Yesterday I was told that I don't have a future

Photo by Banksy

Yesterday, I was told that I don’t have a future. Those words, stark and cold, hit me harder than anything I’ve ever experienced. They came from someone I admired, someone I secretly harbored feelings for, and to hear them spoken so bluntly shook me to my core. I’m 23 years old, standing on the precipice of adulthood, but now I feel as if I’ve already been written off as a failure. My mind keeps replaying her words over and over, each time a little more painful than the last.

I finished high school in 2018, and like many others, I had dreams, ambitions, and a vision of what my life would look like. I went to college to study furniture design and manufacturing, earning a certificate that was supposed to open doors for me. But after graduation, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. The job market was more competitive than I had imagined, and despite sending out countless applications, I received little more than automated responses telling me that I would be contacted if there were any suitable openings. The calls never came.

As time went on, the optimism I had during my studies began to wane. I started to question my choices, wondering if I had wasted years of my life pursuing something that would never materialize into a career. But I clung to the hope that things would eventually turn around. I kept applying, kept searching, and kept believing that my break would come.

Then yesterday happened. Hearing my crush say I don’t have a future was like a dagger to the heart. It wasn’t just the words themselves, but the casual way she said them, as if it were a fact that everyone else already knew. I forced a smile, pretending that her words didn’t affect me, but inside, I was crumbling. Could she be right? Was I really just wasting my time, chasing a dream that was never meant to be?

In our society, there’s an unspoken rule that if you don’t have a well-paying job, you’re as good as useless. It’s a harsh reality that many of us face, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing it. I had always imagined a future where I had a stable career in furniture design, where I could create beautiful pieces that people would love and cherish. I saw myself living in a nice home with a loving wife and children, surrounded by the fruits of my labor. But as time passes and the job offers remain nonexistent, I feel that dream slipping away.

It’s not that I can’t find a job at all. There are always positions available at filling stations or as a shelf stocker in a supermarket. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with those jobs, they weren’t what I envisioned for myself. I spent years studying and honing my skills in furniture design, and the thought of abandoning that dream for something entirely different feels like giving up on myself.

Still, I’ve considered taking one of those jobs, just to make ends meet. But deep down, I know that if I do, a part of me will always wonder what could have been. I’m being pushed toward a future that I never wanted, and it’s a difficult pill to swallow.

I have an idea—a plan that could potentially turn things around for me. It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of situation, and I’ve attempted it several times already, each time ending in failure. Each failure chips away at my confidence, making me question whether I should keep trying or finally admit defeat. But even with the odds stacked against me, I can’t seem to let go of the possibility that it might just work one day.

When I was younger, life seemed so much simpler. I never imagined that adulthood would be so complicated, that each decision would feel like a monumental step that could determine the course of my entire life. I didn’t realize how easy it was to fail, or how difficult it was to succeed. And yet, despite all the setbacks, I can’t bring myself to give up. Every time I start to lose hope, I think about the future I want—the family, the home, the career—and it gives me the strength to keep going, even when the odds are against me.

There’s a lesson in all of this, though it’s taken me a while to fully grasp it. Patience is not something that comes naturally to me. It’s a skill that I’ve had to learn the hard way, through repeated failures and disappointments. In the past, I’ve acted on impulse, diving headfirst into situations without fully considering the consequences. And each time, life has humbled me, teaching me that success doesn’t come overnight.

Patience is key. I’ve learned that rushing into things often leads to mistakes, and those mistakes can set you back even further. I’ve tried to force things to happen on my timeline, but life has its own pace, and it won’t be hurried. If I’m going to achieve my dreams, I need to be patient, to take calculated risks rather than impulsive ones. It’s a difficult lesson, but one that I’m finally starting to understand.

I’ve also realized that I need to take care of my mental well-being if I’m going to keep pushing forward. The stress and uncertainty of the past few years have taken their toll on me, and I can’t keep going like this without finding a way to manage it. Meditation is something I’ve tried in the past, and for that brief period, it brought me a sense of clarity and peace that I haven’t felt in a long time. I think it’s time to start again, to quiet the noise in my mind and find the focus I need to move forward.

The future is still unwritten, and despite what anyone else might say, I’m the one who gets to decide what it looks like. The path ahead might be difficult, but I’m not ready to give up on my dreams just yet. With patience, determination, and a clear mind, I believe I can still create the life I’ve always wanted. It won’t be easy, but then again, nothing worth having ever is.