Advice with life

[Hiemal]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/comments/5h9gxh/unsure_of_if_this_is_the_right_decision/

I've posted this as many places as I can, but, anyway, if you all could comment there and let me know your opinions...

I'd be super, duper, appreciative. Thank you everyone. <3

 

[dden4012]

At 22 I was working my way up in a trade and learning myself. What can I tell you.
No matter where you go there you are.
Always bet on yourself.
Help yourself so you can help others.
Always pay forward.
Get a job. Save. Move out. Get a dog.
Get your schooling paid for by an employer or at least subsidized. If you can't find a job in your field maybe its time to readjust the academics. Between work and school you shouldn't have enough time to sulk.
I moved out at 19 and have lived my life my way. Learned everything the hard way. No amount of college could have prepared me for the path I have chosen.
You can make it just treat priorities like your life depends on it cause it does. In 10 years your comments on Reddit will seem so trivial lol.

 

[NightExplorer96]

You have a garden? Nice garden, take care of it!

If I were you, and had the funds I'd move back to NY. I personally prefer the North much more then the South so that may be a somewhat biased perspective. Also, you mentioned your new GF? Is this the one who broke up with you or are you getting back together?

-Alex

 

[Benm]

At 22 it's hard to figure out if you are in the right place.

In fact, i'd say it's still the age where you could make a place right for you.

The problem is that you do a have numerous choices here: you could stay in texas and make that your new home, you could move back up north, or you could do many other things like move to another country and give life a try there.

The downside is that you will probably regret not choosing one of the other options down the line. I don't say this to make you feel bad at all, but there simply are some benefits with each options that you forego if you take another.

I'd just go for gut feeling here, do what feels best to you.

In 10 years you might realize that taking one of the other options would have been better having 20/20 hindsight, but there simply is no way to predict which option would turn out best based on what you know now.

Don't worry about regrets: do what feels best on what you know right now. Even if this turns out not to be the best, at the very least you can say 'i made the best choice on what i knew back then'.

Many people feel regret over things they could not possibly have overseen. You could state that you would have avoided a traffic accident if you left 5 minutes earlier or later, or have taken a different route that usually took longer. While it is absolutely true that you could have avoided a tragedy by any of those things, it is also true you had no information to base your decision on. And if you don't get into an accident, who is to say that you would not have gotten into one had you left a bit earlier, later, or took a different route.

Don't worry about future regret: it will be there regardless of what you choose now, just with different motivations.

 

[Hiemal]

You have a garden? Nice garden, take care of it!

If I were you, and had the funds I'd move back to NY. I personally prefer the North much more then the South so that may be a somewhat biased perspective. Also, you mentioned your new GF? Is this the one who broke up with you or are you getting back together?

-Alex

No, different one. I'm never getting back into a relationship with my ex, not after what she did to me.

At 22 I was working my way up in a trade and learning myself. What can I tell you.
No matter where you go there you are.
Always bet on yourself.
Help yourself so you can help others.
Always pay forward.
Get a job. Save. Move out. Get a dog.
Get your schooling paid for by an employer or at least subsidized. If you can't find a job in your field maybe its time to readjust the academics. Between work and school you shouldn't have enough time to sulk.
I moved out at 19 and have lived my life my way. Learned everything the hard way. No amount of college could have prepared me for the path I have chosen.
You can make it just treat priorities like your life depends on it cause it does. In 10 years your comments on Reddit will seem so trivial lol.

Schooling is going to be paid for by my parents regardless of what choice I take. My dad invested in the Texas for Tomorrow fund some amount of years ago, when we lived in North Texas, so the money is basically spoken for and mine to utilize, and mine only to utilize.

At 22 it's hard to figure out if you are in the right place.

In fact, i'd say it's still the age where you could make a place right for you.

The problem is that you do a have numerous choices here: you could stay in texas and make that your new home, you could move back up north, or you could do many other things like move to another country and give life a try there.

The downside is that you will probably regret not choosing one of the other options down the line. I don't say this to make you feel bad at all, but there simply are some benefits with each options that you forego if you take another.

I'd just go for gut feeling here, do what feels best to you.

In 10 years you might realize that taking one of the other options would have been better having 20/20 hindsight, but there simply is no way to predict which option would turn out best based on what you know now.

Don't worry about regrets: do what feels best on what you know right now. Even if this turns out not to be the best, at the very least you can say 'i made the best choice on what i knew back then'.

Many people feel regret over things they could not possibly have overseen. You could state that you would have avoided a traffic accident if you left 5 minutes earlier or later, or have taken a different route that usually took longer. While it is absolutely true that you could have avoided a tragedy by any of those things, it is also true you had no information to base your decision on. And if you don't get into an accident, who is to say that you would not have gotten into one had you left a bit earlier, later, or took a different route.

Don't worry about future regret: it will be there regardless of what you choose now, just with different motivations.

My gut, in all of this, is telling me I need to go back to NY. I know I would be happier back up there, I know I would feel better about my living situation, I know overall, I would be happier. Having all of the things that I own, come with me, and then being back up North, I can already tell that it's the right choice for me because I just, feel happier even thinking about it.

But my mom made me doubt my decisions, because that's what she's really good at doing. Putting "what ifs" in my head, to make me waver on what I ought to do. But I'm pretty sure that, if I can, and I have the option to, I'm going to move back to NY. I've made up my choice, basically, and now I'm just waiting for my grandpa to come down here in a few weeks so me and my dad can talk to him about the proposal.

 

[GSS]

Its your mom's love and job to give the "what if's",
yup i'd go with your gut and to NY and live with grandpa and help him in his golden years

 

[Jhop]

Do what you enjoy and am passionate about. Don't lock yourself in a shit job that you hate. You are so young. Lots of time ahead of you. Make the best of it but don't go too extreme, use your head. And treasure every moment, on your own and with your family. You never know when you may lose someone, or something wonderful.

A tiny bit of my history I havn't spoke of here, my little brother died in a car accident 2 years ago. He was 26. Driving too fast late at night on wet roads. it was late july. All we can figure out is he hydro-planed and went off the road and hit a tree. no other vehicle was involved that we could tell. He was not drunk. Didn't do drugs. He had just left my house I was renting with a friend, to drive home to his apartment only about 10 miles away.

I miss him dearly. I think about him everyday. All the time. I've beat myself up thinking about things I should have done different, should have spent more time with him. But its all gone now. Hes gone. But his memory lives on. But that's why I say again: treasure your friends and family above all else.

 

[Crazlaser]

Do what you enjoy and am passionate about. Don't lock yourself in a shit job that you hate. You are so young. Lots of time ahead of you. Make the best of it but don't go too extreme, use your head. And treasure every moment, on your own and with your family. You never know when you may lose someone, or something wonderful.

A tiny bit of my history I havn't spoke of here, my little brother died in a car accident 2 years ago. He was 26. Driving too fast late at night on wet roads. it was late july. All we can figure out is he hydro-planed and went off the road and hit a tree. no other vehicle was involved that we could tell. He was not drunk. Didn't do drugs. He had just left my house I was renting with a friend, to drive home to his apartment only about 10 miles away.

I miss him dearly. I think about him everyday. All the time. I've beat myself up thinking about things I should have done different, should have spent more time with him. But its all gone now. Hes gone. But his memory lives on. But that's why I say again: treasure your friends and family above all else.

Jhop, I'm so sorry for your loss. That is so sad.

 

[Jhop]

Thanks Crazlaser. It does get easier with time. But its not a pain I would wish on my worst enemy

 

[trencheel303]

At 22 I was working my way up in a trade and learning myself. What can I tell you.
No matter where you go there you are.
Always bet on yourself.
Help yourself so you can help others.
Always pay forward.
Get a job. Save. Move out. Get a dog.
Get your schooling paid for by an employer or at least subsidized. If you can't find a job in your field maybe its time to readjust the academics. Between work and school you shouldn't have enough time to sulk.
I moved out at 19 and have lived my life my way. Learned everything the hard way. No amount of college could have prepared me for the path I have chosen.
You can make it just treat priorities like your life depends on it cause it does. In 10 years your comments on Reddit will seem so trivial lol.

I moved out at 16, I won't go into why but I will say that if I had stayed much longer I think my parents and I would have driven each other round the bend.

I'm now 26 and have been through some college and am in a job which I have a love/hate relationship with. It's unfortunately not as easy as "don't stay in a job which you hate" because the economy in most developed countries is on an exponentially increasing scale of shit to shitty to shittiest and finding jobs isn't easy. I have made the grave mistake of not having many qualifications and just working upwards. If I was to leave my current employment now I'd have to hope my future employers didn't mind that I didn't have many papers to my name, but I suspect in a way I have kind of screwed myself.

One thing I have learned as part of the process of maturing and growing up is that you are well and truly on your own in this world. Ignore bleeding heart liberals - when it all goes to shit it's you who has to pick up the mess and move on. You need to quickly get a grasp of financials, good financial habits and fiscal sense, have enough money in savings and be ready to accept that a simple decision by your employer to fire you can cause you to lose everything over night. Building the mental strength to carry you through life situations is something that will only come over time, but I can say from personal experience that it comes much easier after seeing people's true colours and going through a horrible relationship or two.

I'm not a pessimist I'm just a realist. Don't step on others, but put yourself first. We are still animals at heart and the only thing between us and a murdering bloodbath is rule of law, and even that's tenuous.

 

[Trevor]

At 22 it's hard to figure out if you are in the right place.

In fact, i'd say it's still the age where you could make a place right for you.

The problem is that you do a have numerous choices here: you could stay in texas and make that your new home, you could move back up north, or you could do many other things like move to another country and give life a try there.

The downside is that you will probably regret not choosing one of the other options down the line. I don't say this to make you feel bad at all, but there simply are some benefits with each options that you forego if you take another.

I'd just go for gut feeling here, do what feels best to you.

In 10 years you might realize that taking one of the other options would have been better having 20/20 hindsight, but there simply is no way to predict which option would turn out best based on what you know now.

Don't worry about regrets: do what feels best on what you know right now. Even if this turns out not to be the best, at the very least you can say 'i made the best choice on what i knew back then'.

Many people feel regret over things they could not possibly have overseen. You could state that you would have avoided a traffic accident if you left 5 minutes earlier or later, or have taken a different route that usually took longer. While it is absolutely true that you could have avoided a tragedy by any of those things, it is also true you had no information to base your decision on. And if you don't get into an accident, who is to say that you would not have gotten into one had you left a bit earlier, later, or took a different route.

Don't worry about future regret: it will be there regardless of what you choose now, just with different motivations.

Best advice in the thread IMO... emphasis mine. I have a few thoughts, that I'll add below.

From the reddit thread, it sounds like there are four things you're taking into account in your decision: getting a solid degree, getting away from your parents, the possibility of having a pet, and your new girlfriend. Honestly, disregard the pet issue... that's super short term, and you'll make it. We'll lump that in with 'getting away from your parents.'

I feel like I can partially speak to the issue of your girlfriend. I recently took a job in Colorado - 1,500 miles from my girlfriend of 4 years in Virginia. It'll be tough for a couple years. But here's the thing: we both understood that the relationship had to take a back seat in the short term so that I could do what's best for my career and, by proxy, us. We had to sit down and carefully weigh our options to make the decision that was best for us as a couple. With a super new relationship, that's not really a conversation that can be had (and if it is had, it'll be clouded by the issue of love versus infatuation). It sucks to be far away, but I don't think the location of your girlfriend should factor significantly. If you can get a comparable degree without ditching your family in favor of a girlfriend of several months, don't ditch your family.

I absolutely understand wanting to get away from your parents, though I don't know if going back to New York is necessarily the right way to approach it.

You mention you aren't happy in Texas. In New York, you had a support structure of friends, family, activities, etc. In Texas you don't - and because of it, you're not happy. But it also seems you haven't tried very hard to rebuild that where you live now.

Do you want to be happy in Texas? If the answer is yes, you've got to try harder to rebuild your life. If the answer is no, then you need to do some soul searching to figure out why that is.

If you want some sort of compromise, to get out from under your parents but still get a good degree, why not look into Texas A&M? Last I checked, they had a good environmental science program and it's far enough away from Houston that you'd need to move there.

...this is probably not the advice you wanted to hear, but there it is.

Hope things look up for you.

Trevor

 

[Benm]

It seems you have your heart set on NY though, personally i'd probably go with that given the circumstances. Then again i'm not you, so this might not be that relevant.

If your mother is throwing around a lot of 'what ifs', ask yourself also 'what if not' for each scenario, regardless of likelyhood.

People often over-estimate the chances of really bad outcomes of things that have a small chance to happen to begin with. What if you moved back to NY, slipped on a frozen pavement and ended up paralyzed? What if you did not, stayed in texas, and contracted fatal cancer from sun exposure? Neither is likely, neither would be a rational basis for a decision compared to all other factors.

One benefit you have is that your choice is reversible. You could go to new york and decide you don't like it there in a year or so, and just move back. Surely it's a lot of hassle, but quite possible if you fealt strongly about it... and all that hassle might be worth just figuring it out!

 

[Hiemal]

I spoke to my mom more about my thoughts, and we both agreed that I should go up to NY for a few months, to live with my grandpa first to get an idea of what things would be like living with him.

Thankfully she heard me out, and after telling her about the increased responsibility thing and how I want to TRY, she seemed to soften her stance on it a bit.

I actually went out on a walk yesterday, to a local "sinkhole" area. It reminded me so much of this old wildlife reserve I went to a lot back in NY, albeit smaller, and not quite as... pretty. ...but that reminder of how I felt back in NY just rekindled that fire to go back so much that at that point, I was basically just, "I'm going back to NY, and no one can stop me."

NY just *is* home to me. No where else feels like it could come close. Between the weather, the environment, everything about it. Just feels right.
Something else I forgot to mention, I think, is that I have a LOT of family still up in NY anyway. My older sister, two aunts (and their families), my grandpa. I also have a lot of old friends up there too.

I won't be alone by any means.





And I know, it's unfair to Texas. That being said I did actually live, in North Texas, and grew up in North texas until I was 16. It was not a good time, filled with depression and loneliness that just completely soured my ...view on the state. It feels kind of analogous to, when you go to a restaurant, and they do a terrible job?

And you never want to go back there again... NY was the first time I ever felt like I really fit in, and I loved everything about the state... which is why I feel this intense pull to go back.

Thank you everyone for your advice, too. I'm noticing a lot more people stating, I need to do what makes me happy, and to try not to let other people make decisions for me. And I'm terribly, terribly sorry Jhop... I can't even imagine going through that.

 

[Trendkilla254]

My biggest advice I tried to bestow on my younger brother... save money while living with someone to put on a downpayment for a house. Don't Rent if you can avoid it, you are just paying someone else's mortgage. I can't read the reddit post from work so I'm sorry for the blind reply.

 

[Benm]

I guess if you prefer NY even this time of year you probably should really go there

Kidding aside, if you feel this way about it, it would probably be something you regretted not doing if you stayed in texas. Even if it doesn't work out in the long run, at least you will not have that lingering 'what-if-i-had-' thing in the back of your mind for the rest of your life.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Move back to new york, go back to a school you like, but DO NOT move in with your grandfather.

Given that your education is more or less funded, be grateful that you have the choices. Make the one that appeals to you the most, and stick with it.

Also not every college is for everyone, and college itself is not for everyone. Consider learning a trade instead, if you find yourself having trouble with it. Including myself, I know far too many people who have gone to college only to find that it was mostly a complete waste of time.

For your mom, to address the "what ifs" tell her that it's a trial run, 6 months on your own, and that at some point you'll have to move out. Better now when you have the funds and the time for it, and your parents to go back to easily if things don't go well. Besides, it's not like you're going away that far... aside from small time difference can still talk regularly, and basically a short flight away.

Don't worry about personal belongings. Really. None of that crap matters. Don't get a pet. Pet's take a lot of effort, time, money, responsibility. Not something you will be able to easily manage as a full time student. If later on you settle into a rhythm where you have spare time, space, money, then consider getting one. Otherwise it won't be fair to you or the pet.