Men who wasted early 20s but later worked their ass off to build a successful career… what was your selling point to work hard?

29 comments

1. Mostly money.

   I think something that wakes you up to buckling down and working harder is when other people are relying on you.

2. “Working hard” isn’t all that gets you a career, there’s a TON of luck and networking involved, and most people only move up under the right boss. Don’t fall into the trap of tunnel visioning and working 70 hr weeks for a boss who’ll stand in your way no matter what, or being not fun to work around. I’ve seen so many people promoted who didn’t work for it at all, the majority unfortunately.

3. Not working when you are 50

4. I dated women who didn’t respect me because of their superior earning power. Since then, I’ve started having the upper hand money-wise – it feels great and I understand why they were jerks to me.

5. The only upside is that now you can spend all that money on yourself. Other than that? Not much

6. Do it for you. It has to be for something that you want for yourself, some goal that you aim to attain. Being successful isn’t a goal, wanting to be viewed positively by others isn’t a goal, wanting to avoid being a “loser” isn’t a goal. You have to find something that you want for yourself and make efforts to align your lifestyle to what’s necessary to reach it. After that it’s all about consistency and resilience.

7. Get away from my family.

   We’re OK now, but my goodness, they were a real pain in the ass in my 20’s just out of college.

8. Ugh, the mentally that you need to “work hard” to succeed is not really true. Sure I put effort into getting a degree and I do my job well, but I’m not grinding my ass off. I work because I have to, but I’m not giving my all to any corporation.

9. I was in my late 20s and the band broke up. I knew it was time to find my cubicle and begin my long march to the grave.

10. Shitty jobs are way harder than good jobs.

11. Poverty and no support system. Either succeed or fall.

12. money

13. Homelessness…😂and wanting to not eat Dogfood as a senior citizen…

14. Hard work doesn’t automatically = success. Hard work pays off when you’re in an environment where hard work pays off.

    When I realized I was in jobs/environments where I was just spinning wheels or being taken advantage of, I started working on myself until I was able to develop the discernment to tell when I was being valued. And most of the time, I was training people how to treat me and they were following my lead – meaning if I undervalued myself, they would undervalue my work. But if I asked for what I was worth, I either got it or eliminated a future headache with someone who didn’t value me or the work.

15. I wanted to trade my valuable time for as much money as I could get.

16. I just eventually realized all the stuff I wanted wasn’t just gonna happen one day unless I started today

17. I am in my early 30s going back to college. The time will pass whether you like it or not. Better knuckle down now for a better more fulfilling life later or be stuck wishing you always had. You might be bored at some point or maybe you want to go to a bar with your friends or play a video game instead of studying or working.

    That part of you that sighs at the hard work needs to quieten and instead just start doing whatever it is you need to do. Stop thinking about the task and think about something else as you complete the task.

    Works for anythimg really. Wanna run a mile stoo thinking about how long a mile is and just start. Need to read a really big but boring book for college. Stop countimg the pages to the next chapter and keep putting one foot in front of the other and you’ll finish it. Did you feel like you took the important parts in? No? Well then start again.

    We (including me) think too much. You need to do first. Thinking comes after the task is done. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplidh this way.

18. I did 3 months of farm work in Australia Queensland and it totally changed me as a person, without it I wouldn’t be who I am now! It was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, but at the same time, I had more fun and witnessed some of the most beautiful events I’ve ever seen in my life. So much so, I’m going back to farm after 10 years since Australia! I’m leaving London and moving up to Scotland to reconnect with nature again.

19. Wanting a house.

20. Man you have this twisted.

    I left college to go work in video games. While the work was fun, it taught me all the different ways and reasons that “office work” is not hard work, it’s big kid high school. There are still cliques and dumb rules and legacy folks who get treated better just for being alive longer.

    I learned that “working hard” is a fable told to labor by owners. The promise of hard work is a lie. You don’t think custodians and cleaners in the hospital “work hard?” They sure work harder than the CEO.

    Fuck the fable of “working hard”

    Write the novel entitled “How I learned to live a life outside payed employment”

21. I feel like this question was specifically for me haha.

    I was 24 and I had been working at a warehouse and playing drums in touring bands. I lived with girlfriends and lived in or near poverty. I grew up WT and I had this idea that there was something beautiful about “the struggle.”

    Then I started to notice all my band friends had started getting dumped by their girls. They mostly went to selling drugs or they doubled down and dated younger girls and kept up the drugs and malt liquor lifestyle.

    I enrolled in community college and stopped playing in serious bands.

    At 27 I moved 300 miles and finished my BA.

    At 30 I had a gradute degree.

    I worked my ass off and paid off my student debt and bought a house, got married and had a kid.

    At 40 I am a proud yuppie. I go on vacations to Hawaii, go out whenever I want, I can afford anything, life is awesome, I fucking love it.

    I tell people “if I can do it, you can do it.”

    There is nothing remarkable about me except I didn’t want to sell drugs and didn’t want to die alone and broke.

    Having money is rad and I appreciate life so damn much.

22. When you realise you are no longer measured by your look, fitness etc, instead they are replaced by the amount of your wealth, the brand of your car and the size of your house.

23. FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also money can get you anything you want.

24. Half feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself and the job market.

    Also, my father talked to me. It wasn’t a long heart-to-heart. I told him I’d gotten a job cleaning houses, and was quitting my job at a bakery. Not ideal, but the hours were better, pay was better, a step in the right direction.

    “How long are you going to keep working these dead end jobs????”

    We had an argument, not the worst one, but an argument, and I walked off. But he was right, and as time passed I got it, eventually applying to grad school, doing it while cleaning houses, and so on. My dad was a great guy, and he could be harsh sometimes, but this was one of those times when his harshness was warranted and he helped me out a ton. Here I am, now, enjoying a summer vacation because he said that to me.

25. Most millennials couldn’t really start their careers until their late 20s – early 30s due to a number of economic factors that fucked us.

    Starting anything in your 20s is still so much younger than you think it is.

26. Nobody else was going to work hard to give me the life I wanted, so I had to do it myself.

27. I was an immense fuck up from the ages of 16 ~26. The wake up call for me was when after I accumulated roughly $20,000 in debt from credit cards and loans and my stupid brain finally came to the conclusion that if I continue this path in life I’m gonna end up on the streets. It was really that cut and dry. No inspirational story or metaphorical slap in the face. I guess I just finally grew up and decided I didn’t want to be a loser.

28. You eventually reach an age where you realize that the trick isn’t finding new and exciting ways of torturing yourself to save a buck and instead growing your income.

    That and learning the fine line between stretching the truth and outright lying. The brutal truth of employment is that a lot of people don’t realize they’re under-employing themselves and are convinced they’re working ‘dead end jobs.’ Classic example, the skill set you use as a waiter has applications in all kinds of places. And customer service experience is always useful. But working 10, 15 tables during rush hour and being able to deal with whiney customers means you have experience managing projects. You might say you’re a project *manager.* And if you can deal with bad customers you can probably convince a hiring manager that you’re a good fit for a managerial position elsewhere.

    Like, rule of thumb, if the job isn’t locked behind a license or a degree, and you feel you’re half qualified, just apply. You should never outright *lie* about your experience, but statistically speaking being more than half qualified for any given job doesn’t typically help you.

29. I met my dream girl on the opposite side of the country. She was a career-driven high earner whereas I simply had always lacked focus and direction. I knew my chance of keeping her wouldn’t be great in the long run if I just floundered from one retail job to another endlessly.

    Got my *** in gear, went to law school, and got the girl. It’s not that I changed who I was in order to impress someone. I genuinely feel like I needed a wake-up call of to pursue my potential.