As a young American, how do I motivate myself to work? It feels like the entire system is a scam and it's pointless to even try.

I enjoy eating and air conditioning. Gotta work for it.

I feel you, but you need to remember that the world is generally a pretty chaotic place and predicting the future when complex systems pass tipping points and transition to new equilibria (as they are at the moment) is pretty difficult.

Invest in yourself, your ability to cope with new and unfamiliar things, and build resilience. Resilience being the ability to bounce forward when you hit rocky patches. Don't expect to bounce back and end up where you left off, but learn to adjust to the chaos where you need to.

Develop your capabilities until you have a sense of being a competent, worthwhile and dependable person outside of the circus going on around us. Someone that isn't quite so dependent on the big bad system we are often forced to be part of.

I work because I enjoy healthcare, food, and shelter. The system has always been rigged, so you just have to find something you enjoy (or can tolerate doing). Ideally try to think about things that make you happy and can pay you, and maybe try doing something in that field.

When I go on vacation to tropical states there are always some overly tanned boat captains that just drive drunk tourists around and get paid decently well for it. I always think about those guys when I'm having a hard day at work, "man, they sure figured it out"

I feel the same. I found a way to leave the country. Will be leaving in the new year. I have kids and I can't have them growing up here anymore. Time to try something new.

Get a pet.

There. Now go to work or it dies.

Consider this practice for children.

If I don't work I become homeless and starve to death. I do the minimum to keep my job and fuck the rest.

It probably helps in one way and harms in another to say: it feels that way because it is that way.

It's at least nice to know you're onto something. You're seeing what's there. Your head is screwed on straight! Yay!

The situation still sucks, but a partial victory is a partial victory.

Life gets worse when you dont work hard.

It doesn't always get better when you do work, but it can always get worse.

I have no answer for you. Really, there is no point. Hopefully enough people give up on the system that it crashes and we can start over.

I get the sense from your wording that you might be in the younger end of the spectrum. Although the world can feel pretty shitty and messed up, it's often worth remembering "this too shall pass". Obviously no one wants the world to be awful, and living through hard times isn't desirable, but just like the good stuff never lasts, the bad stuff changes too. The Great Depression lasted a decade, the Nazis ran Germany for just a bit longer.

Those were presumably fucking dreadful times to live through. But the decades that followed were comparatively prosperous for the countries. What's happening in the US is depressing as all hell, but it'll change, and all you can do is the best you can to make it less dreadful, for yourself and the people around you.

Log out of social media, go outside, interact with real people. Life is not remotely as bad as all that, it just seems that way because social media has told you to be scared. Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.

I mean, work is always a shit deal, trading life for money but you need money for life also including retirement which is a lot less guaranteed for millenials and younger.

I'd recommend learning a trade like electrician or plumbing. You get fat stacks and control your own time. It takes a bit of time to learn but the work you do will never be a scam since it's you working for an average person and yourself.

Yeah I've got absolutely nothing for ya. Nothing works, you'll never get ahead and it's worse now than when I was your age.

TL; DR Get in on the scam.

Pick something you like to do, or have a talent for, and plan a path to make money from it. You may still have to work for someone else initially, to develop skills and get experience, but it will be better than doing a shit job only for money.

Research what resources there are to support your startup. Even in places where there is no help from government or anything else for individuals, you will find they want to support business.

Especially if you have extra challenges, if you get good, they will make a narrative around your success and promote you as an example.

You don't. That's what the homeless people are for.

But, it's not impossible to move up. When oil crashed in March 2020, several companies' stock, which you can purchase on Robin Hood or any app-based exchange, were down to pennies. Those shares are now trading for $15-$25 dollars, so even if you bought a small amount, you made a tidy profit. It's how I paid off my student loans.

Trump, in his largesse and incompetence, is likely to inadvertently cause a market crash somewhere in the next four years, so I'd encourage you to save at least a few bucks if you can from each check against the possibility of being able to buy stock super-cheap in the wake of a crash. If you have the patience to hold your stock for a year or two, it's rewarding.

If I want things, I need money and the only way to get money without practically committing any financial crime that there is, it's to work for it. Quite frankly, it's unhealthy to be bathing yourself with this mentality of dreading the reality of the matter. I won't disagree that it sucks, but there has to be other directions out there for you than just that.

But I do suspect the reason you're feeling this way is because of you mentioning disabilities and I can't imagine the kind of world you're in where, it seems like there's a layer of disrespect towards the disabled when it comes to work.

Maybe try to find a small business you care about or interests you? I own a small business. It's me, my wife, my sister-in-law and two friends I made in the industry. We all get paid $16/hr. We got to create the environment we wanted to work in. Its a lot of work but we're happy and feel more free than we would elsewhere.

I know I'm coming from a point of privilege writing this but I like to think we're all on equal footing at my place and we're doing our best to grow together rather than making me rich. I've worked for a lot of small businesses as well and they often have more respect for skills and individuals - not all - but a lot. If you find a place you like or even love it can become like a second home.

Capitalist Wage-Labor is a scam. Surplus value comes from labor. Labor is a commodity just like anything else on the market, but the price of labor itself is tied to general subsistence plus replacement, it isn't tied to how much value is created. Differences in wages come from various factors but regulate around cost to replace, ie training requires a lot of time, so this is represented by higher wages.

Instead, we should be advocating for public ownership, so that the people get the spoils of their labor, and can pay into a general fund of sorts to provide safety nets, infrastructure, and more that don't rely on the profit motive. In other words, we should transition to Socialism.

I recommend you read theory. I wrote an introductory reading list for Marxism if that appeals to you or anyone else.

you unironically just have to cope with it in whatever way makes sense to you

I personally think of my career as: "some things I do are interesting and keep me from blowing my brains out, the rest I don't care about"

when it comes to the company I work for: I treat everyone I meet well, no corporate bs, no yes sir yes ma'am. I do whatever I'm assigned and meet deadlines

but I never go above and beyond (because of burnout)

everything you've thought about hard work = reward or better pay is a scam

put everything into work-life balance and when you go home focus on things you really want to do, such as hobbies or hang outs

don't do unpaid overtime, don't bend over for anyone, don't offer yourself up when shit goes down

you want to be as invisible as possible while not burning out AND not working your ass off (everyone has different standards for what this means)

tldr: just find some way to cope because there isn't really anything else you can do

For a while there I was a homeless alcoholic. Now I'm an alcoholic. Given the choice between the two I know which I'd rather.

The amounts of copium in this thread are extinction-level.

Everything you just said is 100% valid and you are simply correct.

The thing is, it's not a measure of a healthy mind to thrive in a profoundly sick society where the worst of the worst have won long ago.

There's this thing called depressive realism which posits that depressed people, by and large, perceive reality much closer to how it really is than neurotypical people.

Essentially, "normal" people have an (innate or learned) positivity bias. Which is usually a good thing. People like us are the outliers.

But positivity bias in a world where it's actually harmful is another thing. The majority of people are walking headlong into their own extinction while going "Ehh, it's not so bad", while we should ALL be positively irate and picketing the homes (not companies) of our owner class 24/7.

But it hasn't happened yet and at this point I don't know how bad things need to get before people realize what's going on.

It is a scam, but we need to eat and have a roof over our heads. So you have to find something that you can tolerate and try to get paid as much as you can for as little time as you can give. This is the game we are in. Unfortunately in the current system money talks, it is not fair but that is how it is.

If you can swing the training, even at the CNA or EMT level, there is healthcare. Purposeful work. Knowledge that helps your daily, and is never entirely useless. If nothing else it will save you from spurious trips to the urgent care or emergency room, or tell you when to use the urgent care instead of the emergency room, and save you money there. Even before ACA there were shortages. There’s potential here for fallout as with everything else, but if hospitals can retain nonprofit status I don’t see much changing in terms of need.

For now anyway, until nonprofit status/benefits get yanked, hospitals pay part of education upgrades. They typically offer better health insurance too, if you stay in their corporate system and don’t have kids.

I’m sure there’s other purposeful professions that don’t have an impossible buyin.

I usually recommend trades. Building something with your hands, again with a skill set that carries over into your household, has purpose. But with immigration policy, a sizeable piece of the grunt work force may be kicked out, so I’m not sure what will happen there but I suspect house building will slow down.

Get offline, and simplify. Start doing things that are good for you. There is yet joy to come.

Honestly, it sounds like you've been spending too much time in some online communities that are doom posting about everything. Do things suck right now? Yes, but they've literally sucked for as long as human society has existed. Things can always be better, or always be worse. However you can't just sit around passively waiting for the times to change, or your life will suck.

The single biggest factor in whether your life is good or not is you and your actions. Don't let things outside of your control convince you to give up. Do the best with what you have, and I promise you that you can find fulfillment and happiness in the life available to you.

You are not wrong. It’s a very unfair world we have build. And a lot of people are struggling even though there are plenty of resources to make sure every single person on earth could have their needs met and the opportunity to live a meaningful life.

BUT we have to dare to hope. Because otherwise we just give up and the people on top is counting on that. ”We have the power and there is nothing you can do about that”. I think David Graeber is one of the most hopeful people to read:

“Hope is a tricky business among intellectuals and activists. Cynicism, though it’s often inaccurate about both human nature and political possibilities, gives the appearance of sophistication; despair is often seen as sophisticated and worldly-wise while hopefulness is seen as naive, when the opposite is not infrequently true. Hope is risky; you can lose, and you often do, but the records show that if you try, sometimes you win.

His essay Despair Fatigue opens: “Is it possible to become bored with hopelessness?”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/07/david-graeber-optimistic-anarchist-rebecca-solnit

TL;DR: The following is going to be dark and harsh but it all comes down to one thing. Life doesn't get better, you get better at dealing with shit. Hang in there.

---

You need to disconnect and find a way to focus on you.

It feels like the entire system is a scam and it's pointless to even try.

It has always been a game where the only way to win is to cheat. Always.

It feels all but certain that I won't be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire.

The system is not setup with rest (retirement) as its main goal. The system is setup for you to play until you die. Even if you hoard more money than you and your descendants could possibly spend in a hundred years, you would likely still want to play, because you are winning. If your end goal is mere prosperity and retirement, then you should prepare to be under the boot and a slave until you die.

All of the wealth is going straight to the top.

Always has been the case. It hasn't stopped people from finding a way.

All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled.

This has always been the case. You have to make your own opportunities and expect others to drag you down. We are all crabs in a bucket.

All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet.

Fantasy. These things has never existed in this country. At best, FDR gave us a yoga mat to land on when we fall off a cliff, where before it was a bed of nails. Fall hard enough in this country and you will get wrecked no matter what. It has always been that way.

We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.

Same as it ever was.

Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won't be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn't exist already.

Take a breath. Here is a truth that will sound harsh but it is meant as a kindness. You do not matter. Just about nobody knows you exist. Nobody is coming to get you. This fact applies to almost everyone.

Since all we can do is live the life we perceive with the meat in our skull, we tend to see ourselves as the main character in the story of life. We're not. We barely qualify for NPC status.

I myself have disabilities (which I don't think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job.

That's a problem, I am sorry. All problems have a solution, but one unlikely to be found here, with Internet strangers.

The problem is that I just can't bring myself to do it because I don't get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.

Again. Breathe homie. That's not going to happen.

Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it?

100%...often. I have lived with chronic, sometimes crippling, depression and fairly severe PTSD since 1989. Long story short, a lot of trauma broke my brain. Combo that with ADHD, borderline personality disorder, heart disease and cancer, and we are living the life baby! Still, I have been able survive and rise from poverty to wealth without hurting too many people...I hope.

If so, what snapped you out of it?

Nothing did. I just kept getting up out of spite and contempt for this life. As time went on, i got used to it. The bullshit bothered me less until it just became background noise. A nuisance from time to time.

I'd say qualitatively and quantitatively, this system is a scam. I get up and deliver by getting myself into interesting shit that matters no matter who's writing the check (excluding Raytheon or any of those other psycho motherfuckers).

Energy security is important, particularity environmentally compatible forms.

Medical services that don't bankrupt people are important.

Making processes easier is important even it comes to reducing/eliminating waste.

Even the seemingly mundane 'basic research' has a lot of interesting caveats buried below the surface.

Find what interests you in this one life you have, do the work to get there, make friends with people who want you to get there (and help them too).

Good luck, fuck capitalism.

Get a STEM degree and move to a country that respects its citizens.

I hated the idea for the longest time. Then I realized a few things. I changed my outlook of working a hopeless job to a job being a tool for me to get the money I need to live a better life. I also accepted that life isn't fair and that not all the work I put in will equal the output. It feels like you have to do the work of 10 men to get anywhere. I accepted that and I put myself to work.

Sometimes you just have to get lucky and sometimes you have to grow. I worked many temp jobs and fast food restaurants until figured stuff out and landed a couple decent jobs. I started being able to hold a job for 1 year and then 2 years. I got lucky and found a temp job that decided to hire everyone perm. The catch was they waited to see who would sink or float. I floated. I wouldn't have floated if I hadn't had previous life experience.

Look at a job as an avenue or tool to achieve your goals. If you don't have any goals then just pick something. It could be as simple as you want to save up for something nice. Start small and pick bigger goals as you achieve them. And going back to the job as a tool thing, if you don't like the tool then get a new one. You wouldn't use a broken tool to fix something. Sometimes you have a bucket of random tools and you have to pull out a couple before you find the right or that isn't broken. Whatever to you pick, just try and keep trying. As long as you keep trying, you'll figure it out.

I would also add to try to improve yourself along the way. Whether it be working on self esteem, how to write a resume, interviewing skills, how to cook, how to improve your finances, how to fix a car, work on a computer..... Just work on something. You'll only help yourself and learn transferable skills along the way.

Brother you need some help. The rate of decay is slow and steady and almost imperceptible to a normal lifetime. Finding a job may actually help. Now’s your chance to get in where you fit in. Love games? Get a job at local games store. Like animals? Go apply at a zoo. Find people that you can relate to. Good luck man. You can do it.

I know it's easier said than done, but try to find work that actually helps your community, but that you also find fulfilling - child, elderly, and or disabled care, working for a charity doing anything from fundraising to cooking to IT, working in a community centre or library, coaching, teaching, handy-work, gardening, and on and on. The pay may not be as high as it is other places, but at least you'll know that you're contributing to your community in a positive way.

Bonus points if the place you work is a non-profit, unionised, a co-op, or generally outside of the existing establishment (E: so not part of the state or a large corporation) - building dual power is imperative to changing society, we need communal structures and networks to fall back on once this shit collapses. You can be part of that.

Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!

E: while we're here, Mutual Aid

A mentor once gave me an exercise to identify my "core values" or goals or motivators. Out of a list of 60, the task was to narrow down over time and conversation to my top 5.

E.g., I value financial stability. Not to be confused with other values of earning high compensation or achieving lofty corporate positions and recognition.

It helped me frame for myself that I'm going to work to be comfortable and stable and beyond that, my motivations lie elsewhere, like spending time with friends and working on personal projects. There are people who put greater value on achieving a high salary or earning the c-suite title or having their names on patents; that's perfectly valid and great for them, it's not me and that is also ok.

There are tons of similar exercises online. If it sounds like something that might help you define your perspective on work differently, to narrow it down to you instead of getting overwhelmed with the whole world's problems, please look into it and good luck.

My kids work because they want money.

It is hard to find a job, even harder to get by without one; I do have some friends who have never been employed exactly, only hustling, working for themselves, with varying results. It's possible but not probable.

I'm really sorry you are hurting so bad but we can use every sane person, if we give up things just get worse.

Editing to add: Two things can be true at once - the system is designed to funnel money to people who don't need it and keep most of us struggling. It's baked in, yes. But it's also true that your own life is yours to live, and your own actions and thoughts what you have the most control of, and that you can make changes that improve your life.

lots of denial, nicotine, and THC

not a fix but will definitely smooth some of the rough edges out a tiny bit

if all else fails my grandfather says to run in circles screaming and shouting

I don't have any good advice for you. My company held an all-hands call today during which the CEO said "Now that the election is behind us we can look forward to political stability", among other equally insane things. You could say I'm feeling pretty down about the whole situation as well.

I feel ya brother. I’m 41 and wondering why the hell im even saving for retirement. I’ll be dead before I’ll ever be able to

If you're still young and not too much in debt, try to work some fun jobs, like outdoor educator, youth hostels, ski mountain, or whatever floats your boat. Travel around. You don't have to try to make it in the world right away

Lots of pessimism in USA right now, huh?

I think this is quite common for half of USA to feel this way when the other party wins the election. This is due to electoral system you have, which has very a side effect of very strong negative campaign. So if you believe one party whole wold will go to hell if the other party wins.

But the world will not go to hell. In my probably less affected opinion nothing this bad will happen:

1. Although Trump had some tendencies to overthrow the voting system, such tendencies are usually gone when people win the election.
2. No one will start concentration camps
3. Trump is very bad at keeping his promises (where it the famous wall?)
4. No one will prosecute others just for what they were voting. It is impossible to know who voted what. Also why would Trump want to start internal war? There is no support for such war. Etc. Etc. So no. The worst case scenario is not possible. Your system has way to many safety mechanism for whole country or world would go to hell. And a lot of people who voted for Trump are not that extreme. So there is no support for the most extreme policies.

About the work though. Under any government positive or negative changes are quite slow to implement. In many countries there is a housing crisis. And even if in my country government is bound to fix this issue it will take 10 or more years to fix it. So my generation will have to find a place to live somewhere in current market conditions.

So in any case it is very bad strategy to hope for the government to fix your personal issues like your housing, your salary, your job, your dating, your happiness. On those you have to work by yourself. And I can assure you the difference you can make on your life is enormous.

To fill you with some optimism you can try to write a list on what you life would look like if you really try to improve it. And yes of course live the politics out of it and focus only on your life and changes you can affect.

For my personal escape it made the most difference to become more optimistic:

1. By practicing gratitude
2. By always trying to look on the bright side of thing. I believe those things make the most difference. Because imo happiness comes from thinking you have awesome life.

Edit: Why the down votes?

To generalize the answer a bit, if for no other goal, than make the goal to move to a country that better aligns with your beliefs and that you feel rewards you properly for your work. Make incremental steps to achieving that (what exactly the list looks like depends upon the person's current state and where they want to go) and make marking each one off a goal and motivation.

In the end, it comes down to "what do you want?"

Recognize nobody is going to just hand it to you. So whatever it is that you want, you have to work for it.

Stick a photo on your monitor if you have to. My desktop is a photo of my house to remind me of the mortgage payment.

Try to find a job you enjoy from 9-5. That means focusing on activities you enjoy that are the main activity of said job. I worked in a pet store because it afforded me 30% of my time playing with puppies, even though the remaining 70% was cleaning puppy shit and stocking goods. I now work as a therapist because I spend 70% of my time talking to people about their problems (which I enjoy), and 30% doing paperwork and correspondence. Make your job something you enjoy most of them time and it gets much easier. Then, you retire and collect Social Security. As long as you’ve worked for most of your life, that’ll be a decent retirement. You’ll have to live frugally, but it’ll be livable.

Also, if you can manage it, invest $10,000 as early as you can in a stock market index fund and pay for a fund manager. By the time you retire, that will provide you with a substantial cushion to rest on.

america is a capitalist country, or so i read and heard. money should be the motivator here.

and i also see your point. the general trend of money is to move upward. your fighting chance is to get the money to stay longer in your hands for you to benefit before it gets sucked up.

all i can say here is don't stay too much on the bigger things. more likely, you will not have control for any of those. focus on the smaller things you can change on the dailies.

If it is the election results that are making me feel this way. I try to be optimistic even about that. I imagine what if the party I did not vote for, manages to do the good things they promised. In USA example would it not be awesome if Trump actually manages to end some wars (in at least somehow fair way)?