An employment counsellor through my local county has suggested that I switch careers to work as an auto mechanic. (and attend a school that operates from 7:30 AM to 3:30PM) about 30 miles away…
Chain of cause and effect is: Tax, and employment laws making imported foreign works cheaper making IT jobs nearly unobtainable to most natural Americans, so anyone who’s not in the top 20% in competitiveness has no chance whatsoever. Having fallen off the course there isn’t any chance whatsoever to get back on. So therefore I’m faced with having to be a grease monkey professionally… I mean I, pretending I had any money, would love to do more tinkering as a hobby but =\
Sure, I’ll be making a living, in theory, but whatever happened to being able to chose careers? How do I get involved in the future when I’m spending all my time extracting rusted bolts? =(
Well, you’ve chosen your career, but for some reason your first choice didn’t turn out as you expected it would. There will be an increasing number of people with such fates, especially as more and more jobs are automated, outsourced, and rationalized away. That’s definitely tough. I wish there was an easy solution to that problem. You could choose to consider your day job to be a separate part of your life, and decide to do all the important stuff in your spare time. That’s certainly hard, but with the right level of knowledge and determination, it will eventually become possible. I’m not claiming that I have sufficient levels for that, but I am confident that I am able to make progress towards that direction.
You can get involved with the future as consumer and producer in the time you aren’t doing any paid work. Consumers hold a lot of power to influence the future. At least on the large scale. If that’s not enough, choose one thing you want to do in your life and work on it whenever you can. If you know what that is, then great. You would be in a much better position than I am. I have too many interests and potential to be monomaniacal about any particular thing. At least for now. My highest hope is to become a popular and influential writer. Well, I still have a very long way ahead of me.
Why the “but”? Do you really want to make your life miserable by finding out reasons why your own life is not perfect? Do you think that is a good strategy for reaching your goals?