Hi everyone, this is the second time I've posted on Jow Forums in all my years of lurking, but I'm at a crossroads in my life and I figured I'd give this place a shot. I'm a 21 year old in the army and I don't know what to do with my life. In 1.5 years I will be getting out and going back to my Midwest state, and I have several options on where to take my life. My parents run a pretty significant farm that they would love to pass on to me, it's fairly lucrative and I have alot of the skills and knowledge needed to manage it from growing up there. However I'm not entirely in love with the lifestyle and I'm not sure how my fiance would feel about it either, and I'm also unsure as to my preparedness to run a business. Otherwise thanks to the military and me having decent grades and ACT score from high school I could go to college for pretty much whatever I want, the other one I've thought of is getting a degree in criminal justice and becoming a policeman of some kind, but that job has certain obvious downsides as well. I definitely don't want a desk job or anything involving tedious number crunching, money is a factor but comes second to satisfaction so far as career considerations for me, and I'm also trying to get established as soon as possible in whatever field I chose to catch up to my peers and start a family. What would you do if you were starting out anew and had free education?
Tell me what to do with my life Jow Forums
>inb4 fking phoneposter/newfag
Yea we've established that
Seems like you have lots of luck in life OP. Great family, fiance, money, education and multiple ways to go with your life, all of that at age of 21.
Good job on not fucking everything up like most kids these days.
Decision as what to do in life is one of the hardest and doesn't come easy. I always knew I wanted to be IT guy and have a desk job, but only at age of 22 I discovered I want to create video games. I still didn't have any luck with that, but that is the thing that I would do even for free if that would mean that I'd be homeless.
Find something you love to do. Not just like, find something that passionate you, gives you that "thrill". What was the last thing you've spend like 7 hours doing and were like "Holy shit, was it really that long?"
I've definitely had more than my fair share of luck, but as far as passion the only thing I've been really excited for as an adult was joining the military, which while not being terrible isn't what I want to do with my life anymore. I honestly can't remember the last time I lost myself doing something for hours that I enjoyed that I could take to a professional field. Really I'm trying to save time here and avoid the long mistake-and-decision making process that will eat up my GI Bill and time. I'll be 23 when I get out and I need to hit the ground running in the right direction so to speak.
If I were you, I'd go back to your parent's farm and live that life.
You've got a lot of time to stew on it.
It's what I'd do. Think about it.
It's the opposite of the Army. Same place, zero insecurity, constant schedule.
You got 1.5 year to think about it.
I'd do it.
Find a woman, I guess in the mean time. If you can. Jody is lurking
I'd get out of the military and become a PMC contractor, then retire at 40. Fuck working, all jobs suck. Wish my hippie parents didn't talk me out of the military when I was younger, now I'm 32 and grinding out 40 hr work weeks.
If you're against that, I'd go into the Border Patrol. It's like /out/ law enforcement. A lot of going cross country on foot and by truck, you learn to track and hunt down people. Seems pretty tight. The best part is that as soon as you deport them they try to cross again,so it has great job security.
Perhaps I've been coddled by the military too much into depending on someone telling me where to be when and what to do at all times of the day, running a business, much less a farm, is so much more daunting to me. As far as Jody goes my fiance and I have been going strong since high school and if something would have happened since then I would have heard since she hangs out with our same group of small town high school friends, but it is a valid concern to voice for anyone in the military I suppose.
Not bad advice, unfortunately both me and my girl are pretty rooted in the area we grew up in, it's probably one of my biggest regrets about being in the army, so BP and contracting overseas are out. But thanks still solid advice.
You're totally right in everything you say. Except for perhaps saying that your girl won't fuck Jody. She will. Women, man. Women.
Anyways. Look, what are you gonna do when you get out? You're 11b?
No translatable skills. And that's fucking bullshit
And yet, how it is.
Go back to a successful life that you have set up for you.
You're choosing between "successful farm" or "begging on streets"
When you put it like that....
If I were to farm I think I'd like to get a degree in something, just to give myself more options down the road and make use of my benefits, but maybe your right.
I'd like to try and convince a stranger on the internet my girl is different, but every 18 y.o. private in the army will say the same thing about the stripper they met last week, so I know what you mean and I'll just go about my life lol. Also yes 11B so basically McDonald's worker if I don't do something else when I'm out.
Then take the farm. You have a successful business already set up for you. You get to skip the stress of just starting out and begin immediately at reaping the benefits of owning your own business. It's outdoors, it's local. It's everything you want.
You sound like a smart guy.
Not stupid, at least
Being educated and working a proper life are not mutually exclusive.
A farm is a righteous life's work.
I'm an educated moron. I spent lots of money asking people who were total assholes to tell me things I could learn for free.
Ok, so there was once the Roman Empire.
And the Roman Empire went through a few bouts of problems
Once of those problems ended up with a great man named Diocletian bring the Empire out of chaos and uniting it under him.
His specific strategy worked. The Empire resurrected itself.
It was good.
It was great.
Then, according to his own plan, he retired.
Then it all went to more or less chaos again.
Diocletian however, closed his eyes, and remained retired, tending to his garden.
After a few years, the new leaders broke down his door and demanded that he take control or at least advise the new government.
And what he said was
"If you saw my cabbage garden, you would not ask me such"
Ok, that was a lot to say that what is good is what you take it to be. "Greatness" is not always good.
Just doing an honest day's work can be great.
Degrees are stupid, IMO. For most people, they are.
Don't get me wrong. LEARNING is necessary for everyone who wants to be a proper adult.
Learn everything about the world.
But it's the 21st century. We have libraries and the internet.
Any person can become learned.
I paid a lot of money for something I can do at home.
You have a great advantage of having your own "cabbage garden" waiting for you.
Be the best fucking farmer you can be. Learn as much as you want at night. That's being the best man any man can be.
Let me tell you about Cincinatus...
Your appealing to my /his/, I like it, sounds like genuine wisdom too, but if I have the option to go to school while spending summers at home learning the trade from my parents I should just to have something to fall back on, no?
Feel free to tell me about Cincinnatus.
I have to warn you that I am drunk and becoming more drunk.
If this conversation goes on too long, I may not be able to respond.
So your first question. Yes. That's a good option. Learning a trade, at home, while learning something in a school. But I'd say, make sure that your school learning is something useful. From personal experience, it's not history. It's learning something non-academic like welding or plumbing.
Do you want to do a blue collar job like that?
You already have a job like that in your hand. And it's one you can take the most pride from. Feeding fucking people. Like being a gravedigger, that's never going to go out of fashion.
Don't mistake my aversion to academia as anti-intellectualism, by the way. I love learning and I advocate it for everyone. The world is so fucking full of wonderful interesting things. Learn them! I'm not remotely done learning, despite a shitty paper with some signatures on it.
Ok, Cincinnatus. There needs some context right off the bat.
Dictator. Senate. Consul.
What are those things?
The time is early Republican Rome. Talking like 200BC and earlier.
In this period Rome is a Republic. It had thrown off its Kings decades ago and hates them.
It is like ancient America. It hates Kings.
The current ruling system is the Republic. It's a democracy, more or less. The rich have more votes by law, but hey, all citizens still vote.
Anyways, the Senate is the Rich People Gathering. Old men. With money. That's the Senate.
Every year, the Senate voted amongst themselves two CONSULS. The rulers of Rome (and all her territories). They decide what to do.
And since there are TWO Consuls, they never totally agree. And that's by purpose.
The Romans loved argument and so their leaders should reflect that.
But sometimes, war happens. And you can't have indecision in war. What do you do if your leaders are always a pair?
You nominate ONE ruler for a short time.
TO BE CONTINUED
War. One ruler.
What do you call that? A person that dictates what should happen?
A DICTATOR
A dictator has absolute power. But unlike the current meaning of the word, a Roman dictator is nominated by the Senate and therefore by the people (if indirectly).
Cincinnatus was an early Republican dictator.
There was a war. (Against a people I forget)
And Cincinnatus was given total control of the Roman army.
And he won! Good job Cincinnatus.
But the rub was that he had control of the entire army of Rome. And their loyalty too, since he just led them to victory.
He could have rolled right into Rome and say "Yo, I am King now". And no one could stop him. He was absolute ruler.
But he didn't do that. He let all the soldiers disband and go back to their families.
He went back to his own farm.
The story of Cincinnatus is an Imperial Roman one. A story that the Romans of years past AD tell about the "good ol days"
The best Roman was a "farmer soldier"
A man that farms during peace and then fights during war.
That's Cincinnatus.
He was a farmer. Then he was a general. And when the war was over. He went back to farming.
It's like that Cincinnatus never existed. He's a fiction of the late Roman Republic to glorify the past.
But the moral exists.
Fight for your farm. And when the fighting is over. Farm. Be peaceful. Be a man of the land.
Side note, the early American leadership, the Founding Fathers, were big big fans of the Roman Republic and based America on the improvement of that Rome.
It's why so many New England cities have Roman names.
Like.... Cincinnati
Much more entertaining than Wikipedia. Even if your history degree doesn't make you buckets of cash, at least you make quality and informative shitposts friend.
Why don't you just ask your fiance if she'd be into the farm?
Also, most places you don't necessarily need a college degree to be a cop, so a bachelor's degree in criminal Justice is probably a waste of time. Unless you really find the topic fascinating.
Me and my fiance both grew up on farms and hated it as teens, she'd like to live in the suburbs somewhere most likely.
Here's the thing.
I learnt most of this out of class listening to podcasts.
Which is the point that I was first making.
We conflate education with knowledge. And that doesn't need to be so.
"Self-taught" is not a dirty word.
I'm not totally eschewing the value of formal education. First off, if it's STEM then it's necessary, but for other pursuits, talking to peers and professors who know more are totally useful.
Higher education is useful. I don't want to say it isn't
But for 90% of people it isn't.
I learned most of this by listening to the "History of Rome" by Mike Duncan.
A podcast.
I listened while working for a few years.
My man, if I were you, I'd dive into that farming life but enrich it with everything else in the world.
Sounds good, I just might do it. To elaborate on what I said earlier about not being sure about the lifestyle though, from what I've seen farming IS your lifestyle, it becomes all consuming. Which is fine, even great, if that's all you want. But there might not be alot of room for enriching the other aspects of life.
You got enough time to bitch here, dontcha?
Your EAS is still 1.5 years from now, right?
And yet you're here. Having a lovely twosided conversation.
The same with farming. Except of "I hope this is over soon" you feel pride after every day's work.
That's a bit condescending, sorry
But 24 hours is a lot of hours. You can find time for fucking around.
Have you thought about asking your pop?
He'd know the ins and outs.
Don't get a degree in criminal justice, those degrees are not very useful at all. It's very limiting, most CS majors end up as security guards. Your military service should be good enough to land you into a police department, and you can use your GI Bill for something else which interests you.