I graduated from a good school in Mechanical Engineering, had dreams of being an engineer designing infrastructure or solar systems or whatever. I ended up never getting an actual engineering job, I never got the opportunity to start a career as an engineer or scientist. I hopped from job to job in related fields, as a construction technician or literally working for small engineering companies for free just to gain experience (never gaining any tangible skills in the process. I simply never got a junior position anywhere, in anything. I never really had a specific field I was interested in, in which I desired to hone my skills, because, well, I never got an in, I never got the first decent paying job that taught me the skills of the trade. I still feel to this day that success in Engineering not related to CS, like most professions, is entirely dependent on networking and who you know. If I had just gotten that first, if I had networked a bit harder, if I had a non immigrant family that knew some people, I might have gotten a prestigious job doing something of worth.

I just moved to Texas from the place I grew up in (because that place has been abandoned by any friends I ever had and there is no future there for me), trying to find a job after I got fired from the previous tangentially related engineering job I held. I turned 30 today and I have, like, 1 friend here.

I’ve let go of any hope of having a profession in which I did something that mattered to people or gaining useful skills in society. My grades aren’t good enough to get into grad school, and I just want to have a house and friends and do nothing all day.

I’ve been broke for way too long and I might have just gotten the opportunity to earn a shit ton of money by becoming a salesman of solar panels. How…anti-praxis is that? Is this entirely giving up on everything I stand for and becoming a literal capitalist?