What can I do in life?

Post Reply New Topic

When I entered my 20's, and as I was spending all day on my PC, not in school or work, I thought to myself how my life is over now. I recently entered my 30's and not much has changed. I've just been working with my dad or friends of his in the construction industry, so not a "real" job where I have to fit in with people.

I don't like my life trajectory and I know I have greater potential, I want a career, but I am so lost and dont know what to do. Nothing particularly interests me. I have a few aptitudes, mainly being I am extremely detail oriented, and anything tangible and physical is much simpler to comprehend.

I would not say I am very visibly autistic. I dress well and am fit, but a minute long conversation with me would leave a person wondering what is wrong with me. I want to avoid having too many conversations in any career I find.

What can I do in life? Throw me any suggestions.

What is your skill set?  Have you earned any certificates or degrees?  Do you have any licenses?

Ever thought about IT, programming, or web development? Are you willing/able to go to school or get a cert if you don't already? You could easily make >100K. There are crash courses/schools that could get you a job at around 50K to start, and can go to >100K within a few years. You will have to have some conversation, but will you be able to "fake it until you make it"?

I went the finance/accounting route, and I have to talk to people all of the time. I make north of 100K, but I have a CPA + MBA (I'm about 10 years into my career). Also, I enjoy having conversations, but people think I'm weird too. Our former IT guy was Aspergers and was very socially awkward. He got married without telling a soul, and when he left for another job, refused to tell us where he was going. His performance was ok, but he thought he deserved to make more than he did and it was reflected in his attitude. If you told him something, he would just give an awkward laugh, as if it was a defense mechanism.

In short, you can do this!

I have no skills, just things I'm kind of decent at. And no to the other questions.



I have never seriously considered IT or programming. I shied away from it these fields, especially programming, because it require great math skills, and mine is decent at the best of times. Is the programming sector not flooded? And I hear most employers want a university degree, which I dont have.

Am hating to make this recommendation for the IT. Industry, cause it’s already been made .
But programming is actually a breeze once you get the basics down... a trade school class can provide you that in 3-6 months . Programming is a aspie thing , slight abstract thinking , which is what we do naturally , in the NT world.
But in aspie world is doesn’t seem so . Programming is seen as mathematical relations to things . Which it is not,
Except at very basic levels . And no one uses those in programming , they use a preset prepared commands that the machine ,ie, the computer , is already setup for . After a getting some familiarity with the basic of coding .
It gets boring and becomes a lot of copy and pasting sets of commands , prior to test running your program.
And eye towards being precise in your copy and paste abilities is usually the most error causing thing in any program. Or syntax errors, which still relates right back to the basics your taught at Programming school .
A sort class on the topic requiring. A few months might give you all the familiarity you might need to be proficient enough to follow what I have written here. . (Do not think of it as work .). Pick a basic comp, language become good at it and move on , keep notes too for yourself (unless your typing get tiresome for you .)
Apologies to any programmers may have offended , with this simplified version of reality of programming.
Just food for thought.

Then the first thing on your "To Do" list probably should be "Acquire Skills, Certificates, Degrees, and/or Licenses".

What skills have you learned in your dad's construction business? Do you have an aptitude for them. Many people make a decent living off from blue collar construction trades such as electrician, plumbing, construction, dry walls, roofing etc.

What skills do you need or already have to bring to the table , So to speak ?

If you work in construction and not into academic stuff, why not try and get as many machine licences as you can? A fork lift licence is pretty simple and you can get them for several types of forklifts and people always want forklift drivers, how about a cherry picker or why not both? You could alternatively do something like plastering, it's one of the easiest trades to get into and allows you to be your own boss to an extent.

I did not know this until about three or four years ago was that a profession that I went into was said that out of the best skilled staff to do the job, 80% were on the autistic spectrum, and I was asked if I was autistic by another work college from another store when we met. He was autiatic himself. (I did not know anything much about autism back then). The job? A bicycle mechanic.
Don't expect to earn much though.

Maybe your next step is education? You could try some online courses for free from places like Coursera just to try a few topics and fields to see if there is interest.

Is all math intimidating or just some. For example, geographic information systems (GIS) is mostly statistics and not necessarily complex statistics. User interface design (UX design) is programming without a lot of math--it is more design work. There is also design, but that field can be very competitive because the hard skills are not needed.

Go work on an IT service desk, you'll soon learn everything you need to learn.

Your CV is the most important thing in the working world. Go get one made for you from a professional if you need to get ahead.

IT is a good field to get into with all the corona stuff happening, turns out we're one of the most relied upon departments now haha.