Unhappy. All a Matter of Perspective? Or Do I Just Fail At Life?

[ChristianonLI]

Lately I've just not been happy with my life. Last year I got married and after a few months she left me while at the same time I lost my job of 10 years at the 7-Eleven near my parents' home. She turned out to be a cheating whore and the job I worked at was only paying me about $22,000 a year, almost $30,000 a year if I were to work 20 hours of overtime and six days a week. Keep in mind I live on Long Island, one of the most expensive places in America to survive.

A few months after my wife left me I was able to find a new job at a different 7-Eleven significantly further from my home with a starting wage very close to what had taken me all those years to get to at the other store. Unfortunately it was 5 night shifts, 11pm to 7am, but I was desperate for work so I took it. Now, nine months later I'm finally off the night shifts and got a roughly $2000 a year raise and my bosses, two brothers, are very happy with my performance. Almost since Day One they'd been filling my head with numerous ideas that gave me the impression I might in fact have a marginally profitable future with them. This was their first 7-Eleven store and they were new to the business and since I showed up I had been able to take a large burden off their already weighted shoulders via my years of experience. They are actively pursuing a second store right now and it is still several months away but as far as I know and as far as I have been told I am the man they want to be running this first store once they are in possession of their second and setting it up.

This all sounds great, I guess. But let's look at some of the facts. I am 31 years old. I live in a meager apartment in the basement of my parents' house that I say I rent but in reality I don't really rent because I cannot afford to give them very much money. Even at my old store I had trouble paying them $500 a month and in recent weeks I was able to convince them to drop it to $250 a month but even that I am unable to afford. Right now, for a 40 hour work week and with a decade of experience in the business, living on Long Island, I make about $1500 a month before taxes. My bosses offer health insurance but I cannot even afford it. I spend close to $200 a month in gas alone just to commute to the store and the mileage I've put on my car has it on the verge of falling apart in the middle of traffic very soon. My refrigerator and pantry are both empty because I have not been able to afford to go food shopping in close to a year. I recently cut down drastically on my cigarette smoking but have been unable to quit completely. I have an incorrigible lottery habit that I've been trying so very hard to break and basically at the end of every week my paycheck from the previous week is gone. I have no money saved whatsoever.

I am holding out hope that when the time comes in six months to a year my bosses will have acquired their second store and will be handing me the keys to the first one, complete with a hefty pay increase that would give me the chance to move out of my parents' house and live closer to my job. However I'm worried. Long Island is VERY expensive, as I cannot stress enough and even a doubling of my yearly earnings would make life very difficult for me. They seem like honest, stand up guys but I'm afraid when the time comes around they are going to offer me a very underwhelming salary which I will have no choice but to take because I am stuck.

I am stuck, people. I have no skills. I am growing older every day. The woman I loved and dedicated my life to is out f*cking some asshole who needs a bullet in the head because he's a paralegal and owns his own home. Everyone around me is succeeding and doing quite well yet I am doing nothing but failing at life and I don't see a way out. I can do my best to blame the economic downturn but truthfully that has nothing to do with it, I've been stuck since 1999.

I've started getting some hits on the dating sites finally (good picture FTW!) but usually when they find out I live in an apartment in my parents' house they lose all interest. Because I am not successful in life their DNA kicks in and I am not viewed as an alpha male, thus ruling me out as a potential mate. I cannot afford real rent (which on Long Island is at the very minimum $700 to $1000 for a place that's not in the middle of a dangerous ghetto), I cannot afford groceries (all my eating is done from my parents' kitchen or at work), I cannot afford to fix my car (the engine and brake lights have been on since August and the front suspension is about to snap) and on the off chance I do actually get a date out of one of these snotty Long Island chicks I can barely afford to show them a respectable time out.

There are no jobs out there, people. NOTHING. Not careers that can be had without years of schooling (which, SURPRISE, I cannot afford). There are meager, minimum wage jobs to be had all over but I refuse to get a second job. I shouldn't have to get a second job just to make ends meet, that alone would just push me closer to the edge of sanity. Cost of living on Long Island is well beyond my means yet I cling to this delusional hope that my employers will do what's right by me when my old employer spent a decade tricking me into believing I had a future with him. I don't really know if my new bosses will be any different. Are bosses ever any different? Get what you can out of the grunts, discard them when they've been used up and replace them with fresh meat, it's the nature of the business. Of any business.

I really and truly need a miracle to find my way out of this. Every night I sit at home and do nothing. I browse the internet, watch television and wait. I wait for the day my bosses promote me. I wait for the day I hit that big scratch off which will provide me a buffer to fixing my car, paying off debts and righting this wayward ship. I wait for the email telling me that my future wife and soulmate has come across my profile on the dating site. My father keeps telling me I'm unattached and that the world is my playground, yet he fails to notice that you cannot play for free. Not in today's world. I have now become the very thing I have dreaded for a year, the very thing I fought so hard to stay away from by desperately trying to get my horrible wife back into my life. I have become who I was before I met her. Lost, unmotivated and believing that the only way my life could have any sense, any meaning or any direction is if there is a good woman in it. And while she was there in my life everything did make sense and I was at peace, but because I wasn't successful enough for her she left, and here I sit once again, back where I started. At 31 years old.

So tell me. Pills, pistol, carbon monoxide? Something painless would be awesome, please. Or better still, if you have a direct line to God I would appreciate if you could phone in that miracle I need because He's otherwise not listening to my prayers.

[vashti]

You aren't ever going to make a good living working at a 7-11. Never, unless perhaps you OWN one (or maybe even more). You wrote "I shouldn't have to work more than one job....". This is bullshit. You are young and unattached. This is the time in your life for career building, and people who are successful don't make a bunch of ridiculous excuses about why they can't work harder - they just do what needs to be done. If you want to change your life, then change it. Stop complaining about what you need to do to get the job done.

[ChristianonLI]

But what can I do to get that job done that doesn't require I work 70+ hours a week like some fool?

What you're saying to me is exactly what everyone else says, but none of you understand. I don't physically know what to actually DO.

[vashti]

Honey, no offense, but right now you ARE a low class fool. (your words) You need to be willing to work your way up, even if it means 70+ hours. Take a second job.

[ChristianonLI]

Yes, I wrote the term "low class" in a moment of typical, egotistical weakness. I have since omitted it. My apologies.

[LailaK]

Matter of perspective. One of my biggest beliefs is that happiness is a choice.

If you're not happy with your life, CHANGE IT!

No one else has the power to make you happy. The onus of your future, happiness and success is on you. Circumstance is just something you need to overcome. Whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself or sad about life I try to watch an inspiring documentary or something. There are so many amazing people in the world who have come from nothing and achieved great things. If they can do it you can do it too.

As far as what to do, start with what you want to do. You seem lost, you need to get to know yourself better and cultivate some dreams and ambitions.

[ChristianonLI]

I don't know what to actually do to change it, LailaK. I have no idea. I don't know what I want to do with my life except make a respectable amount of money. That's all I know. Everyone I know has made the right choices and are leading at least reasonably successful lives, maybe not doing what they want to do but doing something that's profitable. All I see are low paying bottomfeeder jobs everywhere I look and no way out. All I've ever wanted out of life happened last year in the form of my wedding and we all see how that ended up.

There's not one single career-type field of employment that interests me that is also immediately attainable. Since I was a teenager I only ever wanted to be a psychology professor or a psychologist either in a hospital or a private practice. Or a stand up comedian. That's really about it.

But where to start? That's the problem. And what if it's the wrong choice? Why waste even more time?

[LailaK]

Adults research their dreams and figure out what they have to do to make it happen. No one is just going to pop up and tell you how to live your life.

You're just scared of taking action. Stop being scared and get up and do something. What if there aren't any wrong choices? What do you have to lose? If you give something positive a try is your life going to get much worse?

You want a starting place? Take one of your dreams and try to find a book, show, webpage, or better yet a real person who has accomplished it. Find out what their first steps were and copy them. Whatever they did DO IT. Sitting there, doing nothing is just laziness and it won't get you anywhere.

People figure out how to navigate their lives and dreams everyday. You can do it to. You're the only one standing in your way. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something. All you're doing now is wasting time doing nothing.

[ChristianonLI]

It's not so much feeling sorry for myself as seeing the facts I've ended up with and making a logical conclusion. I know that if I had a better job and a larger income I'd still be the same person I am now. Deep down I see myself as a good, honest and loyal person but those qualities don't mean jack shit to a woman if you're broke. At least not the highest quality women. I can seduce and score with every fat and ugly chick on Long Island in my current state but I want more. Unfortunately to acquire one of those higher quality women I need to have direction. I need to have motivation and I need to have dreams, which I feel is a bit unfair. I was always taught that women wanted quality of character alone and that money, power and good looks were meaningless. How wrong that is turning out to be...

[vashti]

those qualities don't mean jack shit to a woman if you're broke. At least not the highest quality women. I can seduce and score with every fat and ugly chick on Long Island in my current state but I want more. Unfortunately to acquire one of those higher quality women I need to have direction. I need to have motivation and I need to have dreams, which I feel is a bit unfair. I.

You've got to be kidding! Why isn't it fair? Women of the highest quality aren't entitled to standards? You want more, and you are just the guy that works behind the counter at 7-11. Why the double standard?

[ChristianonLI]

There is no double standard. I am not looking for a woman above my place in society. I am not looking for a woman with wealth or power. I am just looking for a woman with a good quality of character and reasonable physical attractiveness. If anything it is women who follow a double standard. They publicly declare that a man just has to be a good person with a healthy sense of humor and quality of character for them to be attracted but deep down all they really want is their man to be wealthy and powerful and the more beautiful a woman is the more she focuses on these qualities. Fat and ugly women take whoever they can, especially if they are smart and understand they are fat and ugly and don't have options. How is THAT fair?

[vashti]

I think you are overestimating what you are "entitled" to, and I don't think women have to choose between a man with a good sense of humor and good character, or a man who is financially stable. There is no reason at all that a woman shouldn't insist on ALL these qualities. They aren't mutually exclusive.

[Raven_Skye]

Well, you should know that not all high quality women (whatever that might mean, not too fond of that expression) care about if you're broke or not. If I like someone, I don't care even if they do live with their parents still. Okay, maybe not entirely true that much, but it's not because of the money issue that would be a point, but because of the independency issue. I did have a relationship with a guy that lived with his parents for about 2 years, and I broke up recently with him , after he'd bought his own house.. because the relationship was long-distance. Point being, if you like someone, really like, who cares about things like that. However, the wanting something more than a 7-eleven job (which is never going to earn you decent pay), and not trying more is not too attractive. It eats at you too, that you want more of life, and that shows.

You say that Long Island is expensive, but you don't really seem to have anything keeping you there. Why not see about moving further away, not very very far, but maybe somewhere cheaper, and see what the job opportunities are there? Even if you can just make the same wages there, if the living's cheaper maybe you will be able to afford night school of some kind, or evening school or whatever. I mean, if you want a job mmore up the ladder, you'll need more education. Unless you're very very lucky and roll into it, but that usually doesn't happen.

So just take some chances, I know it's not easy, btu this isn't making you happy either. So what can be worse?

Oh and just curiosity, why didn't you go to school more after highschool and tried to do something with psychology? Financial issues? I mean I know you guys have a weird system there.. here we have like scholarships for everyone, if you finish university or something in time allowed you don't have to pay the scholarship back. But yeah, financial things I'd understand.

[ChristianonLI]

I got accepted to a very good local university and entered as a psychology major where I proceeded to waste about $30,000 on tuition by not going to class and spending my days drinking, smoking pot and tripping on acid.

Yes, Long Island is very expensive. The average household, just to survive, has to bring in roughly $100,000 a year in order to afford taxes, utilities and other basic costs of living.

Vash, it's not fair that a good person like myself must be stuck wallowing at the bottom, forced to hit on ugly and fat women because all the most beautiful ones would never give me the time of day simply because of what I do for work and where I live. If a beautiful woman with no education and a low paying job is socially allowed to be an elitist bitch and only want the best of the best then it really isn't so much of me to ask that I be allowed to have a marginally attractive woman be interested in me for once as opposed to only the lowest quality women ever showing any interest.

I should clarify, the "quality" of a woman, as I describe it, is based off a compilation of their looks and their personality with emphasis on looks. A grotesquely fat and ugly woman with a great personality is regarded as low quality where as any woman who is attractive, regardless of personality, is considered high quality.

[ChristianonLI]

I find it highly amusing how, when I speak incontrovertible truth, the naysayers grow silent. I know you all don't agree with me, so brainwashed are thee.