| A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes: Ok so I started college this semester, 3 hours away from my hometown. I've transfered schools twice already and I'm 24. I still depend on my parents and I hate it. I love my mother but at 24, been my third attempt in college, I feel guilty and like a failure. I'm pretty much a spoiled brat, and that's embarrasing at 24. I just ask for money, and she'll give it to me. Which it isn't fair. I want to go back to my old college, in my hometown, because it's a better school, and because paying my way trough college in the city i currently live in, would be way more expensive, because it's a big city. But most of all, I really don't want to go back only to be living with my family again. Mostly is because i feel like I'm a burden to my mother and I'm really tired to have to explain my every move to her. I'm freaking 24 years old and I have to make excuses to spend the night at my boyfriend's house!" it's starting to get to me! I know, her roof, her rules, but I'm a grown up and I want to show her that I am. and most of all, I want to probe myself that I am a grown up. I know I need to get a job and start being independent, but i find it really hard, since I've never had a lasting job, mostly because I totally suck in social situations, like been a waiter or anything of the sort. I know this isn't a relationship question and that the short answer to my troubles is to grow a pair, get a job and get the hell out of my mother's house. I don't need the criticism. I just want to know if anyone has been trough something similar, and how do I handle all of this?? you know, work and college, specially since all my life I've been dependent on my family and as much as I love them, I dont' want to keep being a burden to them.
View related questions:
money Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, YouWish  +, writes (28 May 2013):
 The feeling you have of frustration is a GOOD feeling! You already know that to prove you're independent, you have to BE independent. You're starting school? You should also get a job! Maybe go to school away from home.
If you REALLY want to start gaining your parents' respect, then don't ask for another penny from them. It's hard to want them to see you as independent when you're asking for money from them, because that's what DEPENDENTS do. Independent people would, instead of asking for something from your parents, would start doing things FOR them.
As for your college, stop focusing on the schools themselves and focus on the reason why you're going to college in the first place, and that's to get a degree so you can start your life.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (28 May 2013): OP you know the solution here and you just have to do it.
You know you just need your independence now it's as simple as that.
You need to leave college OP, you're simply not in the stage of life where you will see it through. Like me at your age you're fickle and change your mind as often as the wind blows. When I was your age OP, everything seemed better than what I was currently doing so I just kept moving around, changing what I was doing. but I was constantly working, earning my own money and living independently. I loved living that life too OP. I never felt bad because I didn't do what others did, go to uni after school, get a degree and start my lifelong career. I just wasn't in that place in my life and I dropped out of college at 18. Then spent a year working before I travelled Europe for three years, working and having the time of my life. It finally clicked when I was 27 where I wanted to go so I went back to college and am now a teacher. The way I see it OP, most people think they have to join the rat race straight out of school, straight into a career and work their entire lives before finally getting their freedom when they're too old to enjoy it fully and just want to sit around all day.
I had ten years of that freedom during my youth, being my own man. Doing crazy wonderful things. Smoking weed with some Algerian's in the roughest neighbourhood in Marseilles while they showed me how many guns they had, communicating only through gestures because they spoke no English and I spoke no French. Camping on a Bavarian mountain with a group of Australian backpackers and spending a whole week living off of fish and berries we caught and found. The list goes on.
You're cracking up now because you're technically still living like a child, you still haven't gained your freedom from your mothers apron strings and you're no nearer to finishing college either and keep changing your mind.
You see no end in sight to this either when there's so much in the world you want to see and do, yet for the last 6 years of your adult life you've still been reliant on your mother and trapped in a cycle of doing something only to discover you'd rather do something else.
OP you need to tap into this fickle side and use it to just go live your life. The best part of being so indecisive is that you get itchy feet, you can't stay in one place very long so you travel around, do different jobs, meet different people and experience different things.
OP I used to have severe shyness about social situations but it goes and it's nowhere near as important and freeing yourself.
You just need to go get any job that will hire you. Go work in a hotel as a room cleaner, go work on an assembly line in a factory, go pick fruit or veg on a farm. Go work, eanr enough to live and enjoy life and really give some serious thought to saving up a couple of thousand bucks, packing a bag, getting in your car and just travel. See where fate takes you, see where you can get work and spend time seeing your own country or a whole continent.
OP just take the first step, make that decision and stick to it.
The best way to pay back your parents for all their hard work in supporting you and giving you the best chance in life is to go have the best life ever and enjoy it while you're still young enough to appreciate how amazing the world is.
...............................
|
