Please take this as constructive criticism because I am trying to help. But I will be brutally honest. You are 21. You don't know anything yet. You honestly sound like someone who doesn't want to put the hard work/grind yet but wants "meaningful and purposeful" handed to you. Life doesn't work that way.

You need to work hard first. Whether that is through full time employment or your own business, doesn't matter. Forget investors. No one will give you money. You are nobody right now.

Full time job for even 2-3 years is not a bad thing. I run my own business and wouldn't trade it for anything but I worked in the corporate world for 10 years and gained a lot of valuable experience. Not saying you should do the same path but you need to start somewhere.

"My biggest fear is mediocracy"

Working at a full time job doesn't make you mediocre. Not everyone is a Zuckerberg. In fact, it will teach you real world skills, you will meet smarter co-workers and people in the real world, learn lot of skills like conflict resolution, negotiating etc.

"biggest wish is to contribute to something meaningful and useful to others"

Yea, the problem is that you have no experience in anything so you wouldn't know what is meaningful and useful to others. Get a job. Get some experience. Work with a few people for at least 2-3 years and then figure out a path for yourself.

"Otherwise my existence makes no sense"

Lol at this but I understand that at 21, this seems normal. Your existence makes plenty of sense. But go grind first. Get a job. Learn a trade. Whatever. These thoughts will be meaningless once you have more maturity.

OP listen to this.

And go read So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. You'll see stories of people in situations very similar to you.

Source: I rebeled in my early 20s for a more meaningful life before I had enough career capital to spend and learned a lot of lessons the hard way. My saving grace was that I already had a degree and was demonstrably good (i.e. employable) at a couple of things.

He is just reflecting the frustration he has with his parents. I’m sad to say this OP, but that bad relationship with your parents will be lifelong. You are being self destructive because they really suck. You’re stuck, and I have no solution for you other than to stay in school (ah, but that’s what they want, I hear you, and that’s them winning, I get it), and be successful (ah, but that’s what they want).

I don’t like letting people win that have no business winning. But that’s what it is. I don’t know what to tell you, the whole thing is fucking crazy.

So, I will just show you Dennis Rodman’a hall of fame speech. Not only did he do all the right (and wrong things), but at the most ceremonious event he elegantly invited his mother, and still told her ‘you are not a part of this success’:

https://youtu.be/uwbI15Ucl8s

It’s a long fight, but I think that’s the only thing that’s gonna work.

Unless you know something we don't, there is precious little in the OP's post that hints at a damagingly bad relationship with his parents.

They are upset because he dropped out of -- college, I guess? -- but it's a bit of a leap to say that being upset your kid dropped out of higher education and doesn't seem to have direction is evidence that they "really suck".

If you can’t tell, then you can’t tell. It’s not for everyone to get it. If you want a hint, read the whole thing. The whole thing pisses off who? Not me, I’m not his parents. Not you, you ain’t his parents. Not his boss, they ain’t his parents.

And then finally read the last sentence or two, ‘my parents are very upset’.

If you can’t tell, then you can’t tell.

Or you could be projecting your own experience or that of someone close to you onto what he wrote, is all I'm saying.

There are many universal experiences, pattern matching is sort of a software developers forte. My comments went into the negative and then brought back to a positive, so I’m not alone. The OP has not refuted anything either.

To bring a counterpoint, I've worked very hard for 6-8 years. (5 years studying but also working on the side at programmer during the time) That surely simplified some things and now another 8 years later it's very easy for me to find a reasonably well paid job. On the other hand I came to realize I'll always have to work on mediocre things unless I continue to put in a sustained effort into it. (Work place politics included because everybody wants more of a limited resource, be it money or interesting tasks) Luckily I studied mostly out of interest but the effort put in was surely out of pressure

Going back in time I could have just continued to pursue that side gig, go for other freelancing jobs and do my own (hopefully paying) projects on top. Quite likely I might go for this myself soon again

> biggest wish is to contribute to something meaningful and useful to others

My sense of self worth and we’ll being improved substantially when I stopped chasing the dream of making some big contribution to the world. It’s not that I have given up on doing meaningful things, but that I learned that I was more interested in the spotlight of it.

I’m much happier making projects that I like, even if no one else likes them.

> Otherwise my existence makes no sense

Can I ask seriously, are you OK?

Because freelancing for depressive/negative reasons makes no sense. You should trust me on this because I freelanced for depressive/negative reasons and it has trapped me.

> I can get back to school and wage-slavery at any point in my life later

Don't be so sure. It does get harder, and one day you will not be able to ignore the things you cannot afford (healthcare, time off, if nothing else). Going back to school will cost you more, and it's harder to get into a job from long-term freelancing (except by being recruited by one of your stable clients).

What I would advise, if you're already freelancing, is to try as much as possible to make it worthwhile, because it's always going to suck in terms of income.

Find a way you can really contribute, find a way for your freelancing to help you build a life. Or travel, work remotely from somewhere that changes the way you see things.

To be blunt, railing against corporatocracy isn't a business plan, basically. The trendy kind of "alternative way of working" is almost always backed by angel investors, NGOs, charities or parents.

I don't think you'll take this advice (I wouldn't at your age) but please consider talking to a professional therapist. As someone that's started many businesses the reality is the vast majority fail. If your mindset is "my existence makes no sense" working under someone else you're going to miss out on all the things that make your 20's great - dating, friends, travel, etc. Not to mention you'll be more successful in business if you have a fulfilling life outside of work. Be careful.

+1 to this. I didn't start talking to one until my late 20's and my only regret is not starting sooner.

Absolutely this.

Throw yourself wholeheartedly into whatever comes into your lap right now.

Whether that's a full time job, or a business with traction.

Don't worry about whether it's "worth it". Dig deep into anything and at the end of the day it is all meaningless.

What you're concerned about is feeling fulfilled and joyful. That stems from within and how you approach life. It has very little (other than basics -- food, shelter, water) to do with your work.

You can take this to the bank -- giving your absolute all in any given situation will give birth to the fulfillment/meaning you're looking for.

"I can get back to school and wage slavery at any point in my life later"

I wouldn't be so sure. You ever wonder why older people are always talking about 'the good ole days'? It isn't because the world was better, it's because they were better equipped to live in it.

Separately to my other comment I want to add that not every IT job is corporate.

Have you considered working in the charity sector (even at a really basic, fixing-the-stuff-in-the-office level) while freelancing?

> My biggest fear is mediocracy

My biggest fear for you is that you might get stuck in a pattern where you feel like this at 31, with more credit card debt. It gets a lot harder to change your ways after 25.

Live with your parents as long as you can.

Deep dive on difficult work and learn as much as you can. Develop you, invest in you, that may mean working for cheap, taking a corporate job, travelling and developing a more comprehensive view of the world, whatever, for someone who knows how to scale or pursuing mentorship through working for someone who knows what they are doing.

What are your ideas? Have you validated any of them? Ideas are cheap, if you really don't care about their success or failure (which I personally doubt) you should prove it to yourself and others by sharing them widely. Hermits in a cave don't accomplish anything statistically.

A lot of people fuck around in their 20s to very little detriment, it just depends on how wealthy your parents are.

Until you are ~24 your brain isn't fully developed around risk, don't fight the science on that, just try and factor it in, emphasize developing personal skills, knowledge and communication, and get yourself exposed to as much new stuff as possible.

Create stuff, do stuff, don't get addicted to consumption or cheap dopamine, drop tv, get a computer that's terrible for video games, etc. if you are doing programming.

Just based on the internets population and the fact that this is a post. You probably aren't an outlier, you probably don't know much, you probably experience your current discomfort because the internet allows us to compare ourselves to people way outside our cohort and comparison is the thief of joy and powerful cumulative development. Imagination is always more effortlessly rewarding than the grind and difficult learning, it just doesn't DO anything. If you are of unusual talent, ability or insight you should already have some external validations or achievements of that by 21. If you don't, you may still be exceptional but just a late bloomer who needs to spend more time working and growing in the real world to better synthesize data.

"Otherwise my existence makes no sense"

Life is strange and the world has changed radically in the last 100 years, you have no idea what will be discovered or how things will change in the course of your natural lifespan. A little less desperation and a little more intellectual humility will make you a more effective, more curious and importantly, a more resilient person.

Everything regresses to the mean. Hopefully your parents are wealthy and well connected.

If you freelance you are now just going to have to obey the client. If you start a start up, you have to please and obey VCs. I would recommend you finish school while trying to figure out your strong emotions about perfection, feeling special/meaningful, your parents, and authority because you can't escape those through any career decision. You sound like you care a lot and will have a lot to offer the world no matter what you do during working hours as an adult

The rational part of our brain isn't fully developed until age 25[1] give or take. For me it was several years past 25.

How is freelancing going? That sounds like a great path to being able to some level of independence.

Mindset is a huge part of motivation. I don't think 100% of gigs out there are "meaningless work for corporate overlords". That perspective is adding another weight, which is slowing you down.

> My plan currently is to pour 100% of my resources into my own ideas.

For the 0.01% that is a great plan. Aaron Swarz accomplished more in his twenties than I will over my entire career. But for the vast majority of us, engaging with existing businesses at age 21 is a great source of ideas and projects. Keep freelancing!

Ultimately success is about serving others. Your idea has to be something someone else needs which they find out about through a reliable distribution channel.

[1] https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?Con...

> The rational part of our brain isn't fully developed until age 25[1] give or take. For me it was several years past 25.

This really is a mantra I now encourage young people to live by.

You're going to get to 25 and then you're going to be that person, in so many surprising ways, for the rest of your life. Just with more wrinkles and more emotional armour.

It's worth trying to work towards being the most positive, grounded, socially involved 25 year old you can be, until you get there.

Your twenties are mostly not earning years, they're learning years. Therefore, say yes to all opportunities - you learn more from yes than from no. There are a lot of narratives about working life, but they are stereotypes. You need the real thing. Every situation is a little different from the stereotype and often people fall into a very specific niche and approach that works for them. You will still feel the pull of doing your own thing on top of work, regardless.

Doing your own thing only "matters" in a societal sense(and hence an economic one) if it involves a fully coherent idea that others can engage with, and that is rarely going to be the case until you can get past your own flaws - it is a tremendously hard task for a young person still freshly indoctrinated into beliefs that may not apply to them. Half of the learning is unlearning the thing you were just taught to believe in through a decade+ of education, because that's basically always wrong, and then the other half is to build up your own principled approach so that life retains some meaning to it.

The usual method of combating the tendency towards self-indulgent personal work is to study: not to make because you believe a thing is good, but because you're studying that thing, and making is part of studying. If I try to draw a horse from my imagination, it won't look very good, but if I put together a lot of reference, break it down to basic forms and draw based on those studies, I can draw an excellent horse. But obviously, actually studying the horse would perturb my previous beliefs - it's a "lowering of my esteem" to think I would have to do that. So I have to overcome something within myself to even try, because like with any exercise, I'll resist the exertion.

And that kind of thinking about how to get yourself to grow is the kind of headspace you need to get to, if you want to land in a better position over the course of years.

> Unfortunately in reality my life depends on meaningless work for corporate overlords

> With NDA’s and IP-ownership clauses, i don’t own anything and i can’t talk about anything

Have you considered working for a non-profit?

Not all corporations are evil; they're only as evil as the people running them. If you believe you can found a company that doesn't have NDAs and IP-ownership clauses, you can probably also find one that doesn't have those as well.

You can go your own way and don't let anyone tell you not to. But it's certainly possible to have a meaningful life while working for someone.

I enjoy Hamming's thoughts on this subject[0].

Also don't forget to have fun.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw

I don’t want it to sound bad, but I’m sure it will sound like that.

You are 21 years old. Unless you are not telling us something, you just started living. You haven’t learned anything about anything.

What kind of meaningful work do you expect to complete?

If you truly want to make a difference and have a purpose, wouldn’t it make sense for you to learn something about the world or the people in it?

I might be gatekeeping it and you might be a special kind of person but statistically that is unlikely and your desire seem to come from all the motivation stuff that people put out there.

Just chiming in, I remember people telling me this when I was 21 and thinking "I know things, these people are just talking down to me."

Almost a decade later, I can absolutely confirm, I knew almost nothing about the world at 21.

This is great advice. You need to fail and learn lessons. Your early 20's are the opportune time to fuck up because you get a lot of free passes. Those free passes start to run out as you get older.

Use them, because they're non-transferable

I was once 21 and I had the same thinking as you did and as OP does.

I thought I knew better than these people telling me I knew nothing and it turns out… I was wrong.

That’s the great thing about getting older and hopefully wiser. You start to understand you know nothing and use that to learn from people who know more.

>That’s the great thing about getting older and hopefully wiser. You start to understand you know nothing and use that to learn from people who know more.

When people ask me how do i know the things i know, i tell them "i listened to people who knew".

It brings to mind a quote or two:

"We spend the first two years learning to talk, and the rest of our lives learning to listen"

"When i was 14 i thought my father knew nothing. at 21 i thought, the old man sure has learned a lot in 7 years."

There's plenty of comments already telling you to hang back and reevaluate (which I agree with), so I'm not gonna do that.

You said your plan is to pour 100% of your resources into something of your own and you're not afraid of failing. Can you elaborate on what that plan is? I'm sure some of us have done that and could give you tips so that you'd be less likely to fail.

Keep going with freelancing - do your projects on the side. If anything, delve deeper into corporate freelancing to learn the businesses around you and the people, and build a network of future clients while self-educating on what your local corporations need, how they work, and who they are. Then you can build up a career that lets you pay the bills with corporate consulting, see gaps where new products might be welcomed, and still work on your own projects on the side.

You also might want to consider your definition of mediocrity. I showed a few people that statement and we all had the same reaction - "Isn't their life already mediocre?" I mean, if it wasn't, would you be asking these questions? That isn't said to put you down... it is said to tell you not to fear where you already are. Instead of fearing mediocrity, step forward and move beyond it.

While there are some things where the usual way everyone takes is wrong and you can do better, most of the time it is actually a good idea to take the known path. It just makes your life easier and gives you way more room to act. It is also a great idea to get on your own feet, before helping others.

You also probably think you are the smartest person in every room, all the time. You might often actually be. In ten years, you will still sometimes think that you are, but more often realize that you are actually not. And even if you are, other people might have insights, you can benefit from.

Things are not always great the way they are, but there is a reason why they are how they are. It is useful to learn more about those reasons, if you want to change something. If you think about it, you will realize, that it is highly unlikely, that exactly you of all people have it all figured out already.

Dont put too much pressure on yourself.

Be open to all opportunities and experiences and go with the flow.

You will figure it out as you go.

An alternative could be to become a corporate soldier for a decade and achieve financial freedom by living frugally and saving aggressively.

You’ll find yourself in your early 30s with at least a million dollars (and likely much more) being able to take so much more risk without having to rely on (or upset) your parents.

This is not too bad. While as you say working in corporate America is not necessarily the apex of one’s life, you can learn a lot of things that will be useful in your future endeavors. I currently work as a senior tech person at a FAANG and the scale of things I see is really interesting (e.g. I routinely do data processing on tens of exabytes), and it is very unlikely you’d be exposed to similar challenges just by doing random freelancing gigs to stay afloat.

This fairy tale idea of becoming financially independent these days is just that - a fairy tale. You'll end up burnt out and hating the career path you chose, even if it's your hobby.

YMMV but I strongly advise taking the parent comment with a grain of salt.

Are you arguing about the impossibility of getting to financial independence, or the fact that this young 21yo I-want-everything-but-have-done-nothing-beside-highschool person should not pursue a full time employment because it is not “meaningful” for them and as such it would lead to burnout?

To me the fairy tale here is that this person can think about doing meaningful work without having achieved significant experience in anything and without a financial safety net. My suggestion was a practical solution, which of course comes at a cost, to fix both issues and set them up for entrepreneurship in a few years.

I'm saying that the amount of work someone needs to put into a career in tech starting from nothing in 2022 far exceeds what is feasible or healthy for any individual person to do. The time have changed from a few decades ago where it was possible to climb up corporate ladders and secure equity.

It's also a waste of your 20's, depending on your point of view.

Hmm?

All I’ll say is that this doesn’t match my experience. In fact I’m not sure what you’re saying. There seems to be no other career path as lucrative with comparatively little effort. Heck, I took a break from porting ML models to type this on my iPad, and the way things are going, I’ll probably be able to retire within a decade. Not too shabby.

If you think a motivated 20 something can’t do this, it’s just not true. The trick is that you need to focus on money. Start negotiating salary aggressively, demonstrate your skills, and interview at multiple places on a regular basis.

It really does though. CS exams are hard and require a lot of studying and then there's leetcode, system design and everything else under the sun.

What about dating, travelling, sports, family? Is one supposed to spend their entire time thinking of ways to speed-up algorithms. There's a reason fast algorithms are fast they utilize a lof of hard work and focus to create.

> What about dating, travelling, sports, family? Is one supposed to spend their entire time thinking of ways to speed-up algorithms.

I find it peculiarly reassuring that so many HN commenters are adding things like this -- my own experience of my twenties would have been better if people had stopped me more often to say "are you sure you're OK?" and "is this really all you want?"

I truly do not know what your comment is talking about. There is no easier lucrative career to get into today than tech. I work at perhaps the most difficult FAANG to get into, and just my tiny org hires hundreds of 20-something each quarter with no experience at all who barely know what they are doing, and pays them 6 figures. Every other company does the same, just even easier to get into.

And there is no need to climb the ladder, just get to mid level engineer, which requires virtually no effort, and with some frugal living you’ll be financially set.

100% correct tech career in 2022 is a competition to become the biggest no-lifer.

May be worhwhile in the US in the right circumstances but for Europe it's a waste of time.

> Otherwise my existence makes no sense

That line really caught me by surprise. Your existence should not be justified by your ability to raise capital. I'm not accusing you of anything but ask your parents if your mental health has changed at all. You're at a stressful point in life. There's no shame in asking and seeking help.

> My plan currently is to pour 100% of my resources into my own ideas. And at this point i don’t care whether they fail or not, i just want to try

Assuming you're healthy (which I'm sure you are), don't tell us about what you plan to do. Just do it. Don't plan to plan. Just plan and execute.

A lot of what you are saying there is truth to it within certain contexts but all social media now has themes for your generation around success and what a meaningful life is. It is incredibly easy to spend a lot of time absorbing the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, the whole startup culture and countless other notable people on YouTube, podcasts and elsewhere and end up with these types of sentiments. What you have to understand is that what is sold is distilled to it's simplest form and is not meant to be particular to any individual situation.

I'm not suggesting that your beliefs around work and what a meaningful life are outright wrong but instead that it is very much not representative of what reality is. Life is a spectrum of color and hardly black and white. For everything you've said there is countless people living lives that would disagree with you.

The most concrete recommendation I can give you is first to be mindful of what information you consume. It's very easy to look at social media and feel that your life is amounting to nothing based on how many people your age may be doing noticeable things and showing it off. I know it's hard to ignore this. Dig into it and really analyze these people's backstory. I'm not saying that there are not some people are just fortunate in life and everything drops in to place. That's a given that there is, but these people are the exception and not the norm.

Second, if your goal is do a tech start-up then go ahead and join local or virtual start-up groups and really talk to the people in these groups and tell them how you feel and what you want to do. If you actually have concrete ideas then try to build a product and go for it. Ideally, build a team or join another startup team. Do it. Get it out of your system. Please, don't shortchange yourself by placing your whole identity around the success or failure of it. Most importantly, don't do it in a void. Go out there and join these groups and soak and learn as much as you can from them. You are young right now and looks like you have the umbrella of your parents to help you. For your parents, tell them this is an itch you have to scratch and that they should give you six months to a year to sort it out.

After a few months, you may be in a completely different mindset.

Maybe stop going on /r/antiwork

I felt very similarly at your age. I'm 36 now. Let me try to give you some perspective.

I finished my degree due to parental pressure. I didn't learn anything in school. It was a pretty big waste of time for me, because I thought it was supposed to be about learning. It turns out that school has nothing to do with education. It's for gatekeeping elites, so if you go, try to make friends with elites that will help you in the future. If you're not going to do that, don't bother attending.

Then I wasted about 3-5 years trying to do my own thing (web apps, iphone apps, IT freelancing, etc). Turns out it's very hard to make a living doing your own thing, or maybe I just never cracked it. You might be able to pull it off, but in terms of time invested, your hourly wage is going to be low. Still, this was better than the $50k/yr jobs that were being offered in my area at the time.

I floated around SF for a while and eventually landed as a "senior engineer" at big tech company where I work pretty minimally, and after a couple more years of this, I'll be permanently retired with millions before 40. Networking was key to me getting my final job.

What I would do instead, knowing what I know now, is fast track myself to be a mid-level engineer working remotely. If you can write React, that's probably the easiest way in. Change jobs every 1-2 years to get promotions. Climb as high as you can, and in about 5-7 years, you'll have enough money to "fat FIRE". Essentially, retire early and live well. Compounding returns make this strategy better the younger you do it. Invest aggressively as you're earning. Always invest all available money.

If you already have the technical skills, but can't stomach working for someone else, you can get pills to either turn off your anger or provide you the motivation to do it.

If you don't have the technical skills to be employed full time as a remote engineer already, you do need to get those. You won't learn them through school, so you'll have to do a lot of building to get those skills. If you can't get a job making $120k+/yr as a junior dev right now, you're not ready to make a living on your own.

If you start working the corporate system now, you'll almost certainly be comfortably retired before 30. It sounds like a long time at your age, but it's likely to be the most efficient path.

I know at your age, you want to take your shot and you don't want to sacrifice your youth, but you'll actually have more opportunities to achieve greatness if you're 30-something with several million dollars in assets.

In other words, if you had wealthy parents, you could skip right to the step you want to do. But you don't, so you're going to have to suck it up and work for 5-10 years to essentially buy yourself a trust fund.

> I’m doing all i can to not get full-time employed. My biggest fear is mediocracy

I have a couple of years of work experience and studied for 8 years. I studied so much because science is my religion (10 years worth of degrees).

In any case, here is what I thought: I want to be rich now. Why? I want freedom. Alright. I'm not rich. Can I still get freedom? I did some calculations and noticed that in The Netherlands, I can get a salary of 5000 euro's right now (as the upperbound). So if I manage to work 3 days, then I get 3000 euro's (gross) which is more than enough. In The Netherlands, it's relatively doable to find jobs for 4 days, so finding a 3 day job should be doable.

Then it dawned on me. Do I want to work less? No, I need to work a bit to keep my mind sharp. I need to have a few days in the week where I don't fully do what I want, but where I do an activity that is highly logical (i.e. programming).

Currently I'm in a 4 day job situation, I'm enjoying my extra day off. I'm enjoying the remote flexibility. I'm enjoying the possibility to go to the office when I want to (the company is in a neighbouring country, so it's a small vacation really). I'm also enjoying the ability to start at 12 instead of 9.

I failed my way up. I graduated cum laude with game-design and graduated almost cum laude with computer science. No big tech company gave me a graduate interview. I became depressed because no one gave me a chance. People on HN reached out though but I mishandled it. That depression caused 18 months of applying for jobs and that's when I started my ascent of failing upwards. I started at a startup that underpaid me for 6 months, I left there because I wasn't passionate about them and because I felt underpaid. Then I went to unemployment benefits for 3 months, and I got my second job soon after. The second job was more high profile and better paid. I was let go because they felt I was too slow (after 6 months again). Now I'm on my third job and my "experience" allow me to command a salary between 4000 to 5000 euro's. It's kind of ridiculous that 2 years ago I could only get half that salary. I feel that I didn't even gain that much experience with those two jobs. I gained much more experience studying and doing jobs during my study days (as a software engineer and coding instructor).

So yea, that's my story. You can definitely see some things you might want to avoid ;-)

All I'm saying is: if you want to live now, find a 3 day job and make sure you live the rest of the 4 days. Currently I'm hyper focused on learning mathematics next to my job. Learning mathematics gives me real depth. Doing my job is okay and keeps my engine warm and running.

you sound like you might not be a fully-committed capitalist, which could explain the hate you're getting, but that's just a guess.

i support what you're doing.

i'd advise to start listening to the Side Hustle Podcast.

guy seems legit smart, not a typical fake e-scammer, etc., and his general approach to becoming successful over time seems reasonable and not crooked. just my take.

outside of that, i think it's really important to stick with it, especially when you're young. you can do it when you're older, but i personally want to have a meaningful existence, and i feel like the best way to achieve that is by not working for someone else for most of your waking hours. and life is unpredictable, often too short.

also, you can work for yourself and still be plenty useless or worse, but it does seem you have a little bit more control over your future when not working for someone else.