Throughout my entire 16 years of school, I was conditioned to believe that my life path was to get a great education, get a good degree, and then get a job somewhere.
I thought I wasn't passionate about anything so I just sleptwalk through most of it, expecting things to work out.
But it turns out I am passionate about various kinds of work. For example, writing, web development, pet walking, consulting, etc. I'll “work” on that all day. I just despise working for someone else!
This kind of path, where many hard workers are successful and can find an income, never occurred to me, because every 'job' teachers, parents, and professors suggested was about finding a boss to accept me.
And the brutal thing is that the best time to set myself up for success as an independent worker was in high school and college, where I was gaslit that waiting to find a 'real job' was my best option.
In the future, if I ever have kids (lol) I'll make sure to teach them that RUNNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS IS A SERIOUS OPTION! If they have a 'silly' passion like youtubing, writing, arts and crafts, petsitting or bbaysitting, I'll do my best to let them know how to make it marketable and set them up for success.
Of course, not everyone will relate to this. This would still involve a grind, after all. But I'm just frustrated that we were setup to fail.