Any other aspies have no modivation to get ahead?

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I have a good job, I live with my mom in my own Apt. in the basement because she had a stroke and needs my help.

My friends and other family members say I should try and move ahead in my job, and think about getting my own place. I have lived on my own before.

I'm happy where I am with my job. No desire to get more training and its secure. I have no desire to get my own place, too much hassle and I'm happy here.

Anyone else feel like they have no modivation like me? When I was younger I was like this, too. Just happy being where I was, doing what I was doing. I never had a desire to get ahead, move up, ect.. I always been happy and content with who I am.

depends on the situation. I have gotten to the top of my 'field' (subfield). There are 2 avenues out of it, but one leads to foreign countries (they supply labor cheaper than I can compete), the other to management (no job security, plus management is the art of motivating, reading, and controlling people).

So I'm more 'stuck' than not motivated. I'm taking every online course I can sign up for..

ambition and motivation are relative so why worry about something like this as the inward compulsions to either are not normal if you can overlook the use of that word.

If you don't mind being the one who looks after mum, then why change. Who would look after your mother if you left? What are their ideas about that?

I think they're trying to impose NT standards on you when basically aspies can't meet 'peer' development, that's the nature of the condition. Not many of us 'get ahead' at work, or establish our own families, that's how the disability often plays out. It's probably a subtle kind of 'put down' on their part.

Yep me, no motivation and never had any.

In almost all of my previous jobs I hated them so had no ambition to move on, even if it was for a bit more money as I knew I didn't want to make a career out of them.

But now I have a job I enjoy and am working in the industry I want to stay in for the rest of my working life I was motivated... until I found out about this AS stuff.

The next logical options for more are either being a Supervisor or Instructor but both involve a lot of multi-tasking and talking to big groups of people on a regular basis so, with my AS, I'm not sure what to do now...

I used to be good at Business Studies at College, even though it bored me stupid, so maybe that's the route I'll take but stay in the same industry. That way I could possibly get my own office = no distractions, and be on my own for most of the time which wouldn't highlight my lack of social skills.

Either that or just find a quiet corner to go cry in... as long as I'm happy with my job and can pay the bills I don't care if it's not impressive, some guys seem to use their jobs as a way of showing off = male macheesmo.

I think it would be good to be independent, so maybe you should aim for more money so you can get your own place, just so that you're on the property ladder - your mum could always move in with you or you could just rent it out, that way it would pay for itself.

Either way, don't judge yourself or let others judge you because you live with your mum, etc.

Take care mate

I believe it is not so black and white. Because I usually feel relatively happy where I am, doing what I am doing. Heck, if I can even manage to become fully aware of just exactly what it is that I'm doing, I am doing quite well

Yet, I am still somewhat driven to improve my situation. I am not content. I still have wants and needs that are not being met, regardless of of how zen-contemplative I may be about the present moment. It has been difficult for me to stay in a mental place of happy benevolent indifference when I've had any number of people trying to pull me out of it, saying that it wasn't OK to feel that way. I've had others tell me that I can't be happy where I am and be motivated to change it at the same time. They are confused, and think it is a paradox. I see is as nothing complicated. I always try to stay aware in the present moment, as happy with existence as I can be. But I still have a life of my own to define and live out. I am still motivated to make it a good one, hopefully.

As I posted elsewhere: No dreams, no goals = no dissappointments.
I've never had any aspirations to do anything or "become" anything, ever.
Actually, I assumed I'd have died a long time ago so I'm still just a-waitin'.

Meh. This notion of "getting ahead in life" isn’t a good motivator for everyone. It's something society tries to shove down our throat. So called "social status" means jack s**t to me. What matters is being comfortable, having some hobbies I can enjoy, and trying to help other's live happier and suffer less. The rest is, well, pretty pointless IMO (unless, of course, making tons of money is your natural aspiration and hobby).

Last edited by marshall on 27 Dec 2008, 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you! I couldn't have put it better.

I think that 'not caring if one gets ahead' could have something to do with our not seeing the need for something as superficial and absurd as a 'social heirarchy' or not having the same need for social validation as NT's.

It appears that the one upmanship practiced by the "new rich" is a way of saying "look at me, I'm not a working class loser anymore like when I was a kid, I'm WORTHY!" In every instance where large numbers of formerly poor people became rich, outsize consumption has ruled. The nobles of Europe tend to be rather frugal, they don't have anything to prove. American wealthy have always felt the need to consume as a way of establishing social status.

That has filtered down, so that the middle class buy "faux luxury" and the working class buy formerly middle class items. Time was when driving a Cadillac meant you were rich. Now it's a ghetto accessory, driven by drug dealers. The middle class drives Lexus, the lower tier rich drives Mercedes, and the really rich drive Rolls and Bentley, cars once reserved for old world nobles. Even Honda and Toyota have found the need to put leather seats in their cars. You can buy a Camry in leather.

What this means for aspies, since we don't care about consumption as a way of establishing social status, is that we get left out. People think we're weird because we don't strut like peacocks. Some people even think there's something horribly wrong with us. It always seems to be the upper middle class trying to "cure" their kids, as if the world will end if Johnny is a mechanic instead of a hedge fund manager. Autism becomes the baby stealer, it takes your hedge fund manager and replaces him with a McDonald's manager.

People have lost perspective, not every kid can run a hedge fund, nor does he want to, but parents seem desperate to have fabulously wealthy kids, and if autism stands in the way autism must be destroyed. We have "warrior mothers" bravely slaying the autism monster and getting their "real kid" out of its clutches. The idiocy of it all doesn't seem to sink in.

Society has gotten so crazy that the aspies actually look sane. We don't care about spending till we drop, we don't want status items or to be on The A List, we don't replace our cars every three years, we don't have $9,000 showers and flat screen TV in the bathroom and a Mercedes SUV for our teenager. We actually live a lifestyle that doesn't look that bad, compared to the consumption escalator. It seems that the saner we look, the more upper middle class NTs want to destroy us. Maybe it's because we prove their world is built on faulty assumptions.

I'm not sure if it is a Asspergers , AD(H)D, LD and or any non NT tait to lack ambition/movitation. However in my case I am not very movatied to secuede. I grow up in what I would call an upper middle family. We were at the very least pretty well offf. We had nice things. A four bedroom house in the suburbs. Cable TV. In the living space and in the bedrooms. My parents each had there own car and they might not have been top of the line cars but they wern't s-buckets either. My brother and I also shared a car till he moved out. It was closer to being a s-bucket. I never had to wory about food, cloths and shelter. Growing up my life was misrabile. being a logical person it acured to me at a young age that it would not get better through wealth. Like I said I came from a family siuation that was ficinacily secure. So no I don't have a drive to get ahead, but I think it has a lot to do with conditioning.

I definately have no motivation whatsoever, which is hat makes me largly depressed right now.