What's the point of living if you can't get a decent job?

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In a perfect world, that would be my ideal role.

Now if only you did not need to earn money to feed and clothe the kids.

Well....such drama.

I get where you're coming from.

Women lament that they don't have equality with men. I joke and say they should be glad they don't. Men have it different...not necessarily better. Men grow up with social expectations that really put the pressure on them to attain "success," and I speak from experience....it's very frustrating when it eludes you but seems to come easy for others.

Still....life is what you choose to make of it. The 1960's had a slogan like "tune in, turn on, drop out." Basically, people (AS and NT) need to "deprogram" themselves of the crap society shovels into your head as if it is all 100% true. Much of it is true, but when you live life trying to attain what you are told you should want, the more miserable you tend to be. So few ever actually get it, and many of them only get there to find out that it doesn't make them "happy."

I pursued the brass ring and was repeatedly denied the chance to prove I could be a success doing it. A college degree in two fields, a law degree, and I'm working as a secretary trying to find my calling (realized in my last semester of law school that I did not want to practice law). 9/11 happened right before I graduated...throwing the economy in a tailspin and any job I'm well-qualified for is few and far between with a lot of competition going for it. Hence, I'm stuck in a dead-end situation, but at least I have jobs security in who I work with. When this job evaporates, it WILL be bad for everyone, so I take some small comfort in that.

I accepted a few years back when I had my mid-life crisis at 30 that what I cared about was being "happy" and that my career had yet to provide me any happiness. A career might give my life a sharper sense of purpose, but I look at lots of people in dead-end and low paying jobs and realize it's not just me who is in this situation.

So, my advice to you is to find purpose for your life and realize you are not alone. So many think happiness is a goal, but it's really a choice. Contentment doesn't come from having enough....it comes from choosing to be content with what you have and realize that anything more is a blessing. If you can condition yourself to change how you look at the world around you, your disposition towards yourself and the world around you will change accordingly.

30 is Saturn's return

Midlife crisis occurs at 42 ish (Uranus half return)

I agree with the rest of your post.

Yup, I have a master's in one of those liberal arts fields (political science), but I refuse to accept that I can only do minimum wage jobs. Because I know many people with the same degree as me from the same school who have jobs making decent money. Yeah, maybe they don't make what an engineer makes, but they make plenty more than minimum wage. It's clear Aspergers is holding me back.

To me "midlife" is halfway through your expected life span.

In my family, I'm somewhat assured of 60 years. Anything more than that is gravy. When I hit 30, I realized I had live about half of my "healthy" lifespan and had nothing that mattered to show for it. That triggered the crisis.

I do like being unemployed, but the trouble is I need money coming from somewhere, and the job centre is constantly on my back the whole time, and sooner or later I will be thrown off the job-seekers money if I carry on making excuses for chosen suitable jobs all the time. You can't win with the government these days, and I'm not disabled enough to have incompacity benefits.

I just feel useless because whatever job there is out there, there is always something what I'm going to really struggle at, and I can't seem to find a job what will suit my needs and state of mind. I want a job that's 16-20 hours a week (full time work will drain me emotionally, not physically), easy to get to, not interacting with customers, and easy work where you don't have to have much knowledge (since I'm thick aswell as having AS).

I know what's putting me off. It's what I call ''object blindness''. When somebody asks me to pass them something right in front of me, this object disappears, and the more people say, ''it's right there!'' the more I don't see it. And I feel SO stupid. Yet when I'm working by myself and I want something, I see the object I want straight away.

At least we all want to do something with our lives. There's a type of people who do not and enjoy a life on benefits.



Joke may not be understood by those outside the UK.

To all the UK people,

Is there no shame in your country about being unemployed? I realize the UK isn't as individualistic as the US, but I still thought it was more so than continental Europe. Can't believe this is the country that elected Thatcher three times.

I mean, in the U.S., it is considered shameful unless you're physically disabled. I'm sorry, but I want to be a productive member of society. Yes, the world sucks. People suck. I don't deny that, but that's not an excuse for not working if given the opportunity. I've worked jobs before and did okay...I think I can do it again (and hopefully I can eventually get a job that pays enough to live on...I didn't spend six years at university for nothing).

In some sections of society not having a job is like a badge of honour and it's considered fun to go to the job centre and make them believe you are searching for work just so you can get benefits. In this group of people the benefits are often used to buy cigarettes, drugs, and alcoholic beverages. We would call them Chavs, in Scotland they are known as Neds. They are generally understood to be the underclass. This group of people will often engage in criminal activity and harass other people. The pic above is a group of such people.

For most normal people there is a great dishonour in not having a job, and many people will tend to assume that if you are not working or that you have a poor work history that you are lazy. I've never had a job and feel great shame. There's nothing I want more and the only thing holding me back is the Asperger's.



I wish I could think the same about my time in University and all the loans I will probably never be able to pay back which enabled me to go. But the reality is, if I cannot get a job, I cannot get a job. You're not owed a job because you went to University and got qualifications. Employers want the best person for a job, and the best person probably does not have Asperger's or any kind of disability. Disability discrimination laws mean naff all to most companies, who at the end of the day want the best person for the job who will make them the most money. It matters not that you might be the best person, all that matters is they think you might not be.

In fact, what most employers actually want are "yes-men"... they don't really care about the best person for the job who will make them the most money.

Over there, maybe. Over here, at least currently, it seems to be more like the second part of what you said:

(The lucky ones end up selling cell phones, computer parts, TVs or home alarm systems, it seems)

be optimistic, confident & persistent~
you'll get there

I would call them a brown noser Brown nosing is also something Aspies struggle with.

I guess you're right though. Employers generally do not want thinkers, they want followers so they can get all the credit for their amazing ideas. No wonder so many business go under in hard economic times.



Yes I will be president of America one day! Point being unrealistic expectations (optimism) are a waste of time.

The best thing is to just start working. I have a semi-decent job- making about 60K a year. Of course I live somewhere with a high cost of living, so I barely survive on that. To get there though, I had to do my share of horrible jobs- I had to work for nine years in a variety of menial jobs until I found something decent. I worked in succession- handing out flyers on the street, in a Mcdonalds, as a hotel bellhop, in a cable harness factory, as a night watchman, as a night security guard, a job in an electronics factory putting printers in boxes, as a street vendor of pretzels and snow cones, again as a night security guard, as an errand boy in a typesetting company, working as an arrand boy in a printing company, working in a curtain warehouse, taking customer complaints on the phone for Sears, and finally advacement to a job as a computer operator, which sucked, but for the first time in my life I wasn't totally at the bottom of the occupational ladder.
I'm not counting other shorter-term jobs, such as the three jobs I had where I was fired after a single day- as a hot dog vendor in New York City, as a gas station attendant, and as a bicycle messenger. Even worse, when I took a job in a car wash, I was fired after only 3 hours.
From these nine years of bad jobs I took away with me an abiding contempt for the working classes which has never left me. Working in these low-paying jobs, I was surrounded by mostly young men who were often all too often bullies, slugs, racists etc. I don't feel bad about the disappearance of construction and factory jobs. We're in a high technology society now. There aren't any more well-paid jobs for guys who spent their teenage years pushing smaller kids into school lockers and snickering at the kids who got good grades. Life is unfair, I guess.

@RossMC - if I could only get just *ONE* of those jobs I'd be well pleased. I would take any one of your "crap" jobs without a second thought. Every time I go to an interview, whatever the job is, I am rejected due to my Asperger's. I know the current economic situation on the planet isn't great, but either way I suspect I have it more difficult than you in terms of appearing "normal" to interviewers.