TL;DR: The following is going to be dark and harsh but it all comes down to one thing. Life doesn’t get better, you get better at dealing with shit. Hang in there.

You need to disconnect and find a way to focus on you.

It feels like the entire system is a scam and it’s pointless to even try.

It has always been a game where the only way to win is to cheat. Always.

It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire.

The system is not setup with rest (retirement) as its main goal. The system is setup for you to play until you die. Even if you hoard more money than you and your descendants could possibly spend in a hundred years, you would likely still want to play, because you are winning. If your end goal is mere prosperity and retirement, then you should prepare to be under the boot and a slave until you die.

All of the wealth is going straight to the top.

Always has been the case. It hasn’t stopped people from finding a way.

All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled.

This has always been the case. You have to make your own opportunities and expect others to drag you down. We are all crabs in a bucket.

All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet.

Fantasy. These things has never existed in this country. At best, FDR gave us a yoga mat to land on when we fall off a cliff, where before it was a bed of nails. Fall hard enough in this country and you will get wrecked no matter what. It has always been that way.

We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.

Same as it ever was.

Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.

Take a breath. Here is a truth that will sound harsh but it is meant as a kindness. You do not matter. Just about nobody knows you exist. Nobody is coming to get you. This fact applies to almost everyone.

Since all we can do is live the life we perceive with the meat in our skull, we tend to see ourselves as the main character in the story of life. We’re not. We barely qualify for NPC status.

I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job.

That’s a problem, I am sorry. All problems have a solution, but one unlikely to be found here, with Internet strangers.

The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.

Again. Breathe homie. That’s not going to happen.

Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it?

100%…often. I have lived with chronic, sometimes crippling, depression and fairly severe PTSD since 1989. Long story short, a lot of trauma broke my brain. Combo that with ADHD, borderline personality disorder, heart disease and cancer, and we are living the life baby! Still, I have been able survive and rise from poverty to wealth without hurting too many people…I hope.

If so, what snapped you out of it?

Nothing did. I just kept getting up out of spite and contempt for this life. As time went on, i got used to it. The bullshit bothered me less until it just became background noise. A nuisance from time to time.

Honestly, it sounds like you’ve been spending too much time in some online communities that are doom posting about everything. Do things suck right now? Yes, but they’ve literally sucked for as long as human society has existed. Things can always be better, or always be worse. However you can’t just sit around passively waiting for the times to change, or your life will suck.

The single biggest factor in whether your life is good or not is you and your actions. Don’t let things outside of your control convince you to give up. Do the best with what you have, and I promise you that you can find fulfillment and happiness in the life available to you.

I hated the idea for the longest time. Then I realized a few things. I changed my outlook of working a hopeless job to a job being a tool for me to get the money I need to live a better life. I also accepted that life isn’t fair and that not all the work I put in will equal the output. It feels like you have to do the work of 10 men to get anywhere. I accepted that and I put myself to work.

Sometimes you just have to get lucky and sometimes you have to grow. I worked many temp jobs and fast food restaurants until figured stuff out and landed a couple decent jobs. I started being able to hold a job for 1 year and then 2 years. I got lucky and found a temp job that decided to hire everyone perm. The catch was they waited to see who would sink or float. I floated. I wouldn’t have floated if I hadn’t had previous life experience.

Look at a job as an avenue or tool to achieve your goals. If you don’t have any goals then just pick something. It could be as simple as you want to save up for something nice. Start small and pick bigger goals as you achieve them. And going back to the job as a tool thing, if you don’t like the tool then get a new one. You wouldn’t use a broken tool to fix something. Sometimes you have a bucket of random tools and you have to pull out a couple before you find the right or that isn’t broken. Whatever to you pick, just try and keep trying. As long as you keep trying, you’ll figure it out.

I would also add to try to improve yourself along the way. Whether it be working on self esteem, how to write a resume, interviewing skills, how to cook, how to improve your finances, how to fix a car, work on a computer… Just work on something. You’ll only help yourself and learn transferable skills along the way.

I don’t have any good advice for you. My company held an all-hands call today during which the CEO said “Now that the election is behind us we can look forward to political stability”, among other equally insane things. You could say I’m feeling pretty down about the whole situation as well.

Get a STEM degree and move to a country that respects its citizens.

Move to a really poor country and meet real people there. Your life will get better, inevitably.

I know it’s easier said than done, but try to find work that actually helps your community, but that you also find fulfilling - child, elderly, and or disabled care, working for a charity doing anything from fundraising to cooking to IT, working in a community centre or library, coaching, teaching, handy-work, gardening, and on and on. The pay may not be as high as it is other places, but at least you’ll know that you’re contributing to your community in a positive way.

Bonus points if the place you work is a non-profit, unionised, a co-op, or generally outside of the existing establishment (E: so not part of the state or a large corporation) - building dual power is imperative to changing society, we need communal structures and networks to fall back on once this shit collapses. You can be part of that.

Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!

E: while we’re here, Mutual Aid

Try to find a job you enjoy from 9-5. That means focusing on activities you enjoy that are the main activity of said job. I worked in a pet store because it afforded me 30% of my time playing with puppies, even though the remaining 70% was cleaning puppy shit and stocking goods. I now work as a therapist because I spend 70% of my time talking to people about their problems (which I enjoy), and 30% doing paperwork and correspondence. Make your job something you enjoy most of them time and it gets much easier. Then, you retire and collect Social Security. As long as you’ve worked for most of your life, that’ll be a decent retirement. You’ll have to live frugally, but it’ll be livable.

Also, if you can manage it, invest $10,000 as early as you can in a stock market index fund and pay for a fund manager. By the time you retire, that will provide you with a substantial cushion to rest on.

My kids work because they want money.

It is hard to find a job, even harder to get by without one; I do have some friends who have never been employed exactly, only hustling, working for themselves, with varying results. It’s possible but not probable.

I’m really sorry you are hurting so bad but we can use every sane person, if we give up things just get worse.

lots of denial, nicotine, and THC

not a fix but will definitely smooth some of the rough edges out a tiny bit

if all else fails my grandfather says to run in circles screaming and shouting

If you’re still young and not too much in debt, try to work some fun jobs, like outdoor educator, youth hostels, ski mountain, or whatever floats your boat. Travel around. You don’t have to try to make it in the world right away

It is a scam, in the end it is pointless to try, but you gotta eat, clothe yourself, and it’s warmer indoors, which all necessitate to generate income._

You got me, kid. I had a stroke at 42 after busting my ass forever, and it’s been the best thing to happen to me yet.

Basically just enjoy everything outside of work, politics, and religion. Family, friends, and yourself are the most important things in life.

I feel ya brother. I’m 41 and wondering why the hell im even saving for retirement. I’ll be dead before I’ll ever be able to

In the end, it comes down to “what do you want?”

Recognize nobody is going to just hand it to you. So whatever it is that you want, you have to work for it.

Stick a photo on your monitor if you have to. My desktop is a photo of my house to remind me of the mortgage payment.