to what the answer is as to whether or not I have achieved what I set out to do.

There were challenges yes - but I don't know if these were insurmountable or not.

I got a new job (it was a contracted position until this week in fact). I started a new course. Both of these were disapointments. The job was offered to me over the phone and I was in a state of total dismay and needed a new job. I had applied to some things and got interviews but to no avail. Eventually this was offered to me on the spot. Bare in mind that I had a couple of experiences with some recruitment companies that contacted me and they turned out to be quite woeful. I took this job offered to me without any hesitation because it was a chance for me to do 2 things - obtain more experience at a higher payrate and to also leave the hell hole of my old workplace. I was treated like dirt in that place and I needed to leave. Fortunately I had gotten good references from people there. Still do. But this new job was good for exactly 1 month before COVID lockdown kicked in and made so much of the work disappear. It was then just boring sitting about on my work pc and waiting for instructions from a manager who was new to it all as well. I was also the subject of off the cuff remarks about my work efforts and was never properly thanked for the effort I showed - reminded me of my old workplace actually. I have for the past 2 months said that I could not wait until this job was done. I know it means I'll be unemployed but I really did/do not care because it was becoming dull and not stimulating enough.

the degree/course I signed up to was free thank god. If I was to pay for this then I would be screaming my head off. It's been useless and I have learned very little. Due to the university changing their semester structure, they were able to cram more content into impossible timeframes to learn it in and then just gave out marks really easy. I know next to nothing about what it is I should have studied but I simply had no time to learn it all and had no time to process it - the first semester was actually good because I learned stuff after all. Second Semester not so. All beacuse the uni are a bunch of cheap scam artists.

Two major things that should otherwise have been positive influences on me this year - turned out not to be. I guess at some level I know what people felt like last year when covid hit. But then again, this year we have been hit even harder by it. Maybe this was the fate of the universe. I don't know what to make of 2021.

I know I still have 2 months left of this year but yesterday it occured to me that I am split. Half of me thinks "thank god I get time to chill out and not have to go to stupid work with a job that bores me and makes me tired and depressed". I would rather just spend time on applying to things and learning more about IT. But then the other half of me says "don't be so stupid, you MUST have A JOB at least to give you something to do or else you are wasting time". NONE of me says "give yourself the rest of the year off to figure out more study and to find a job that you don't hate". Well I was annoyed by this realisation because I learned that I don't seem to be good to myself - I'm either slacking off entirely or I'm being cruel and unusually demanding of myself.

I've been balancing a lot this year and yet it hasn't really given my much. I guess I just feel empty and don't care anymore.

Yesterday and today I had two meetup groups to attend but I decided against going to either - because I hate myself and my situation and I'm bored of pretending things are getting better. It would be too fake for me to sit there and say "hey I'm doing this with my life and things are going well" or whatever. The whole interaction would be fake and I'd just get annoyed. Also too, lockdown is over and yet I feel I haven't seen friends. I don't even know how many friends I have left and some are on the spectrum - making things harder to organise. Some are anti-vax and some are just moving on with their lives (which is what I want to do).

Life is hard these days forumites and I feel both exhausted and depressed. Like I just don't care anymore.

Seeing people meet with success around me has made me even more depressed. I don't want to talk to my friend in the USA because he was just successful with a new job he wanted. I have been stuck in this same process of finding myself and finding a purpose ever since I came back from my stupid trip in 2018.

yeah anyway...