I feel for the author, but it seems like (whether he realizes it or not) he's not complaining about the modern working world so much as he's just complaining ab

I feel for the author, but it seems like (whether he realizes it or not) he's not complaining about the modern working world so much as he's just complaining about fundamental facts of life- at some point you've got to move away from home and start supporting yourself, and it may take a while to find a way to do that in a way that doesn't drive you crazy. At the end he says this: "Had I known the burden that an average (or above average) job would put forth, I might have re-evaluated my decision to rush off to stuff my bank account." The phrasing, "to stuff my bank account" makes it sound like he feels like he made some Faustian bargain to give up his soul for the filthy lucre. But that's not why he rushed off. He rushed off because of this: "I was approaching my 20s and I had to get a job. Living at home off of my parents was not sustainable, and wasn’t conducive to a better future." Is he saying, he wished he never left home, and continued living off of his parents? Because I hope he realizes that that's not an option, or at least not one that's going to be good for him or anyone else in the long term. Or, is he saying that he had achieved some reasonable way of supporting himself back at home, but he kept moving around and chasing higher-paying jobs, until some financial version of the Peter Principle kicked in and he attained some high-paying position that he hated? It doesn't sound like it, since he still complains about not being able to afford a decent place near work and spending 4 hours commuting every day. I'm not sure he's saying anything other than verbalizing why he feels unhappy right now, and for that I feel bad for him. This is the thing though- he's clearly approaching a fork in the road where he's going to have to make some tough decisions in order to get back to a reasonable level of happiness. The fork is whether he blames the world for his problems, or uses it as an opportunity to grow and find new ways to be happy and satisfied. If he blames the world for his problems, then presumably he quits his job, moves back in with his parents, and goes back to being addicted to his inner world all day long for as long as that lasts. He doesn't change, nothing changes, he just figures out some way to prolong his adolescence for a while longer. The much better alternative is to just realize that a life well-lived continually pushes you outside your comfort zone, and the best skill you can acquire is to figure out how to roll with the punches and figure out new ways to be happy when the old ones aren't practical anymore. People in your life come and go, jobs come and go, where you live will change all the time, and your amount of free time and what you can do with it will change continuously over the years. More than anything else, YOU will change, the things you need will change, and the things that make you happy will change. You'll miss the people and things and places that are gone, but all of the pressure is on you to adapt and find new ways to be happy. It completely and totally sucks balls, but everybody has to go through it and it hits some people a lot harder than others. There's things you can change and things you can't change. You can't change having to support yourself, or being responsible for your own health and happiness. But you can change just about everything else. Is a 4 hour commute making you miserable? Get a new job that's much closer to home. Or move closer to work. If you can't stand the commute, then one of those two things has to change, period. Also, it sounds like his passion for the more abstract, academic side of things would make him a perfect fit for grad school or a PhD. Maybe your parents have to help you with that for a while, or you can get a scholarship and/or student loans. Every problem you can verbalize like this is just a question that you need to come up with an answer for. Actually, based on what he wrote, it kind of blows my mind that he didn't want to at least stick around for an MS. Finally, he does sound like he may have some depression issues, and he should at least meet with a therapist or psychiatrist a few times to talk this stuff out. Nothing wrong with that, it happens to people all the time. Good luck, you won't need it though.