How old is too old to not have a career yet?

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A career, as in the job you are going to be working at for the rest of your life, the job that is gonna make you a living, pay the bills, putting food on the table, being financially stable, because i'm 26, almost 27 and only making minimum-wage, no college degree, just a high school diploma, I had been going to community college on and off since I graduated high school but never finished, for a while never really knew what I wanted to do and still not entirely sure, lacked the motivation and ambition, still kinda do, wish I could find the motivation, other areas of my life have made it difficult for me focus and work hard on this area of my life in terms of working on my future, getting my life together, etc.

I would say mainly due to my lack of success with women(still haven't had a girlfriend yet) and not having the type of social life I've always desired, not having a group of extroverted friends, a large social circle, overall, difficulty in the social world and dating world has made it very difficult for me to focus on the academic and career-planning aspect of my life, I mention academic because it seems we are fed through by the media and constantly from other people that having a college degree or some type of college education, like even a certificate, is essential, imperative for getting a high paying job, or just a job that pays well above minimum-wage, but i'm not an expert on the qualification requirements, but anyway.

Am I the only one in this boat, situation, oldest? my gut feeling tells me i'm not but just wondering if anyone else can relate to what i'm going through or just used to go through what I am going through

Looking back to the time when I started working, I would say that 18 is too old to not have a job, while 25 is too old to not have a career.

But, thanks to a succession of world leaders who have presided over a complete destruction of the world economy, I might say now that there is no limit on the age at which an individual is too old for a career. ObamaCare alone has shifted the 40-hour work week to obsolesence. Every worker is now lucky to get two part-time jobs.

ya and it doesn't help that us guys(guys as in human males) are under way more pressure in this area of life than women are, it's annoying but it's the reality of life

I'm 32 and like six courses short of a psych degree with minors in bio and art therapy from a pretty decent university. Both my parents have advanced degrees and the expectation [even from myself] was that I would as well- not because it looks pretty on the wall but because a lot of the things I'd want to do would call for it.

But no, no pressure there ha

ETA: I might add that I first started going to school when I was twenty and either just screwed up, crazied out or my health failed numerous times before I could get my sh*t together enough to retake a bunch of stuff to get into this school. But now stalled because of health again so, who knows if I'll even finish?

well it's just that a lot of women, or maybe even most women, won't date a guy that lives with his parents past a certain age, not independent yet or self-sufficient yet, doesn't make a certain amount of income yet

I've dated a lot and never cared how much $ a guy made or whether he still lived at home, but, I'll admit, I didn't date guys who didn't work.

BUT, back to motivation as you mentioned in the above post, I didn't have the big group of friends until I started working in a more professional setting, like in a career. Now I've got loads of folks that I get on well with and occasionally travel with. I also met my husband through work.
If I knew then what working in a real career would do for my social life, I might have tried having one younger. When I worked restaurant and retail, etc, the only social life was sex, drugs and rock n roll, not my kind of scene (too many sensory and morality issues on my part lol).
I was always so sure I didn't fit in and had no confidence because of that, but, my work friends have made a world of difference in me in that regard.
My Mom thinks I'm a snob now, since I have so much contact with other people and next to none with my family, but, she was one of my worst critics growing up, always so disappointed that I wasn't a social butterfly like her and not 'girly' enough. She's still in the same type of working environment that I didn't fit into, with the same type of people around her. Those are not my tribe and life is too short to try to shoehorn myself into it.

Honestly?

30.

I say that with a bit of a caveat.

By 30, most people should already be working in their chosen career or towards it...showing some level of accomplishment towards their goal(s).

I say 30 because at that age, most all employers start expecting something more than just school attendance and dead-end jobs on your application. If you aren't working or building something by 30, they start to wonder what's wrong with you.

and life does undoubtedly get harder as you get older

I don't meet many OVER 40 who disagree with my observation. By 40, most people notice a definite change in how hard it's become to find a job compared to when they were younger.

Honestly?

30.

I say that with a bit of a caveat.

By 30, most people should already be working in their chosen career or towards it...showing some level of accomplishment towards their goal(s).

I say 30 because at that age, most all employers start expecting something more than just school attendance and dead-end jobs on your application. If you aren't working or building something by 30, they start to wonder what's wrong with you.}}}


I am 39 and will be 40 in June. I have 2 degrees BA in Accounting & MS in Finance -- I have nothing even resembling a career and practically unemployable except maybe a dead end job at McDonalds.. I messed up, due to poor work ethic from being bored, undiagnosed ADHD, anti depressants & anti anxiety meds that just made me either manic or nod off I got fired from practically every job many times for vague performance issues..

Of course I lie on my Resume but resume is still filled with Temp jobs and such... So basically what can I do?? I actually want to go into trades (where all the talking heads in the media and those in the industry complain about the shortage of people they have for open positions but at 39 it is too late, they will prefer to higher some high school kid with tattoo sleeves who is into football, getting drunk & hip hop...

You can't always believe the talking heads, they gloss over stuff.
For example, I see people spouting off about manufacturing jobs that can't be filled or construction jobs that can't be filled, but, what they don't say is those hard to fill jobs require both experience and education.
Most of the experienced people are complacent and don't want to get the education to move into the more advanced jobs, and most of the educated people just don't have the hands-on experience that would make them good at the roles.

(One example is my last company, we needed another mechanical engineer because ours was so overworked. Best thing would've been one of our mechanics to finish out school and take on the role, knowing the old systems inside and out, but, they weren't interested. Then we had a bunch of young guys just out of school... well, how could they possibly understand systems built when their parents were born? So, we had to repeatedly compete with other companies and the government to try to hire away an experienced engineer. After a couple of bad hires who couldn't remotely do the job, we ended up hiring a 60yo guy, and will try to sweet talk him into not retiring too soon.)

[opinion=mine]

25. By that time, a person should have either graduated from college, earned a license for a trade, served in the military, or established him/herself in a long-term labor position.

[/opinion]

Grandma Moses started her career when she was 70.

Phew! I made it before turning 30. And then, life is going to get really hard because of age discrimination and whatnot.
Hopefully people will keep on liking me for who I am.

Other than that, I don't really have an opinion on this. Most people with autism have trouble with serious mental diseases such as depression. I didn't have a "real" job before 27, and that was just a temporary position. Oh well. I'm really happy where I am now.

damn, geeze

all the pressure on us guys to be successful, geeze