I floated around several different jobs. Never found anything I liked so I decided to move back in with my parents so I can do the last few things I need to change careers/apply for physical therapy school, and I’m older than you.

I don’t know if there’s any otherworldly insight to it other than I just really love exercise and training.

When I was working other jobs, I felt like two different people. I had my job that I honestly didn’t give a flying fuck about, had no motivation, made me depressed and just couldn’t force myself to be interested in. I had to pretend to care while surrounded by people who did care.

And when I was doing my physical training for the sports I love I was/am a completely different person- much happier and learning new things because I care.

On mental health: I think not being in a career adjacent to my passions really, really hurt me. It’s not like I’ve solved my depression but I can wake up now with something to look forward to, a path that I actually want to walk on.

It was passion that I had to build on but there was always an interest in exercise even before I can say I developed it into a passion. I was previously going to college for physical therapy, changed direction, but built my passion and now coming back to it, it all seems to make sense. Maybe there is something you have enjoyed in that past that you can return to build on?

And the big thing I can say is try not to get too down. This isn’t uncommon nowadays for people around our ages.

Don’t think of these years as wasted years, but learning years. I always felt like I was spinning my wheels and there’s a lot of truth in that. My parents always wondering what I was doing etc., is a terrible burden. But maybe in a way, I wasnt ready to go down that road since I hadn’t the passion for it yet, and the world didn’t make sense to my neurodivergent brain because I hadn’t learned Marxism yet, either.

And I suppose while we’re at it (to use Marxist terms), my experiences and internal contradictions weren’t strong enough yet that they’d need to resolve themselves by producing a new decision to go back to school.