There will always be someone who is beating you in a metric (buying houses, having kids, promotions, pay, relationships, etc…) fixating on it will drive you mad.

Instead you should compare your current status against where you were and appreciate how you are moving forward

As for age

During university my best mate was 27 who dropped out of his final year, grabbed a random job, then went to college to get a BTEC so they could start the degree.

It was similar in my graduate intake, we had a 26 year old who had been a brickie for 5 years before getting a comp sci degree.

The first person I line managed was a junior 15 years older than me, who had a completely different career stream. They had the house, kids, had managed big teams, etc… honestly I learnt tons from them.

I just want to add some context as a person that’s going grey.

You are still incredibly young in your 20s. There’s still so much time left for you.

It’s the ideal time to drop out. Think things over and find some purpose or direction.

Or not.

So much is made about knowing your course in life, when often learning to drift the right way can be far more enjoyable.

So yeah, not exactly a call to hedonism, but try to find what you enjoy and where your ambition lies then make positive steps to get there.

I had everything figured out at 21. Graduating soon with good grades from an engineering degree, job already lined up, eager to start the next chapter of my life.

Unfortunately a couple of years later I absolutely hated my job, quit, broke up with my girlfriend, moved back in with my parents and basically started again from scratch.

Life is not a linear progression like driving from one place to another. It’s ok to take your time, explore, figure yourself out and keep trying.

I’m 29 and work with people in their 40’s and up. None of them have their shit together.

The idea that you must have a fully set career and planned life in your 20s is a conspiracy and a scam made to make you feel less-than and worse.

Beat em. Live life at the pace it comes to ya. Don’t think about where you should be. There is no should. Society is a game of dress up and everyone is a nervous ape that just wants be to loved.

I didn’t stress. I avoided stress. When my classes got too stressful I stopped going. When paying for school got too stressful I dropped out. When working my shitty computer tech job got too stressful I went down to part-time and started falling behind on rent. When I lost the apartment, telling my family was too stressful so I just became homeless for a while.

That was the crisis. That was the lowest point.

Maybe tolerating just a little more stress would have been good for me.

Coming from a person having a quarter-life crisis being just a baw hair from their 30s.

1. You are still extremely young but don’t fixate on this. Telling yourself “I’m still young and have plenty of time to do X or fix the Y” means eventually you will be too old for those things. Unless you will fall ill or there will be some age restricted obstacles, it’s not true. You can learn new skills in your 20s as well as your 40s if you are determined enough. Shifting your career? No bother, I know heaps of people that did just that in their uni days as well as ones that are long into their existing career.

2. Don’t worry about this. If you fell behind the pack with your studies, means it wasn’t for you. Whether it was the nature of your course, or maybe a uni in general. Going to university is not for everybody, just like doing manual labour is not for everybody. Use this opportunity to ask yourself a question, WHY did you drop out. Is it because you were too lazy? If you had true passion for it, you would find motivation to do it.

3. No shame in that. I know people that are in their 30s and live with their parents to save money for their first home. Use this opportunity to enjoy your life without certain worries. The time to pay taxes, rent and for your food will come and you will look back fondly on this period of your life :) It would still be a good idea to chip in for utilities and food to your parents if you have means to do so. Will probably make you feel better about living there.

4. Good. Do mistakes. You learn more from your mistakes than from the things you did right. But the important thing is to analyze WHY you made those mistakes.

5. Maybe check if there is a career advisor near you/on your campus? They offer free advise based on what interests you. Ask yourself what are things in your life that you are passionate about or what kind of stuff do you enjoy doing. Remember, if you are passionate about something, there is a way to make it into your career. There is a reason why some people that are truly passionate about video games, they go into streaming career, and they are very successful. Me for example, I love playing video games, but I don’t see myself doing for a full on career, because I want to keep it as my private hobby, and I lack certain traits to become a successful streamer (English is not my first language, I’m self conscious and I lack certain charisma).

6. Do it. Only by trying you will learn anything about yourself. Hypothesising will only get you this far.

That’s my advice :)

I’m approaching 40 this year. Around 20, I missed an important uni deadline, and meant the degree I had planned would cost me an extra year I couldn’t afford (like literally couldn’t afford the tuition). Managed to finish, but with a degree no one would recommend. Was absolutely panicked.

Ultimately, ended up very successful in a job in a country on the other side of the world. Met the woman who is now my wife of 13 years, had some amazing adventures, moved to a few more different countries, changed industries again about 10 years ago, and worked my way up to upper management again before leaving that field too.

TL;DR No, stress has brought me nothing but misery, I have no regrets except that I didn’t enjoy the ride as much as I could have.

Learn new stuff as you work, or as hobbies (my entire second career started as a hobby). Don’t be afraid to “fake it till you make it” and keep an eye out for jobs you didn’t even consider as a possibility. I personally avoid corporate gigs, smaller independent companies are more likely to notice you and use you for the skills you bring. Life can fly by, enjoy the ride.

I dropped out of high school at 17 and went to college (which I think is the same as a community college in the US? Not a full four-year degree) when I was 24 for programming. Worked as a programmer for a couple years and then got bored and went into agriculture for a couple years. Now I’m bored again and looking at going back to school for something else. I’m 33 and I’m doing fine. 21 is so young! You have lots of time to figure yourself out. Honestly I think asking 18-year-olds to decide what they want to do forever is ridiculous. Almost nobody knows themselves that well that young. I’m still figuring out what I want in life.

It gets better bro.

I’m 33 and I was in a worse situation:

• Started getting depressed in 2011 at the age of 20
• Graduated in CS in 2016, super late, but with top grades
• Started working as a software developer, hated it
• For a few years I switched between working in a local computer shop and uni to get a master’s degree
• Again, I graduated super late in 2021 but with top grades
• Still hated working as a developer and now hated working as a technician too
• At the end of 2021, I got a call from my old high school, they needed someone to teach programming
• Decide to give it a try, absolutely love it
• Suddenly, depression is gone and I have a reason to get up in the morning
• A 10 year old nightmare is over, still single though

You have time, just don’t do drugs. Else you won’t have time.

Haha, yeah…

I did the classic overachiever route and finished my thesis pretty fast, focused on a specific career. Then still ended up with a shitty full-time job, so took on three more jobs and started a nonprofit. All that still got me exactly nowhere. I was ridiculously stressed. One time I didn’t sleep for 3 days and had to check in to the hospital.

Hopefully this offers some comfort. The things you consider mistakes, are the things I wish I had done. Even spending more time with my parents. So perhaps nothing is so serious :)

My “nuclear option” was immigration. I sold everything and (just barely) got a business license in the developing world. I’m basically Ozymandias from watchmen, but less fit and I don’t own tights. Also none of my friends are blue. Splicing genes and splitting atoms, I will admit to though.

Anyway the point is, what matters is what happens next. I don’t recommend immigrating to the developing world (it’s acutely distressing), but it’s surprising how much we can influence the outcomes of our lives if we radically commit to a course of action. If the exact details of your course of action aren’t optimal (or even borderline insane), I think that’s OK, it’s being radically committed to improving your future that matters. The context isn’t exactly irrelevant, but I think it’s secondary.

So no need to stress. Better to spend that energy doing. Anything reasonable will do. Start a side hustle, learn programming, design websites, learn to do taxes for yourself and others. Degrees are OK but I don’t value them any more personally. Get used to starting at square one over and over – it’s a good habit and you will eventually know how to do many things. People who can do many things are rare and valuable.

I have been struggling with my career for about 4-5 years now. I am already 33. Life takes a while to settle. There is no rush and definitely no need to stress about it. Loops are pretty common. You are not too old. 21 is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I dropped out of my university in my first year. I was a music major, and my orchestra director set up a gofundme so that family and friends and teachers from my old high school could all get together to purchase an instrument for me I can use in school because my family was broke and couldn’t afford it. But I stayed at home instead of living on campus, and since my family life was so chaotic, the stress of everything happening at home on top of taking on a huge course load made me lose my academic scholarship, and the thought of taking out student loans to be a gigging musician seemed like a guaranteed way to never escape poverty. I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. The deadline passed, and I fell into a deep depression that took years to get out of.

I had to start working in various blue collar environments until I had enough money to move out with my partner, who turned out to be really shitty once we started living together so then I had to find a place by myself, then I went back to a technical college to get some IT certs, and eventually stumbled into my first “big boy” job doing IT for a large warehouse. Since then, I’ve doubled my salary by hopping between a few different tech jobs, and I even get to play in a local symphony with the same instrument that was given to me for school.

It took about 5 years of wafting around after dropping out of college, and my mental health was in the shitter for most of that, but going through that stress made me the person I am today, and for the first time in my life, I kind of like who I am. With that said, I didn’t have the time to enjoy life with how much I was working and am trying to make up for lost time now. But it’s so much easier to do that now that I have disposable income and a comfortable place to sleep every night.

TL;DR Your early 20s suck and there’s going to be a lot of stress – thats unavoidable unless you’re a nepo baby. Just roll with it and don’t forget to have fun every now and then. You’ll figure it out.

What mistakes are you repeating?

So yes and no. Some of this depends on what sort of “loop” you’re stuck in, which I can’t answer unless I have more details. The rest doesn’t depend as much on that.

On one hand, 21 is extremely young—which means you have an absurd amount of wiggle room and time to course correct, even if you’ve done some really dumb stuff.

On the other hand, time only starts to move faster and if you don’t commit to course correct at some point you’ll end up a lot older in a way tougher spot.

I think the answer here is some sort of average of extremes (like it is for most things in life). You shouldn’t worry about the future too much because you’re so young, but you should start taking action to course correct now so that the next 5-10 years are easier.