I have no idea where I am going with this
Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here, so please cut me some slack if I unintentionally say something I shouldn’t. I’m a university student majoring in Finance, and I’ll be graduating in about two years. To cut to the chase, I don’t really know or understand what the meaning of life is.
For the most part, my goal is to achieve financial stability. To me, financial stability means reaching an “F-you” level of wealth where I’m able to quit my job whenever I feel like it. Given my lifestyle — which is pretty minimalistic — I’m confident I can reach that point in about 20 years or so, especially since I’m financially prudent when it comes to budgeting, investing, etc.
I guess these thoughts started coming into my mind because I’m currently having a tough time at my internship. I’m the type of person who wants to do my best in everything I do. Because of that, I put a lot of effort into both my work and academics. Throughout my academic journey, as well as during my previous internship, things were relatively smooth sailing.
However, in my current role, I feel like whatever I do is never enough, and I struggle to maintain a good relationship with my supervisor. I stay late, try my best with every deliverable, but it often feels pointless. There are many occasions when I worked late with my supervisor, but it feels as if that is the standard, and I feel really underappreciated. Due to my supervisor holding a relatively high position, I often go without proper guidance and end up delivering work that is not misaligned with my supervisor's expectations. I know I am not stupid, but it's hard for me to communicate my difficulties (I've tried talking to my supervisor about it, but nothing has changed). I’m thankful to have colleagues who are encouraging and kind, but my first real “taste” of corporate life has been really discouraging.
To put it simply, it has reached the point where I get a mini panic attack whenever my supervisor sends me a Teams message or calls me, regardless of the occasion. Thinking about spending the next few decades of my life in this kind of environment feels dreadful. I genuinely enjoy the career path I’m building, but the idea of dealing with dreadful people in the finance industry feels extremely draining.
I’m also someone who builds his self-esteem around success. To me, success means having a good career. However, the idea of having to work in such a cold industry feels exhausting.
Recently, I’ve also lost interest in many of the things I used to enjoy. I volunteer weekly teaching kids, and ever since I started this internship, volunteering has started to feel more like a chore than something meaningful. It used to be something that gave me purpose, but now I find myself questioning whether those feelings were ever genuine, or if I simply convinced myself they were.
As for dating and marriage, I’m still at an age where marriage feels a little early, although some of my peers have already gotten married. The last time I was in a relationship was back in secondary/middle school. Honestly, I don’t feel much motivation to put myself out there or meet new people. I still hope to find someone I can genuinely connect with, but at the same time, I’m not actively trying to meet anyone and am instead hoping that some miracle will happen.
This also ties back to financial prudence. I’ve made relatively good progress toward financial stability, at least compared to the average university student. Because of that, dating at my current age sometimes feels like a huge waste of money. From what I’ve seen among girls in university, as well as from anecdotal experiences shared by friends, it feels like many people in my generation — at least in my society — tend to be very practical and materialistic. I understand that I can’t have my cake and eat it too, but I was wondering what you guys think about this. I also do have someone I’ve been interested in for about a year and a half. However, at this point, I’m not sure whether I genuinely like her for who she is, or if I’m simply yearning for companionship because of this growing sense of emptiness and lack of purpose in my life.
Apologies if this post feels incoherent. I’m not really sure what I’m expecting out of writing this, but thank you to those who took the time to read it. As a disclaimer, I did run through my initial draft through ChatGPT to fix my sentence structure.