Have you ever had to accept that your post-college life was a complete failure?

[PlymouthDude58]

Have you ever accepted that your current life is a complete failure?

I just did. I had to, to move on.

My life prior to graduating college was generally quite happy and fun. I was content with the world and everything always worked out. But, after graduating college, my life has been anything but this.

One week ago I was fired without warning from a job I generally liked and was gaining critical experience with. Getting fired blindsided me like nothing has since my high school sweetheart who I wanted to marry dumped me for another guy after 1.5 years of dating.

I started to think about everything, and realized that by and large nothing has gone right since I graduated college in 2006. Every job I've had turned out to be with the wrong people, have the wrong company culture, or have problems that did me in that were outside of my control. My fiance has had similar job problems, and the happiness of our relationship has suffered severely from this. We both gained a lot of weight, have not made any new friends, and have strained relationships with our parents due to moving home and being in too close contact.

After getting fired I thought that the world had changed me forever. Then, yesterday, my fiance was laid off without warning. Now we both are out of work at a time when we are trying to save for our wedding. I've changed again.

Now, my life that was already upsidedown has spun around even more.

I've been trying to look on the "bright side" of things for a year. I see now that all that did was help me ignore the obvious glaring problems with my life. Things were going seriously wrong and I was trying to be too optimisic and positive. Now, because of this, we both don't have jobs and bills to pay.

I've happily come to accept that my life since college has been an utter failure. This oxymoron is due to the stress relief of basically delcaring life bankrupcy. I no longer have to fight it anymore. I failed, utterly and completly. And I accept it.

Now, it's time to start over. That's the happy refreshing part. Now I have options I didn't have before. Despite the dire situation I am in, I know that I now can go do what I really want to do, instead of being forced to work for people and places that treated me like shit, just so I could gain "experience."

I've finally declared my life post-college a total failure. And oddly, it feels good to state and feel the obvious.

Have any of you ever gone through this? It feels almost spiritual. Have you ever had to just declare that your life has not worked out, you had a false start, accepted defeat, and then found out where you wanted to go?

Have you failed at life after college?

[wordsmith]

You don't fail at life until you're dead. As long as you're still living, you always have the chance to improve upon things.

It really sucks that you are having a really bad run of things right now, no question. But you now have a clean slate...if you made choices before that weren't ideal, it's over, and you can move forward now with a different approach or mindset, do things differently, try new things. You now know not to ignore things that your gut is telling you just aren't right. You probably won't make that mistake again.

EVERYthing about life is trial and error. You've taken some hits, but everyone does at some point. It's good to keep that in perspective.

[winneythepooh7]

I also believe that some good can often come out of a really sucky situation. I am going through bad times at work right now.........our program is shutting down this week. However, I may now have the opportunity to do something new and completely different within my company.

I also believe that every bad situation also is a learning situation.

[NewMrs.]

You don't fail at life until you're dead. As long as you're still living, you always have the chance to improve upon things.

It really sucks that you are having a really bad run of things right now, no question. But you now have a clean slate...if you made choices before that weren't ideal, it's over, and you can move forward now with a different approach or mindset, do things differently, try new things. You now know not to ignore things that your gut is telling you just aren't right. You probably won't make that mistake again.

EVERYthing about life is trial and error. You've taken some hits, but everyone does at some point. It's good to keep that in perspective.


I agree.

My first year out of college, I had a lot of trouble trying to find a job that paid a liveable wage. On top of that, the guy that I thought I loved dumped me about a month before my college graduation. Several months after graduation, he started dating one of my good friends. It took me a long time to get over this completely.

I just picked myself up and kept going, as I am sure that you are doing right now. I have an okay job, and I'm married now to somebody else. I don't even remember what I saw in that other guy.

If it makes you feel any better, I worked at one place where they fired this kid about a week before his wedding. I can imagine that something like this could have the potential to ruin someobdy's wedding. I know that this kinda sucks for you guys right now - but now you have time to accept this and come up with a plan of action before your wedding.

[PlymouthDude58]

I loved Arizona. I think I am going to move back. I never wanted to leave in the first place. Going back home has been NOTHING but trouble, problems, and crap on a scale that has never been in my life before.

[missing]

You don't fail at life until you're dead.

wouldn't it be the opposite in that you'd be failing at life if you DIDN'T die at some point? I mean death is a part of life. Not doing this would really be screwing with the natural order of things.

What I'm trying to say is that it's quite impossible to "fail" at life... even if you try really hard.

[sun82]

I honestly feel like I had it more together at 23, when I first finished grad school, than I do now a few years later. It's amazing how that sense of being invincible and idealism can gradually be lost once you take on more adult responsibilities. There isn't a set track like I thought I had put together for myself...apparently no amount of "planning" my life could fully prepare me for whatever would come along.

I hate to say that I have failed at post-college life, but rather would say that things didn't go as planned. What to do? Right now, I'm just reevaluating what I want, prioritizing my goals and chalking it up to a transitional time. Easier said than done of course, but I agree that just being honest with yourself and your situation is the best way to learn and move on. Plus, there has to be at least a couple of decent things that have come out of this time.

[ghostboy]

I envy you and the new opportunities you have.

[Chanhassen]

I just feel that everything that I wanted to become has not happened for one reason or another. It's frustrating. If it's not one thing that is holding me back, it's something else.

So many people have this "woes me" attitude about adult life, that as long as you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food on the table, you should be happy. This is the view of my parents. I on the other hand grow highly depressed living life like this and need more interaction and adventure to stay happy.

I didn't go through grad school to just sit back and say "well that's it, I will get a decent job, buy a small townhouse in the suburbs, and do relatively little other than go to the bar once in a while and complain about work."

I need more than this!!!

[NOuseForName]

This is exactly why after a year and a half after graduation and the "misery" (for lack of a better word) of a life I have been living since graduating, that I decided I am packing up and going to study abroad for grad school and hopefully travel the world. Sure I'll be paying out the ass for student loans for awile, but I will be having an experience of a lifetime. This whole "American-Dream" idea is just plain bullshit. Everyone our age seems to be brainwashed that you HAVE to get a good job RIGHT after you graduate, you HAVE to have a bf/gf that you WILL get married to within a year or so of graduating, and you HAVE to buy a house or condo as SOON as possible or else you are just a failure. Screw that. Sure these things are good in the long run, but the question is: are you going to regret not doing the things you really wanted to do when you had the chance?

[PlymouthDude58]

Everyone our age seems to be brainwashed that you HAVE to get a good job RIGHT after you graduate, you HAVE to have a bf/gf that you WILL get married to within a year or so of graduating, and you HAVE to buy a house or condo as SOON as possible or else you are just a failure. Screw that. Sure these things are good in the long run, but the question is: are you going to regret not doing the things you really wanted to do when you had the chance?

There are just enough people who have all that stuff right after college to make everyone else envious of them. But, people who have great jobs right out of college, and a significant other, and a house sacraficed a lot in college to be like that so soon after graduating. They missed out a lot from always working and doing internships all the time. The rest of us had the time of our lives partying, meeting people, and having fun. In the end we will all get a good job, house, and spouse. So at the end of the day we will have that stuff too and be able to say we had fun in college and have many happy memories of it. It's frustrating to see other people with those things, but I wouldn't trade my fun in college for a house, spouse, and super great job now.

[winneythepooh7]

To those who have posted that they feel their life is a failure, I strongly believe that if you have that attitude, and only see your life as being a failure, it WILL remain that way until you get out of that mindset. You are living your self-fulfilling prophecy then.

People face hardships all the time, not just right out of college. It's called LIFE.
You can either sit around and wallow in self-pity all the time, or pick yourself up, dust yourself off and look for the opportunities and blessings you actually do have at your fingertips.

Value the positive things and the good you DO have in your life. Use them to turn your life in the direction you want it to go.

I'm a social worker and work with a lot of people who I would put money on are worse off than some of us on QLC and I can count out endless things that they even have that are positive in their lives.

[J-girl]

To those who have posted that they feel their life is a failure, I strongly believe that if you have that attitude, and only see your life as being a failure, it WILL remain that way until you get out of that mindset. You are living your self-fulfilling prophecy then.

People face hardships all the time, not just right out of college. It's called LIFE.
You can either sit around and wallow in self-pity all the time, or pick yourself up, dust yourself off and look for the opportunities and blessings you actually do have at your fingertips.

Value the positive things and the good you DO have in your life. Use them to turn your life in the direction you want it to go.

I'm a social worker and work with a lot of people who I would put money on are worse off than some of us on QLC and I can count out endless things that they even have that are positive in their lives.
Thats a good point. They say to get a good job (and I am just using career as an example), 20% depends upon the degree you have, 30% depends upon the professional organizations you have joined, but 50% depends upon your attitude!

[bridgetjones]

I would say consider yourself unlucky to some extent and do not blame yourself for the things you could not control. That being said try to find what you can change and go with it.

To some extent you probably had some crap luck but everything happens for a reason. I graduated with a good degree at a bad time (9/11)! Is it my fault that I was born in a certain year and that my uni graduation would fall during a bad time in the job market? No. Is it my fault that after much struggle to get a job in a bad job market some jobs ended up not being for me? No. I learned from it all and moved on. Now my life is not bad. Heck at least you have a fiance! I hope it is going ok as this sort of stress can strain but if it is meant to be it will make you two stronger as a couple and as people. The game of life does not end until you are dead.

Ofcourse it is easier to have the above perspective after all that struggle. LOL.

[themole1983]

I can relate quite a bit to what you're going through, aside from having a fiance.

I graduated from Humber College in Toronto about a year and a half ago after majoring in journalism. What happened was I couldn't find any full-time work in the city or anywhere close to where I lived. It was always the same old story about not having enough experience, even though I did some interning at a paper called the Brampton Bulletin before it went under.

Eventually I thought my big break came when I was offered a job up north in a small rural town for their weekly newspaper. I moved up there, found a decent place to rent out while I would gain some experience there, and keep moving on upwards until I was making the big bucks at a place like the Toronto Star.

Instead, I had a total nervous breakdown three months after I'd been working at this paper. Partly due to the really bad and unwelcoming office environment and also because I was finding that I really wasn't enjoying the constant pressure of meeting the tight deadlines and dealing with writer's block.

I soon packed up my stuff and moved back home with my parents. I'm now working full-time in the Canadian Tire warehouse I worked at while I was going through college. I originally considered myself to be the ultimate failure and was even contemplating suicide for a bit, but I've since been able to pick myself up and look to the future.

I'm planning on taking university in a couple years for a degree in Public Relations once I have enough money saved up and I'm out of my parent's house. Plus, Canadian Tire pays for a portion of your tuition if you can stay on full-time with them and you plan to use your education to advance upwards with the company.

I may even be able to get myself a government job down the road which wouldn't be bad at all since I'm pretty sure the government is the last organization that offers retirement pensions.

Anyway, if you managed to get through my whole vent about my own life, the point I'm making is that there's always hope if you hang in there. Life can drag you through the gutter at times, but only for so long if you can pick yourself up and move on.

Good luck friend.

[winneythepooh7]

I can relate quite a bit to what you're going through, aside from having a fiance.

I graduated from Humber College in Toronto about a year and a half ago after majoring in journalism. What happened was I couldn't find any full-time work in the city or anywhere close to where I lived. It was always the same old story about not having enough experience, even though I did some interning at a paper called the Brampton Bulletin before it went under.

Eventually I thought my big break came when I was offered a job up north in a small rural town for their weekly newspaper. I moved up there, found a decent place to rent out while I would gain some experience there, and keep moving on upwards until I was making the big bucks at a place like the Toronto Star.

Instead, I had a total nervous breakdown three months after I'd been working at this paper. Partly due to the really bad and unwelcoming office environment and also because I was finding that I really wasn't enjoying the constant pressure of meeting the tight deadlines and dealing with writer's block.

I soon packed up my stuff and moved back home with my parents. I'm now working full-time in the Canadian Tire warehouse I worked at while I was going through college. I originally considered myself to be the ultimate failure and was even contemplating suicide for a bit, but I've since been able to pick myself up and look to the future.

I'm planning on taking university in a couple years for a degree in Public Relations once I have enough money saved up and I'm out of my parent's house. Plus, Canadian Tire pays for a portion of your tuition if you can stay on full-time with them and you plan to use your education to advance upwards with the company.

I may even be able to get myself a government job down the road which wouldn't be bad at all since I'm pretty sure the government is the last organization that offers retirement pensions.

Anyway, if you managed to get through my whole vent about my own life, the point I'm making is that there's always hope if you hang in there. Life can drag you through the gutter at times, but only for so long if you can pick yourself up and move on.

Good luck friend.

Welcome to the boards and thanks for sharing your story. I think many of us have been in very sucky work environments that were very damaging to our overall self-worth and sense of confidence. I know I had been there at my first job post-graduate school. It left me feeling very depressed and questioning the field I had gone into.

It sounds like you made it through the dark part of all that though. And I still think anyone can too.

[cemented]

Its good to know I don't feel as though my life after graduating has been a total failure also. I can't tell you how many times I cry myself to sleep thinking about how this could possibilty be my next 30 years.

[illinigal]

What really gets me down is seeing people that I knew in junior high/ high school who were either my frenemies or who I was lukewarm on doing well. I was reading one of the local papers (a pretty widely read one) this morning, and I noticed someone who I went to Jr High with and was so-so on writing in the sports section... That made me with my entry level spreadsheet updating job feel like a complete failure. I know that there are quite a few twenty-somethings feeling kinda lost, but it seems that everyone around me is more successful than I am. Just once I'd like to hear that the HS prom queen is now making lattes @ Starbucks or that the valedictorian flunked out of med. school. Something that makes me not feel like such a loser.

[winneythepooh7]

What really gets me down is seeing people that I knew in junior high/ high school who were either my frenemies or who I was lukewarm on doing well. I was reading one of the local papers (a pretty widely read one) this morning, and I noticed someone who I went to Jr High with and was so-so on writing in the sports section... That made me with my entry level spreadsheet updating job feel like a complete failure. I know that there are quite a few twenty-somethings feeling kinda lost, but it seems that everyone around me is more successful than I am. Just once I'd like to hear that the HS prom queen is now making lattes @ Starbucks or that the valedictorian flunked out of med. school. Something that makes me not feel like such a loser.

I am probably wasting my breathe saying this to you, but I think it's good to try not to compare yourself to others. Unless someone is blatantly rubbing their supposed success into your face and trying to rain on your parade, does it even matter?

There are always going to be people who appear to be doing better than we are, but that is not often the case.

[wordsmith]

And, also, the job somebody has really tells you nothing about their quality of life, their personal happiness, etc. It's never a good idea to beat yourself up because you're envious of what you know of somebody else's life...because you never know the whole story. Before you start feeling like you'd trade what you've got for what somebody else has got, remind yourself that you don't KNOW what somebody else has got...you only know what it looks like from an outside perspective.

[J-girl]

What really gets me down is seeing people that I knew in junior high/ high school who were either my frenemies or who I was lukewarm on doing well. I was reading one of the local papers (a pretty widely read one) this morning, and I noticed someone who I went to Jr High with and was so-so on writing in the sports section... That made me with my entry level spreadsheet updating job feel like a complete failure. I know that there are quite a few twenty-somethings feeling kinda lost, but it seems that everyone around me is more successful than I am. Just once I'd like to hear that the HS prom queen is now making lattes @ Starbucks or that the valedictorian flunked out of med. school. Something that makes me not feel like such a loser.
yeah I agree with winney and wordsmith, focus on your own goals just look straight ahead not sideways in this so-called race for success.

[illinigal]

I am probably wasting my breathe saying this to you, but I think it's good to try not to compare yourself to others. Unless someone is blatantly rubbing their supposed success into your face and trying to rain on your parade, does it even matter?

There are always going to be people who appear to be doing better than we are, but that is not often the case.

Because it's really easier to accept the fact that my life sucks if I realize that someone I know and really didn't like has a much suckier life... It makes me feel much better about myself... It seems that many of people I know are already 25 and succeeding with life.. and I'm stuck nowhere. It makes me feel sad, because I should be doing so much better. However, everything I try fails... It seems like I'm destined to spend my life as the world's bestest spreadsheet updater/ contract tracker downer...

[illinigal]

yeah I agree with winney and wordsmith, focus on your own goals just look straight ahead not sideways in this so-called race for success.

Yeah... um, I try to, but God, fate or whoever.. keeps giving me a big middle finger and telling me that I get to stay in my awesome sucky job as the bestest spreadsheet updater ever.

[dacrunkest]

Well, then be the best damned spreadsheet updater you can be...:D

[winneythepooh7]

One of these days we need to learn not to feed the trolls:rolleyes: .

[illinigal]

And, also, the job somebody has really tells you nothing about their quality of life, their personal happiness, etc. It's never a good idea to beat yourself up because you're envious of what you know of somebody else's life...because you never know the whole story. Before you start feeling like you'd trade what you've got for what somebody else has got, remind yourself that you don't KNOW what somebody else has got...you only know what it looks like from an outside perspective.

What I do and what I make is a very important part of my personal happiness. I didn't work my @ss off in school to spend my entire life doing something that a monkey could easily do.

[illinigal]

Well, then be the best damned spreadsheet updater you can be...:D

That's gotten me exactly nothing..

[illinigal]

One of these days we need to learn not to feed the trolls:rolleyes: .

I'm glad that everyone's life is sweetness and happiness on this board... But frankly my life is miserable right now... I think that it's more than reasonable for me to vent a bit on a board devoted to quarterlife crisises on a thread entitled my life is a complete failure after a poster who says he/ she cries him/herself to sleep every night.

[winneythepooh7]

I'm glad that everyone's life is sweetness and happiness on this board... But frankly my life is miserable right now... I think that it's more than reasonable for me to vent a bit on a board devoted to quarterlife crisises on a thread entitled my life is a complete failure after a poster who says he/ she cries him/herself to sleep every night.

Why? Cuz you can't buy the Louis Vuitton bag at a moment's notice? Sorry, but the gloom and doom is getting old. What have you done to better yourself? People have offered you suggestions before to better your life and you gave them the middle finger basically.

[sondra_finchley]

Let me tell you Illinigal- our prom queen was knocked up two years after graduation by the high school football star- she pumped out a few kids in short order and apparently married the guy and is a stay at home mom. So there you go :)

To the OP: Yeah, a year after graduating I went from living in London and working at a high-end finance magazine and living with a boyfriend to living back at home in Las Vegas and working as a maid in a hotel. It took me years to get over THAT but you know, I didnt die, it made me get my ass in gear for graduate school, and I was even able to bring that experience up in my latest job interview ( and the stories make great cocktail tales). You just have to keep going because thats all you CAN do. I firmly believe too that what goes around comes around and that it makes no sense to focus on what others are doing- sooner or later the tables will turn. Is it worth the mental torture in the meantime though to worry about what others may think?

My own note- This year has been rough for me- I had no job, got a job, had to buy a car and move. Had LOTS of turmoil at job, hated job, found new job- had to move again. Love new job but now its thrown my Christmas and finances into turmoil. Still stuck with a lease in old location, lost out on holiday time, and an ice berm dented my car last night. Car needed new, expensive tires and two motherboards on two different computers died on me.
Most of this has happened in the last three weeks and there are PLENTY of times Im ready to just... i dont know. But hey- once I get through this things will be better- what ELSE can go wrong? ( I better not ask that..) Nothin i can do about it so I may as well try and keep it together by exercising ( you need to try that- I bet your self-esteem and that of your gf would go up at this time when you need it, not to mention provide a way to get out of the house).

[wordsmith]

Only being able to make yourself feel good by taking satisfaction in the misfortunes of others is a really bitter way to live. Sorry, but it is.

[illinigal]

Let me tell you Illinigal- our prom queen was knocked up two years after graduation by the high school football star- she pumped out a few kids in short order and apparently married the guy and is a stay at home mom. So there you go :)


That's a lovely story... However, I very much doubt that I'd know her. I'd like someone I know and didn't really care for when I was growing up to be schlepping lattes right now. I'm very much tired of hearing about the "perfect lives" of everyone that I knew when I grew up and being made to feel bad about it.

[illinigal]

Why? Cuz you can't buy the Louis Vuitton bag at a moment's notice? Sorry, but the gloom and doom is getting old. What have you done to better yourself? People have offered you suggestions before to better your life and you gave them the middle finger basically.

I know being able to buy groceries and a couple replacement work shirts and do something fun and perhaps save a couple dollars are all totally overrated... As is being appreciated @ work and seeing people succeed in their twenties while you're stuck in spreadsheet hell.... :rolleyes:

[illinigal]

Only being able to make yourself feel good by taking satisfaction in the misfortunes of others is a really bitter way to live. Sorry, but it is.

They certainly used to take pleasure in my misfortunes (and still do)... I'm just returning the favor.

[bridgetjones]

It is bad karma to take too much pleasure in other peoples misfortune. It is energy spent that is better used to better your own life. That there are a few people that are shitheads that take too much pleasure in other peoples misfortune. Fuck em. Ignore them. Delete them from your life as much as possbile. Most people are too busy with their own lives to feel too much pleasure at your supposed shitty situation. Besides you are likely better off than many people too but you are too busy wallowing in self pity to notice. Count your blessings. Shit happens and it is how you deal with it that makes the difference.