I never really wanted a job. Back when I was young, I have always coasted through life, living out the events that was laid out for me. I even do so now, living out the life that was planned by someone else or caused by necessary events. Go to school, go for National Service (all Singaporean males need to serve 2 years of military service), go to university, then get a job, which I do so now.
While getting a job is not what I wanted, there are some parts of school which I do enjoy. Like learning about computers and learning how to program. The main motivation my enjoyment comes from what I wanted to do: play video games.
Like many young kids who got into video games, playing video games becomes a passion and interest grew to make video games, for players by players. I went to study computer science for that reason.
Now I am hitting my thirties, looking back, I should have made the decision to walk my own path, even if I have to walk alone. But things aren't so easy. At my age, you start to have responsibilities. Even then, I am not making enough money to move out of my parents' house, even though I worked for almost 5 years. I do not have a family, nor do I intend to have one. I have little savings, that can last me about 3 months. My current salary isn't that great either and getting a house cost literally a million dollars. The house I mention is not a big house, just a modest middle-income house that typical Singaporeans live. For Singaporeans, they are called HDB.
I know walking my own path is possible. Just look at Thomas Brush (https://www.youtube.com/@thomasbrush). He is the goal that I aspire to be. He now works on his own terms, with freedom without having a job to tie him down. He used to have a job and was miserable. I can relate to that very well, having something you wanted to do, even that may not succeed, but you have to put that aside to work on something you have no interest in. The main difference is that he has control over that he does, I do not.
I have quitted several jobs too, each time entering a new job with hope. Though I doubt that hope is there anymore. I do not get to decide how many days of leave I have to take, my boss does. I do not decide what kind of work I do, my boss does. I also do not have control over the amount of salary I get, it was decided when I signed the employment contract, decided by someone else. When thinking about this control is being dictated by someone else for another 30 to 40 years, I do not think I can tolerate that. Someone told me that he thinks that the retirement age will increase after 40 years. Heck, I honestly do not even know if retirement is possible in my situation.
The job market is still hopelessly broken. The jobs that I once had interest in requires years of professional experience for just an entry level job. I have applied to them, but they have all ghosted me. I felt like playing their broken game of job hunting that I do not have control over.
I want to escape from this rat race, but I do not know how. I have tried several options, starting github sponsors program, that didn't take off. I started this blog, that didn't take off too. I have also made small games to show my learning on itch.io. I had one follower but that quickly goes to zero. I have not started a youtube channel because I do not have a personal space at the moment.
I do have other plans as well. I have tried investing. I am not a day trader, and I hope to have that investing will be a passive income stream that I can rely on. I have investment plans that requires a decade of commitment, constantly depositing a fixed amount of money to the investment plan. I have also tried cryptocurrency Proof of Stake using Ethereum. But all of these promises rely on me getting money, money that I need a job for. This is what I am trying to detach myself from. Earning money without a job yet able to support my investment commitments and take back control over my life.
I have known this earlier, but I have always returned because this is a path of least resistance. I have started applying to jobs after I quit, being scared of quitting and waking into the unknown without a backup plan, while wishing I could just walk away from the job market. I simply do not have the guts to stick it out in the face of these problems.
I have collected books about machine learning and game development. I do have passions about them and hopefully make a game using machine learning techniques. And since most of the time I had is being taken up by a job, I had to set it aside.
After writing this much, I realized that the point that is making me miserable is that I no longer have control. Control over what I do, when I do them, how much money I make, where to make it. I do need to sacrifice and stick it out to over a year and not quit in a few weeks. I am still trying to figure things out and I wished I had sticked to my commitments when I first realized the broken system.
