Too scared to get a full time job

Hello, I will keep this as short as possible. I'm 24, I live at home, I work part time retail. I am so scared I have been frozen for many years. I am too scared to go to college because it's a huge sacrifice that often does not pay back. I would be stuck with debt for the rest of my life for possibly no reward. Now I'm too old for the "college experience" outside of the academics since the other students would be much younger than me. I've probably also shot myself in the foot by waiting because of how old I'll be when I graduate which will make it that much harder to find a job. I'm scared to get a full time job because I know that most jobs are generally miserable and i guess I've been putting it off because I'd like to have a few good years before stepping into that life sentence. Should I risk going to college even though it could do serious damage to my life or should I play it safe and just grow up and accept that having to work for a living is just miserable and college probably wouldn't change that anyway. Thanks.

Most people need to work but when you work in an environment that you love, you'll thrive, regardless of college education or not. You need to understand that heaps of people change careers during their working lives several times (even in their 40's) and go back to uni or college to further their themselves and their career. Like everybody else, these people who do this, have a choice as to where their destiny takes them and basically, in the free world, everybody is in charge of their own destiny. If you feel that all full time jobs are miserable and that they are a life sentence, then you need to step back, grow up and accept that life is what you make it...and this includes your career. Who cares if other students will be younger than you if you do go to college, the reason that you go to college is to educate yourself further to enable you to chase the career that you want and need. This also enables you to have the confidence to be yourself and damn what anyone else says about you. Your attitude towards working and college is the life sentence that you post about and it's this attitude which is preventing you from seeing the big picture. At 24 years young, you are still a 'baby' in life years. You need to step up to the plate, grab life by the balls and get on with it. You could be pleasantly surprised as to what you find 'out there' and just how far you can go if you give yourself the chance to do so.

That's all well and good but the state of the economy has changed since those days. You don't just get a job after college any more it's turned into a huge and very expensive gamble. It's harder and harder to find meaningful work and so people are often stuck where they are just feeling lucky because even more people live pay check to pay check and let's not pretend that that's fun. So things may have worked out great for the previous generation but for the young people today it just doesn't work that way any more. That's probably what scares me the most. I could be the hardest working, smartest, most talented top graduate of my class but that alone isn't enough. You have to get lucky and know someone in the field who is hiring because these days it's crony capitalism. I don't know anybody which would make all that hard work meaningless if I'm not lucky enough to happen to meet the right person. So much of it is out of my hands it truely is a gamble with life ruining consequences. Thanks for your response but times have changed.

Yep, you're correct, the economy and times have changed but it's has nothing to do with attitude and the willingness to have a go which will never change. Of course it's no fun, but be assured that people have lived paycheck to paycheck for ages even in booming economies. Again, you're right when you state that it doesn't matter if you're top of the class or not, what does matter is who you know, not what you know. To get the people of who you know, you have to get to their level and to get to their level, you need to have a go...if that makes sense. I'm sorry, but my generation still encountered the issues that you guys are experiencing now and if it's anything to with us, it's our resilience to work towards something better. Nobody from our generation just walked into a career (unless they were a pre graduate recruit) after completing college no matter where they came in the class. The only way our generation prospered was through hard work and getting to know those (cronyism) who could direct us to where we needed and wanted to go and if we were better educated, then better our chances of achieving this. This is the reason that so many of us go back to uni in our mature years because we have encountered someone or a company who can allow us to better ourselves if we complete another module of further education however long it takes. There's a person of our generation in their 40's, who was a brick layer but is now working in the medical field as a palliative care nurse. This person was born profoundly deaf. Nothing stood in his way, but it was his willingness to change careers and to achieve his goals which allowed him to be where he is now. It's the commitment and the will that counts. With all due respect, if you have the attitude that it's all too hard at the age of 24, then you it will forever be all too hard for you. You need to understand that no matter where you are and what your circumstances; what you put it, is what you will get out and it applies to everything in life....it's that simple. Step away from it all and take your thoughts further...take control of your life and don't let anything or anyone deter you from your goals.