Feel bad that I didn't start working at 16, 17 or 18

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I feel that since I've been in work, it has changed my mindset since the days when I wasn't in work, I feel great sometimes after I've been working as it seems like it gives you a sense of fulfilment, satisfaction and maybe even pride to be working, contributing to society, making a living and earning your own money but for some reason I seem to look back to maybe when was a teenager and think that I ''should'' have been working then despite the fact that at the time, I stayed in sixth form at 16 and 17 and left at 18 to do a art and design course at college and I was persuaded to do so perhaps because I had little idea as to what to do after school. Even during those studies, I wasn't in any job while I was doing that.

I seem to think I've learned and read about how working is very important especially in the days of when my parents and my grandparents were growing up. I read how people were probably proud of being trades people like carpenters, joiners, miners, working in the army and navy. I have a dad who has been a carpenter since he was 17 and he followed my granddad's trade. Both my granddads did those types of jobs, had experience in the navy and did national service. I did some work experience with my dad but his field of work didn't seem to interest me unlike it did for him when he was that age. I don't know if it is because we are living in a different world now where we have so much choice for people to choose what work they want to do whereas in days long gone by, for a young man, there was little choice unlike today, you either got an apprenticeship in a trade like carpentry, joinery, mining, joined the army or navy or nothing.

I didn't do some form of work until I was 21, when I did do some volunteering at a couple of charity shops, I remember I very nearly got a position in which I would be paid for some reason I didn't get the position and just stayed on as a volunteer until I left to go university. I wasn't in a paid job until I was 26 and I seem to feel as though I ''should'' have been a fully fledged working adult and have had more job experience by the age of 26, not starting at that age. Although I did a week work experience at Marks and Spencer Foodhall. I sometimes look at other people who are maybe younger than me and seem to think they work harder than I do and for some reason it makes me feel ''bad'' as though I wasn't working as hard as them in the early 20s.

Is there anything, anything at all, that you don't feel bad about?

Cool story, which I didn't read - tldr. I read the thread title, though.

So what? Are you going to waste the rest of your life feeling bad about this instead of just acknowledging that it's a thing that happened that maybe you'd have done differently if you could do it over again BUT you can't because it's in the past and doesn't deserve your present moment or energy ever ever EVER?

Move on and work today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life as long as you can/want to because there is sweet f**k all you can do about starting work at a younger age.

I did not start working until two years ago and I was let off from that one and back to looking for another.
I have similar thoughts, especially since the economy and country is going down the toilet even faster today.

no guilt, we all grow and change. Nobody is the same as when we were 5, 12, 15, 25 etc... everything in our lives is a learning and growing experience. No shame, no blame, be your best you right now, use what you have learned in the past to build your life better as you grow , our brains don't stop learning and changing all of our lives. We can use that!

I'm stuck in a p-*gags*

at 21 and I will never get a job. I should have gotten one at 19 because this place is torture for me and my family doesn't understand.