My cousin got a GED. He’s about 38, and he works as a janitor at a school.
Why would you single out holding a high school diploma as the only quality that would impact his career path?
Not only that, but the tone seems to imply that being a janitor is undesirable. I would asky, why?
No, school is not necessary. I watched a video somewhere where the presenter said you should work to gather experiences, not things. So don’t worry about the money you make (or don’t make). Worry about what makes you happy, and gives you the feeling of fulfillment in life. But don’t think not going to school is the easy way out. Being a writer, speaker, tradesman or entrepreneur is tough work. You must be habitually and painfully persistent. Also remember to take pride in your hard work, for that is your goal in life: your work. Not what it brings you (materially). Though school is the easy road, doing what is right for you has the potential to be much more rewarding. Also, you don’t know what you want to do at 16. Not even at 20 in most cases. So explore the vast opportunities afforded you and if school is necessary, then go back with a focus in mind. Whatever you choose, good luck to you and always learn and grow from your endeavors. Never hold onto regrets or get stuck in the past. Godspeed.
Why does it matter whether the OP knows what he wants to do in life or what career he wants to choose? What if he wants to be what it is he wants to be by simply removing the felt uneasiness of others?
Maybe he’ll be an app developer for the next 5 years, then a farmer for the following 10 years, then a peddler of second-hand furniture for another 7 years, then a coffee shop owner for the following 12 years.
+1 Daniel. The OP doesn’t need to “settle down” or “plant roots”. He should do what makes him happy (removes the felt uneasiness). If he gets bored with something or finds no value in continuing, he should feel no shame in pursuing his latest interest. There’s no need to suffer because it “pays the bills”. I think that’s where a lot of people fail. They’re discouraged to explore the real world while in high school, then they’re thrown right into another system where they’re supposed to know what it is they need to “learn” in order to get the job they think they want. Then they get out and find out they hate what they’ve chosen but they’re stuck because it pays the bills of the things they’re told will make them happy (mortgage, multiple car payments, student loans, and stuff).
I agree with Daniel’s point with an asterisk - most men do eventually get the strong urge to “settle down and have a family.” Given that this is a highly predictable future state-of-affairs in life development (from the point-of-view of any young man), it only makes sense to prepare for it. As someone who insufficiently prepared and is being raked over the coals in the courts by a vicious ex-wife, I think the old-fashioned idea that a long period of serious preparation (building significant cash savings) is well-advised. To take it a step further, I think that in the modern world, no man in his right mind will let his wife know the entirety of his net worth. Forget the “trust” and “love” rubbish, if she starts to hate you at some point in the future for whatever reason (life is unpredictable, sorry), you need a sizeable cash reserve on hand from which to pay for your legal defense. The law is unbelievably lopsided.
Clayton -
My cousin got a GED. He’s about 38, and he works as a janitor at a school.
Get your diploma. Get at least some form of post high school education. If not college, trade school. If college, go to community college first and then the big school if you can.
Common now thats the epitome of high school logic. This is a perfect example of people who get degrees that either think they are better than people that do not have one or feel entitled to a 6 figure job and benefits just because they have a diploma. I spent 3 years studying mechanical engineering before I descided it was not right for me. Does this make me janator material? I dropped out started my own business and make more money than my college graduated friends. Do I believe in education? Yes. Do I believe in the college systems out there? No.
Education != schooling
Anyone that read for a new liberty or any other kind of work has come across this fact.
"Common now thats the epitome of high school logic. This is a perfect example of people who get degrees that either think they are better than people that do not have one or feel entitled to a 6 figure job and benefits just because they have a diploma. I spent 3 years studying mechanical engineering before I descided it was not right for me. Does this make me janator material? I dropped out started my own business and make more money than my college graduated friends. Do I believe in education? Yes. Do I believe in the college systems out there? No. "
Statistically, the more you are educated the more likely you are to have a higher paying job. There are exceptions but people should not plan on being exceptions. If they turn out to be such then an added bonus. This is my opinion at least.
My point is that he doesn’t have to stick to the same line of work for the remainder of his life. He might be able to make lots of money making Android apps for the next fews years; however, that doesn’t mean that he must develop Android apps forever because the amount of money that he makes could drop due to supply and demand and because he could make more money doing something else. Go for where the money is or will be.
Also, the point of making money is to be able to buy whatever he wants to make himself happy. That was he does in the pursuit of making money makes him happy is simply a bonus.
"My point is that he doesn’t have to stick to the same line of work for the remainder of his life. He might be able to make lots of money making Android apps for the next fews years; however, that doesn’t mean that he must develop Android apps forever because the amount of money that he makes could drop due to supply and demand and because he could make more money doing something else. Go for where the money is or will be.
Also, the point of making money is to be able to buy whatever he wants to make himself happy. That was he does in the pursuit of making money makes him happy is simply a bonus."
Oh I totally agree with that. I think the age of having one job the rest of your life is actually over. I do not think anyone can actually do that anymore unless they really try hard.
I don’t know what everybody is talking about now. I’ve decided to try for an online college degree… so calm down a bit.
“I don’t know what everybody is talking about now. I’ve decided to try for an online college degree… so calm down a bit.”
I don’t think that anyone is flying off the handle. You asked for advice and I think people presented their ideas. Anyways, it is good you are continuing your education. Good luck!
Education =/= degree.
But yes, I’m getting both. An online course I can tolerate at least.
The point of High school is not really to learn anything. Its just to stick it out till the end to show you can put up with bullshit enough to where you don’t just up and quit, because if you can’t finish the bullshit in school what is to say you wont just walk off the job site after spending most of the day surrounded by bullshit. Most people who get a GED are just as smart as people who finish high school, in fact some are smarter, but they still have a harder time getting a job especially when they are young and just starting out…High school is about learning to put up with bullshit. When you graduate you will have a degree in doing shit you don’t want to do, and that will be an important quality to your future employers. If its worth anything,I know where your coming from, I wanted to drop out too.
The true point of schooling is to get children used to working in factories. Doing monotonous things all the time at a schedule, with people same age, etc, etc.
Ive posted this quite a bit of times but i want more to look at it..
I want to note that the schools are not just the neglected, archaic dinosaurs of 18th-century Industrial Revolution models… it is true they are that but they are changing because the leaders of modern industry are forward-thinking - unfortunately for us. We are moving into a future where every form of economic activity is to be reduced to a “job”, a set of rote tasks requiring little more than hand-eye coordination and the capacity to follow a decision-making flowchart.
Our rulers still believe in communism, that is, in complete State ownership and central-planning of every aspect of society and the economy. When you and I look at the Information Revolution (computers, PCs, Internet, “gadget” technology, etc.) we see the possibilities for de-centralization, distributed decision-making and autonomous entrepreneurialism. But our overlords see quite the opposite… they see more opportunities for expanding the control-grid, regimenting daily life, central-planning, and so on.
They are, in fact, moving to “capture” and “tame” the Internet. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft - among others that I won’t mention - are part of this gang of technology-tamers. On the extreme end, you have the RIAA and MPAA playing the “heel”… they are the mean, old “property-rights” conservatives by comparison to the young, fresh, vibrant and “relevant” tech giants. But make no mistake, there is an iron fist behind the velvet glove. Whether this gambit will work in the long run has yet to be seen.
This taming over the tech universe is part of the larger war to centralize all economic and social power into a single, central point. The cell-phone and the Internet are having a regularizing effect on the entire globe and this regularization bodes ill for liberty through secession and slowing down or reverse the long process of political aggregation which has been underway.
We are being regularized into point-and-click robots. Every vocation is to consist of a limited set of manual tasks and a corresponding set of point-and-click routines on a computer or mobile device in order to facilitate central tracking and control. The computer can be seen as the ultimate engine of centralized command and control every bit as much as it can be seen as an engine of decentralization.
It is the height of folly to underestimate the people who have been dominating the pinnacles of world power as far back as memory goes. They have not stayed on top of the pile by refusing to change. They’ve always stayed ahead of the curve and they’re continuing to do so* today.
Clayton -
I’ll give the back-story for this link if someone asks
What’s the back story?
Dropbox - like several other “cloud storage” solutions, including the much-vaunted Google Drive - is a “plaintext” cloud storage solution. This is insanity if you plant to store any data more sensitive than your favorite Beatles MP3s. How can anyone just stick their credit card numbers, compromising photos, private political views, and so on, out there in the wild, with nothing but “username and password” protection?? The link above illustrates the obvious problem with username/password protection. And that’s assuming you trust Dropbox and Google to keep your data safe from their own employees or to refuse to hand it over to the prying eyes of the USG (cf post-911 telecom cooperation with NSA Internet-backbone wiretapping…)
To my knowledge, there isn’t a single open-source, client-side encrypted cloud storage solution in existence. Even Spideroak - which boasts of being the only truly secure cloud storage - is closed-source! Closed source is simply not appropriate for this kind of software where there is so much to gain from a hidden back-door. In 2012, the best you can do is to use TrueCrypt (yay!) in combination with one of these half-ass cloud storage solutions to protect your data before their client can get their grubby hands on it and ship it off - in the clear - to their “secure” servers which might as well be the loving arms of the NSA, for all anybody knows.
Clayton -
Forgot the punchline: And we’re supposed to believe that this bizarre state of affairs where you have to hitch together at least two pieces of software (TrueCrypt + cloud client software) in order to provide the most obvious form of cloud storage (open-source, client-side encrypted) has arisen through “market failure”??? Just search “dropbox encryption” and see how many tutorials there are on how to actually secure your files before sending them off to the prying eyes of Dropbox’s servers. All those tutorials and yet no one has managed to cobble together a solution? I don’t know how, exactly, they do it but I see this as evidence of tampering in the market. Either they suppress startups that challenge their envisioned model, or they subsidize startups that are in line with their vision, or some combination of both. In any case, I don’t think it’s an accident.
Clayton -
My friends always ask me; what is the safest place to talk on the internet?
THey ask me cuz they know i know a bit about technology and what i tell them:
No such thing- Have you openedyour eyes and realize what the internet is, anyone can view, anyone can post, anyone can view a page source, anyone can transmit data, interconnected between millions of computer networks?
Pen and paper ( no mail ).
Or your mouth.