It’s simple, but it sure as fuck isn’t easy. But it really is simple!
If you’re in your 20s and don’t have kids, the biggest thing you can do for yourself is to go wherever the work is.
You have a crappy barista job? Answer the phone at a towing company? Enter data for some random company that pays too little and forces you to commute?
Well… there are a shitload of places in the country. Yeah, it sucks to move to a little town in flyover country just so you can afford life. But you aren’t going to be 25 forever. One day you’ll be 45 and it will seem like you just blinked and became middle-aged. Would you rather have a healthy life in a town of 30k, or a shared apartment in a city of 3 million?
Do the math, people: if you work from 20 years old to 70 years old, that’s 50 years. 52 weeks a year. 2600 weeks.
Every time one of those weeks vanishes into the past, it’s gone forever. You don’t need to be a crazy self-promoting jerk to improve your future… you just need to lift your head up and go where you can. Every single immigrant did this. Everyone in this country is descended from people who came from somewhere else, even if they did it 20,000 years ago.
(On the other hand… Are you 35 with two kids and no family? Well… sorry, you’re fucked. Doing it with kids is harder than anyone could possibly comprehend unless they’ve done it themselves.)