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Wellness Wednesday for September 6, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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You've said you're doing a Master's, so I presume you've just started term. It might be helpful to join 2-3 societies (including both something you've got experience in and something you've not done before). Although the sense of alienation will likely be there in the short term, in the medium term your shared interests should mean that you gradually bond- if you put in some effort and go to socials etc.

Another angle- look for people who are at a more similar stage in life to you or have a similar outlook. I think there's a bit of an illusion that everyone at that age is into similar activities- primarily drinking, clubbing, and posting on social media. There will however be a significant minority not into these things that are by nature more difficult to find. Often they converge in "nerdy" societies or optional additional classes - the difficulty being the attendant frequency in such societies of those whom you wouldn't want to be friends with in the first place. Another option is looking for your "graduate"-type student union, where there is a higher proportion of people who are older and therefore more likely to be relatable.

On the future- not much to say really! If you like money, I wouldn't knock an office job too much: regardless of degree or experience to date, you could do a law conversion course or go into accountancy or consultancy, all of which are established and potentially well-paying career paths which can be intellectually interesting on the day to day. I don't know what either of your degrees are in, so there may be further options. It's probably worth exploring what you want from a job, in terms of pay/hours/conditions/intellectual stimulation (possibly with your uni's careers advisors) and going from there.

Having said that, there's no real requirement to start work immediately after graduating. Indeed, a number of my peers were out of work for a year or so and then landed good jobs when they started actually applying. You could acquire capital over (say) 3 months and then either travel abroad or look for opportunities in your country for bed-and-board volunteering opportunities. These would have the virtue of not being office jobs (so you can see if you like it) and also immersing you in socialising with people who are not your kin. Hostels and small-scale farms spring to mind as typical opportunities of this kind.

I've gone on too long, so key takeaways: life does not end at 25; lots of people are only just entering their careers/ finding partners at 30+; push yourself to spend more time with other people and less time browsing and it will gradually become easier.