Give me your thoughts?

[clem84]

I'm a 21 year old male. I'm frustrated.

I'm not sure what exactly I'm good at or where I belong. I've had only false starts since I graduated from high school four years ago. Most recently, I started taking a course at a top film school in Los Angeles. I was almost certain that that's where I would fit, seeing as I've attended four different colleges up to this point (none of which have worked out), am reasonably creative and love entertainment.

Now half way through the course, a non-fiction filmmaking class, I feel almost exactly the same as I did before I began this latest venture. I feel frustrated, unsatisfied and anxious. The structure of school makes me anxious. The constant preaching and expectation dictating how things must be done, leaving little room for independent contribution to work and individual thinking processes.

I'm a deep, independent thinker. I value the concept that there is no one way to do things. That each individual mind has its own process and output. School doesn't work that way. Most places of employment don't work that way. What's worse is that I've lost any sense of value when it comes to the point of any of it. Lately I feel like nothing anybody does is ever going to really matter. We're micro-beings living on a cosmically worthless piece of dust. And we're all eventually going to die.

I can't shake the hatred I have for having to answer to people. In work or in school I HATE it. It literally makes me physically sick to have to answer for myself or explain my actions to anybody. I hate being told how to go about my work.

I understand that these instructors are only trying to teach and do their jobs, I don't blame them. I just wish I weren't so uncomfortable with it.

These are the realities of the professional and academic world. I don't fit within it. And I'm worried for myself because I don't know how I'm going to manage professionally. All I want is to achieve a certain level of success and secure financial independence and freedom. It's tough to do that when you're such a square peg trying to squeeze into a stubborn round hole.

I'd like some advice. Career suggestions. Personal suggestions. Whatever. I just need some outside points of view.

Thanks.

[bing49]

My man is in a similar situation. He's 23 and doesn't know what he wants to do. He has a similar attitude to yours, you know, not wanting to get told anything and stuff. He can work with his hands amazingly and he can fix lots of things, hea really smart, but he juat cannot sit in a classroom or an office all day. Hes been ro college twice already but hes dropped out. My suggestion is try to start a business. You'll be the boss. It'll take time, but it'll be worth it. I've told him this too and he wants to do it. Good luck!