I fucking hate life
Title. I come from a very low income and immigrant background. Parents are basically illiterate, brother was a meth addict. As emotionally abusive and sometimes physically of an environment as it gets.
I NEVER used to play the victim. I always believed in not falling to my circumstances but I can’t take it with the internal pressure I have on myself, people on WSO and my prestigious school ingraining me into not thinking that I’m good enough or smart enough.
I take everything at face value because I’m a honest guy and my mom raised me that way, but mannnn I can’t with this bullshit find the inner strength to push myself forward when everyone else around me is so nonchalantly confident and I’m a total wreck.
Been in your shoes before (and still am to a certain degree). You're going to have to focus heavily on getting a job and not comparing yourself to your peers. Everybody starts off at different starting points which seems unfair or rigged. But that thinking just damages you. You need to ignore what people will think and focus on being the best version of you. Ultimately finance is a marathon and not a sprint, so the key is not to get so unsettled that you burn yourself out (which I have done).Second part is definitely finding a job and living on your own and not being dependent/influenced by family. They'll always hold you back and there's no changing them. It's best you look out for yourself and sow the seeds for your own happy and prosperous life.
PM if you want to discuss in further detail
PMing you rn
420
So to recap: You're coming from a rougher background than your now current peers at your prestigious school. You compare yourself to them and have come to the conclusion that you're not good enough or smart enough. You take their perceived outward facing confidence and compare it to your internal headcase, which exacerbates the problem. You internalize that pressure to the point where it is debilitating.
The issues you're dealing with all come from comparison, but specifically, your thinking that everyone else but you has it figured out. I highly doubt that is the case. The issue with deriving self-worth by comparing yourself to others is that there is no end. There is always someone out there better, smarter, richer, taller, better looking, funnier, etc. etc. etc.
While this suggestion is very much a psychological band-aid on a mindset RPG wound: if you can't get away from comparison dragging you down, adjust who you're comparing yourself to. Where would you be if you had gone down a different path in your life? You probably don't need to look far to find those examples. Or alternatively, think about all the kids with idyllic upbringings who aren't even close to where you are at.
You should be walking into your class, or your school clubs, or your internships with double middle fingers up, just laughing at the fact that you, as a low income first gen, have achieved to the point where your sitting at the same table.
Harness that chip on your shoulder but don't be afraid to drop it after a while. You're here now. Leave the pity party behind.
Trust me, there are far more of us that are faking it or putting up a good front than you might think, ala "nonchalant confidence." The vast majority of us don't have our shit as together as we make it seem. It is a constant battle to not let things trigger you, a constant fight to not dwell on the bumps in the road that we hit and anticipate more problems and not spiral into hesitation, over-analyzing, negativity, fear, anxiety, depression, etc.
I say this as someone over age 50 and the sooner and younger that you place certain mindsets in your rear view, the better off you will be.Comparing yourself to others is a mistake, you don't know what's on someone else's plate, even if/when they might share their dramas almost no one shares or shows all that they're contending with, even to friends and family. Long before social media, people tried to filter what and how people saw them, and today with social media, there are now literal filters to make us appear "better" than we are.Years ago I had a yoga instructor or dance instructor who said that we should never compare ourselves to others in class, that we need to compare ourselves to our own selves in our various practices and routines and realize that our form will be better some days than others.It seemed like a really simplistic comment, but it was a mini-epiphany for me. There are indeed days when my balance is for shit and I can barely do a tree pose (standing on one leg and placing the sole of your foot on your inner thigh) for 10 seconds and then there are days I can hold it for over a minute.Compete with yourself, compete with your own personal best, raise your own personal benchmark within yourself and fuck that '"but other people seem so much more together..." noise, it leads to nothing good and it's a futile waste of your time and mental bandwidth.
to preface, i don't work in finance, i just lurk nowadays ever since i graduated. but i wanted to comment because i come from a similar background as well, and my life still turned out fine. wealth is worth a lot, but it's not everything; only a good life is everything. prestige is fairly worthless. the world is a big place out there and life is as short as it is long, so make every moment have meaning. with that said...
i really despise the sociopathic belief that people telling their stories is "playing the victim." that is a gaslighting response. and WSO loves to litter that belief everywhere on here.
it is okay to tell your background to others. it is YOUR story, it's your life, there's no other way you could tell your life story. when people come from an unfortunate background, and they tell their stories, that's not "playing the victim" -- it's, quite literally, just telling their stories and setting the context for their situation in whatever comment is being made. difficult backgrounds are tough to talk about, by nature of being difficult backgrounds.
do you want to do better for yourself? are you trying to find the information you need to do better for yourself? -- this one is tautologically true because you're already here asking questions for information so you can make your next decisions. you cannot make a decision without information or knowledge. are you taking the steps to do better?
if you are underway in taking action to better your situation or to problem-solve a situation, then it is impossible for you to be "playing the victim." -- and yes, that includes just venting, because venting helps you calibrate your emotions and mental state to get you back on track, so long as you have long-term intention to take the steps to move forward.
THINGS TAKE TIME.
you are NOT a failure.
there is no agreed-upon hail mary or magic bullet for people to get themselves out of unfortunate circumstances because THINGS TAKE TIME.
i wish i could force everyone struggling who visits this forum to really read my message because it's the truth, and it's frankly the most logical way of thinking about life obstacles. i've wasted so much time untangling all of the bad anxiety developed because of the BS people on this discussion board relentlessly spewed and i hope you, any struggling person, and any young adult on this forum can really find something to take away from my message.
as long as you are constantly focused on doing your best every day, on staying on track with your goals, and not making irrational decisions, you will be okay. i promise. you don't need to be uber wealthy to live a precious, honorable, dignified, GREAT life. do not ever listen to what anyone has to say otherwise, on this discussion board or elsewhere.
there will be many people who will be intent on denigrating you and tearing you down to convince you of the contrary to what i've just communicated. but think carefully -- would you want to be someone wealthy yet rotten like that? are you confident that would make you live a good life?
for perspective, most people don't even know what to do with all of their money. they just want to live comfortably. and for the most part, they do. again, there's more to life than prestige and wealth.
i know that was a long winding sequence of thoughts but I have a feeling I know where your mind is likely going and the types of responses you're likely seeing on this discussion board.
i, too, wanted to start a career in "high" finance to better my life. and i didn't "break into" finance (which doesn't matter anyways cause life is long and no one ever has the same experiences as another person so my life is still going perfectly fine).
and i wouldn't have changed that outcome for the world, because i turned out to somehow be the adult that i always wanted to have in my life.
so i hope my message, from someone who most people on here would likely deem a "failure" by any other name, can provide you with any amount of hope and drive for your own future. it doesn't really matter whether you "make it" or not, or if you end up in a totally different career. the only thing that matters is that you live a good, quality life. i was able to find the evidence in my life to unquestionably prove everything i am trying to communicate to you, and i hope you find some evidence in your life to confidently feel the same.
if anyone cared to hear it, i would even make a separate thread just to put that message out there for anyone who needs a shoulder or someone to listen to them.
why not just take a chill high finance job
I’m sorry. I can hear your pain.
This may not be popular, but I think the issue is comparing yourself and trying to compete with people who started off at a different place than you did. It is not realistic to expect to have same confidence, attitudes, skills and outcomes just from a few years an elite school. They had 20 years practice, role models etc, a different path. Life isn’t a race, and all that, but I think it’s fair that it will take some time for you to be a semi-comparable place.
Your point of comparison needs to be where you came from and realize you have done damn fine to get where you are. Celebrate that. You rock. People don’t talk about how hard it is to leave your home environment and go to such an extremely different place. It makes one feel inferior and worthless on top of the struggle to adapt / learn /catch up. Same as if we moved affluent students to the other extreme. HARD.
Reframe this. Foot off brakes a bit. There are many good things and successes ahead for you. Go do something fun outside today.
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