Ask HN: Those who were broke and lost in life in 20s. How'd you find way again?

Well you are lost because you are associating yourself with the environment and circumstances.

You are basically a pilot of a mecha.

Thoughts are basically your ai remembering things with a lot of hallucinations.

We are sent down to this planet to explore and mine for resources.

Just focus on exploring, and the data that you collect will automatically be synced up to the super intelligence.

That is your core job. You do not need to make anything out of your life.

First step is to forgive yourself. You might feel a lot of shame and blame yourself for being in this situation and that shame is counter productive. So first thing you do is wipe the slate clean emotionally and mentally. Without this step, you will keep getting off track. Accept the situation you're in mentally, but know that hard work can get you out of most situations.

Next step is set goals and do whatever it takes to meet those goals, no matter how small they are. The more goals you accomplish, the more you'll realize you can do it. Then set larger and larger goals, but make sure they're going in the right direction. Also understand that all you can do is put in the effort, and the outcome is out of your control. Sometimes the outcomes are great, sometimes the outcomes are not, but don't kick yourself over the outcomes as long as you put in the effort.

For me, it was in my early 30s. I had a shitty job, I went through a divorce, I was so fat I couldn't walk up stairs without losing my breath. I thought that being in my 30s there's no way I could recover by finding a girlfriend/wife because all of the good ones were taken. I spent about one month feeling sorry for myself, playing video games all day and then I decided that was it. I found a new job, I lost weight, I went to school and changed the trajectory of my life. I accepted that I was at fault for my part in the divorce, I said I would be a better person and forgave myself and moved on. I left the past in the past, and just looked forward to the future. Over the next ~20 years, I got better jobs, got married, had kids, etc.

One step at a time, and if you put in an honest effort, then learn to celebrate each win no matter how small, and move forward. You can do it!

The biggest advice I could give is "there are no short cuts" and even if there are it takes way too long to find them.

if you want more money work on getting a marketable skill. preferably something you don't mind doing.

"life's a marathon not a sprint" so work at getting better at the skill everyday. It's not going to happen overnight but so what. it's not a competition.

I was at a party, a lot of drinking was going on, and my best friend told me he had become a christian. I was shocked and angry, like I was about to lose my best friend. As I was bunkering down for the night on someone's sofa I found myself saying, "Jesus, if you are out there, will you come into my life?" My friend and I started going to church and have been now for 35 years. Neither of us cane from families who did church. I was pretty beaten up emotionally by family life. Looking back what changed my life was faith in God and being part of a community, the church. It's where I met my wife and my two children are now adults. I could tell you about a career in IT and my saas business but life is about relationships and having a hope in something beyond yourself.

I had a rough patch for a number of years. What helped me was reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (translated by Gregory Hays). I don't think it's for everyone, but I read it at the right time in my life so it hit just right.

It gave me a different way of looking at things. I guess in a way, I started to see myself almost in a third person.. I got my stuff together and made big changes.

This is life, regardless of age, it just feels more pronounced in your 20s. The exceptions are not the rule. There is no arc to life. It’s ok to be lost. Debt is destructive, so try minimise it if you can. Not everyone can. No one has anything figured out, some people are circumstantially lucky and many of those accredit their success to a misguided but materially reinforced superiority complex. Try to find a source of happiness that doesn’t rely on money or someone else. If you can do that, the “way” doesn’t matter. You’re ok, keep going.

Quite different from the other posts, I got a stable job I didn’t totally hate.

Did it pay well, no.

But it got me in a stable cadence, where I could take my time with things, slowly being able to build up other things.

Second, therapy. Not for everyone but helped me immensely.

My advice is aimed at previous me, so take it with a grain of salt.

I was not lost in my 20's. I am now lost in my 40's though, and I'm not looking to get back on the path.

Travel if you can. Find a job that takes you somewhere you wouldn't normally go. Life is about experiences, be open to them and get out of your bubble as much as you can stand.

Don't take it too seriously. Laugh and enjoy life as much as possible. Fake the enjoyment till it becomes real if you have to.

Stay lost, see where you end up.

You start again from scratch. If you're in debt, you can either work your way out of it or convert assets to pay it away. Once you get back to no-debt, you start to invest again in building up your nest-egg for further expansion.

I was a bit older, around 40 in my case. It was late 1980s, I had a house with a huge mortgage, and had a huge overdraft at the bank. In today's terms, I had something like debts of half a million or even more. And getting deeper and deeper into the red with every week that passed.

So I made the decision that I would sell our house, pay off as much of the debts as possible, and start again. Renting instead of owning a house. That was too much for my first wife. She couldn't stand the drop in prestige. Mind you, she hadn't felt like helping out by getting a job to make our task easier along the way.

Within 12 months, I was living a lot better with no money worries and with another partner who is now my second wife and we have been happy together for 35 years. We invested in rental properties and now own debt-free six houses including our own 3-bedroom top-storey apartment.

1. Most people in this situation, including myself, suffer from some slight mental illness. This tends to get better, ON IT’S OWN, with time. 2. You are unaware of how young you are, and how much time and opportunity there is. All the “grind it out” advice below is correct. Be productive and work your way up. You are a late bloomer. 3. You can learn something useful from almost experience and job. Be sure to graduate to something new at the proper time. 4. Your reverses, bad choices, bad experiences of your youth will become increasingly irrelevant, EVEN IF THE MEMORIES REMAIN VIVID. 5. While I do not want to emphasize competition, I was able to surpass people who were much more successful than me professionally in other areas, like investing. I chalk this up to the non-coddling effects of having to solve real life problems without a secure professional cocoon like tenure or a government pension. Take heed. Difficulties provide compensatory skills to those who work earnestly.

I was down bad and started throwing ideas at startup accelerators until I got money to work on one. Motivation to spend all of my time working on ideas came from anxiety about my future. I know Im capable of building something cool and useful, my biggest fear is never giving it my all, then looking back and feeling like I wasted a good hand in life.

When things are dire, or you're worried about them becoming dire, actively and purposefully do not lose hope.

Do some exposure therapy. Think about the worst case reasonably likely scenario, then the next one assuming the first happens, then the next, and so on until you can't think of any more.

Get some options. Think of all of the possibilities you have for moving forward. Yes, the practical ones that are actionable, but also the impractical ones that would make you happy. That helps you to learn a bit about yourself. It also helps you to problem solve your situation without getting locked into a local maximum.

Are you tired? Burned out? In a rut? Want to travel? Want community? There are specific solutions for specific problems. Think on it to understand what specifically you need and how you might get it before a flimflam man convinces you to sell cutco to raise money for their megacult.

And get help if you can. Yes, professional help. But also support from family or friends.

I've been more or less broke for most of my adult life. It's not due to being lost, it's just due to getting low paying contracts while trying to bootstrap startups.

The worst thing is that people assume I am incompetent or a drug addict or "lost" or something when they find out my financial circumstances.

I imagine life like a chain sometimes. With many strong links representing a happy and healthy life. When you have multiple broken links though, you tend to feel lost and broken. Fixing one broken link doesn't do anything, they all need to be fixed (at least somewhat) before you can notice real progress.

But, people tend to have an idea of what needs fixing. The issue is motivation tends to fall off because you don't see progress without a lot of change, and we tend not to see our own progress as clearly as others.

Make relationships you can count on. Try to make every day a non-zero day. Be kind to yourself, if you can't be the parent you needed for yourself, try to be the friend you needed.

Find a therapist. Like most things, having a professional's help will speed things up immeasurably.

Best of luck, it may be the hardest thing you do, but it's worth it.

YMMV but I found a passion in programming, self-learning led to a career, and life sorted itself out from there. Also, travel frequently if you have the means to.

I just kept going, did what I needed to do, stopped doing unnecessary shit and hit the pavement running. I never had enough self consciousness to not believe in myself.

It took a while. Day to day I worked as hard as I could then stopped after work hours and did little on the weekends (though I don't know how that would work these days, I was cold calling people).

I ate as cheap and healthy as I could and exercised as much as I could, lots of walks.

This was back in the early 2000's so the internet was shit and I couldn't lose myself there. These days I'd advise 0.00 leisure internet. No news, no forums, no social media. No fucking around.

This is an existential moment, very thin margins, high speed, no guard rails, this is adult shit.

This question is for me!

In my late 20s I started having many weird symptoms and essentially was unable to continue my physical job. I was on food stamps.

I always thought I wasn’t very smart, but I just gave up too easily. Without any other options education was my only option. I graduated with high honors with a CS degree.

Met a VP in school he offered me an internship and I have been working for him for a few years now.

I ended up finding that programming is really my passion.

I’m planning to go back for my masters as my workload is pretty low.

When I think back I remember how I was losing hope. I grew up poor so I had no parents to really fall back on. I’m glad I pushed through. Now, I’m on vacation enjoying the sun.

I've been through pretty tough times before and by several strokes of luck + hard work I'm kinda getting back to the path I want to follow in life. The below is what I would tell my teenage/early 20s self:

- Realize that some events are outside your control. If you were screwed over or unlucky in any way you need to move on from whatever happened and focus on what you can change

- Consistency is key. Just show up everyday and work towards your goal, over time you will see some positive results.

- Desire is suffering, if you're chasing a house, car or lifestyle realize that when you get it you'll just want something better. Try to be happy with what you have first.

- Positive reframing, your situation may not be that bad. It probably could've been alot worse right? Maybe your situation will force you to take action and be a better person

- Don't compare yourself to others, no one had the exact same path in life

- Success = working hard and being ready to take advantage when luck strikes

- Workout atleast 3 times a week, even if it's doing a home routine without any equipment

- Just be nice to people you work with, your network is your networth

In my mid 20s I looked around myself and realized I was living in a city that I didn't really like, with a primary friend group that often left me out of group plans, no dating life, and a job that I didn't really enjoy in a career I was very quickly starting to think wasn't right for me.

So I basically just left it all behind. I moved to a new city. I stopped using Facebook, which effectively cut me off from that old friend group. I was unemployed for a few months but eventually realized that the career was fine, I just needed a more stimulating job. So I kept going with that, found a new job in the industry.

It was scary moving to a new province and new city with no job, no friends, no family or safety net. I struggled to establish a new life here, but I did it.

So I don't know what your circumstances are but look at your surroundings and figure out if you need to hit the reset button. You're allowed.

Currently finding my own path and one bit of advice that I thought was incredibly helpful is from Dr. Stutz.

The advice is a bit new-age-y, but I think it rings true nevertheless. It’s about working on your “life force”[0], which can be represented as a pyramid with three sections: body, people, self.

Start moving your body, getting good sleep, eating well. Then focus on your connections with others, developing friendships, relationships. Leaning on others and letting them lean on you. And then you have self development: working on skills, learning, experiencing things.

The idea is that by focusing on developing and growing your “life force” it’ll help figure out how to move forward.

[0] https://www.netflix.com/tudum/videos/life-force-aspects-of-r...

In my mid 20s, I was about $100K in debt, failed in the career that I thought I'd have after undergrad, compounded my problem by running to a grad school program because I thought it would give me a new chance at money post program and make my family proud. In my late 20s I was about $200K in debt, in a bad marriage, still unsure of what I wanted to do in my career. Fast forward to today (early 40s). I make more money than I ever imagined I could, I have a wonderful (2nd) marriage, I'm out of debt, life is good.

Learnings that led me here (in no particular order):

* don't think about what others think of you, think about what you want and what makes you happy. i know that I can't force myself to work hard on something i'm not interested in, so this was very important for me to figure out

* read "7 habits of highly effective people" - there's timeless advice there

* read "non-violent communication" - changed the way that i communicate and made my second marriage much healthier than the first, learning how to communicate in different contexts will help in your career as well

* learn to forgive, especially yourself

* accept responsibility- you're responsible for your life, no one else

* your 20s are for taking risk and figuring out what you're interested in, don't be afraid of risk, learning how to take risks and becoming comfortable with risk will help you in the long run

* luck is certainly a big factor for success, but you can set yourself up to create luck or take advantage of luck by cultivating your network, reducing debt, increasing your skills

* this was advice given to me by someone I respect- "don't chase a network or career, be interesting and add value, the rest will take care of itself." If you're interesting (had interesting experiences, have interesting thoughts and are able to communicate those things) people will be drawn to you, if you add value people will want to work with you and you'll capture some of that value back.

* Edit, one more: you can train your mind like you train your body. If identify something that's holding you back, you can change. Concrete example- in my 20s I was one of those people at parties that sits in the corner and doesn't talk to anyone because they dont know many people there. I decided that was holding me back, but I couldn't all of a sudden become "social" (just like when you first start training your body, you're not going to squat 200lbs), so I devised little exercises for myself to make me more comfortable talking to people I don't know- complementing people on their shoes while in line at a coffee shop ("those are cool shoes!"). Then when that becomes natural, asking follow up questions- "where did you get them?" and building from there.

I spent a large portion of my late 20s/early 30s in a pretty bad state, but found my way out in my late 30s. The biggest difference was to try to only deal with one dumpster fire in my life at a time, if possible. I was dealing with several, and wasn't able to handle any of them adequately. Unstable relationship, unstable health, unstable employment/money; any of those I could manage individually. Taking that seriously may mean choosing lower pay/more stable employment, ending a _possibly_ salvageable relationship, etc. None of those are easy, but in retrospect it would've been easier than trying to manage all of them simultaneously, badly.

I was in massive student debt from a failed attempt at an art degree. I signed up for online CS courses which allowed me to apply for internships. After a lucky break I got one in California. From there I dropped out again and started working at amazon, and then apple. It’s been about 10 years and I’m doing pretty well. I can’t recommend this path though. Pretty sure it was just a combination of luck and being good at interviews.

I should mention that the student loans weren’t all bad. I didn’t end up doing art, but I was able to get out of my small Midwestern town and meet some great people.

Read The Defining Decade

https://megjay.com/the-defining-decade/

I did a co-op as a part of a 2 year program, stayed on as hire afterward. The job gave me an opportunity to have stability and grow my confidence over time.

Financially, my parents helped me out. I fucked up pretty badly. I was never really broke but I didn't get a diploma and was too depressed to get a job.

Mentally, I never walked out. It was a symptom of a much deeper problem that still haunts me today.

Be proud. You’re broke, you’re alive, you took risks, you lost. Something interesting must have happened. Change, growth, trauma - character.

A little hunger doesn’t hurt when you’re in your 20’s. What helped me specifically was finding a community.

sorry to hear that just don't go to graduate school and everything will be fine

Think of where you want to be in your 30's. Start from there and plan every step backwards. Then do the hardest part, actually follow through.

Optimize your physical health however necessary, which will springboard you into the next step: optimize your mental health, however necessary.

First off, whatever way you think you have in your 20s is wrong and misguided. You need small wins to gain confindence. It's almost September, think of a reasonable goal you can accomplish by the end of the year. Start to think of a harder goal your can accomplish by the end of 2024. If it's money, then finding religion about personal finances in your 20's will set you up better than most in your later years.

"Kiiind of making a lot of assumptions right now..."

This too shall pass.

Not necessarily recommending this, but I had kids.

being determined not to end up poor like my dad and learning c and windows programming.

Become friends with your family.

I read "Self Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The New Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz, and "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. These three are at the front of my mind. Especially Emerson. "Self-Reliance" was pivotal.

I listened to "The Power of Now" audiobook by Eckhart Tolle. This coupled with The New Psycho-Cybernetics helped me understand "where" my thoughts were coming from and how to handle them. I was in a lot of pain from sports injuries, and Eckhart Tolle's concept of the "Pain-body" manifesting itself in my thoughts and actions helped me kill self-destructive behavior at the source. A decade+ later, I would also recommend C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" because I rather enjoy the idea that "demons" are competing for my energy, and I am beating them.

I watched plenty of YouTube content from positive male role-models, such as Elliott Hulse (his content has radically changed in the last decade, but in the early days it was very wholesome).

I worked on my body.

I stopped doing drugs.

I took care of my diet/nutrition.

I improved my appearance (more consistent grooming, better-fitting clothes... nothing radical).

I finished my undergraduate degree.

I decided that I had a duty towards something greater than myself. Even if it felt like the "message" coming from society at large was "aimed" at me, I determined that it would be better to work on myself and hone my skills in order to be a positive force in the world and role-model to those around me.

I sacrificed time that I would have otherwise spent consuming media and replaced it with more constructive endeavors (learning basic software engineering skills). This helped me find gainful employment to pay my bills, and give me health insurance.

My parents were supportive in some ways, and clueless or lazy in others.

My friends were very supportive. One of them grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook some sense into me. Literally. He said he was done with my excuses. This made a massive impact.

My girlfriend(s) were not supportive. I knew I needed to improve myself, and that was probably unattractive. I can't blame them.

The most important person in the equation was myself. I learned to stop letting other people control my emotions or affect my mindset.

tl:dr; Grab a copy of Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson and READ IT. Let it sink in. Then put it into practice.