Why bother when the odds are stacked up against you?

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I'm 23, my life is a mess, and I'm trying to figure out why continue living when the statistics are against me.

- Unemployment among adults with autism — most of them higher functioning than my brother — is common. An estimated 90 percent of adults with autism are unemployed or underemployed.

- There will be 500,000 adults on the autism spectrum aging into adulthood over the next 10 years. Yet a whopping 85% of college grads affected by autism are unemployed, compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.5%.

- The study published in the Lancet Psychiatry revealed a significantly higher rate of suicidal ideation among adults diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (66%), compared with the rate found in the general population (17%)

- According to a groundbreaking report published this year by Toronto's Redpath Centre, people with ASDs are disproportionately single compared with the rest of the population. Only 32.1 per cent of those surveyed indicated they ever had a partner, while 9 per cent stated they were currently married. In the general population, meanwhile, about half of all adults are married.

We need more of us to be willing to work together to build the autistic community and thereby, hopefully also, spark the creation of more autistic-friendly workplaces than now exist.

I am sorry you feel this way.

You cannot let yourself get focused on the statistics. You are more than a number in a very large, diverse data set. You have the power to beat the odds.

I would recommend getting yourself a therapist if you don't have one already. They can work with you on all of the things you mentioned below and more.

Best of luck to you.

The statistics are against you; so what? You can either make your own destiny or let some mindless statistics decide your future for you. Statistics say that I should be dead by now, yet here I am, beating the statistics. I’m not saying that you can also beat the statistics if only you try hard enough. I am saying that if you do nothing because you believe the statistics have defeated you, then think again — statistics are just numbers! So remember what the philosopher-writer Samuel Clemens once said

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

83% of all statistics are manupulated to say what the author of the report wants them to say.
The other 37% are just made up.

Autism has been around for thousands of years. Many have overcome and become extremely valuable members of society. In bygone generations they were known as non-conformist. They are people who have left the herd and plotted their own course. But you have to develop a pretty thick skin to become a non-conformist.

It seems like modern society has decided to deal with those individuals with a different brain structure by medication and trying to teach them social skills. In my opinion that is almost the exact opposite of the tools needed to transform a high functioning autistic or Aspie into a non-conformist. Our brains are different and drugs destroy our uniqueness. And non-conformist are generally not social creatures. As a matter of fact we chose to leave the herd and plot our own course in life.

Here are some quotes about non-conformist:

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Rob Siltanen: Apple, "Think Different" campaign

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. - Albert Einstein

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. - Voltaire

Not all those who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. - Winston Churchill

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A "normal" person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, "Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray." - Alan Sherman

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche

The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. - Colin Wilson

Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd. ― Marty Rubin

Because if you don't bother then you let the odds win without a fight. People win out over stacked decks all the time. But not if they give up. Trying anyways despite the odds is how people change what side of the odds they end up on.
If you look at a situation and go "well, 80% of people fail, so I wont bother", you just became part of that 80% by your own choice, even if you would have succeeded if you tried.

I've seen these statistics before and I'd real like to wrap my head around what is going on with the high unemployment rate. Please tell us your story and why you think your "life is a mess". On the bright side, you have plenty of time to turn that around.

In the face of confusion, overwhelm, disappointments and odds:
Be damned if I do, be damned if I don't.

If the outcomes the same simply because the odds said so whether one had to do it or not, what's the point of odds at all?


What's the point of despairing over it? What's the point of this perceived reality?
Why not skip the needless emotional process and jump at the opportunity, straight from point A to B guilt free?

Think this is where certain forms of emotional intelligence comes in.
One that involves getting the stats, the unnecessary beliefs and past circumstances out of one's head. And not let despair and depression of the ego's twisted messages to cloud one's judgment.

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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Hello autism boy. Welcome to Wrong Planet. You've already gotten a lot of good reasons posted. Stick around for a while and you'll find lots of people here with different experiences than the "norm."

I was 22 when i got my first real job. Three decades later I'm still learning practical stuff, like interacting with other drivers on the road. Though I no longer need a job now. I've paid off the mortgage and saved plenty for retirement in the time I've been working.

Because if one doesn't try stuff, they'll never get anywhere or anything, but if they do, they might. It'd be boring to live my days without trying to get anything done, without a goal, anyway.

I was 22 when I got my first paid job, although it wasn't the job I wanted but it made do at the time. I'm in a job I wanted. I guess I was lucky there.

I know a girl with Fragile-X who's 30 and hasn't found a job yet.