Yeah, I belive this is something that a lot of people go through. I am only in high school. A senior to be, but I am going off to art college, and I am not sure if this is really what I want to do, but it's the only thing I am good at. I think it happens to all people, but I really think you get past since I have spoken to older freinds who have just graduated college and feel unsatisfied. I am sure that you will get past it, and it's completely normal.

Suck it up is right, its not hard labor. If you dont like your job just quit! Baby

Try googling "quarter life crisis" and you'll see that this happens to many, many people. I'm going through the same thing right now and it's tough. I think the key is to try and find out what it is you love to do and do that for a living. Easier said than done though...

Suck it up??? Fuck that. You only get one shot at life, so you'd better make sure you enjoy it.

Working for a living sucks. Read this, and get the hell out:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446677450/qid=1120039693/sr=8-3/ref=pd_csp_3/102-6523680-5702501?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

the best part of graduating from college (and not going to graduate school) is realizing how much life sucks. it's just the way of the world. oh yea, and all your friends that have "great jobs" will get laid off or fired, divorced, screwed, etc and be just as miserable as you. i'd suggest joining the peace corp or finding a job that is more than just a fat paycheck. sounds like hippie advice, but it's really the only alternative (or one of them anyway) to the proverbial rat-race.

I've gotta agree with the above poster. I started working at about 10 years of age, and never stopped after that. I put myself through highschool and some college. I'm great with computers and was making a killing, especially during the tech bubble, but I hit the same point you're at now. I heard about a job in the military that really interested me, and I haven't looked back since. Sure, I took a good 80-90% pay cut, but y'know what? It's fucking worth it. Here's my way of looking at it. In my last job, almost every day was a "bad day at work", and coming home meant finding a way to forget about it. Now I've never had a bad day at work, am very proud of what I do and some of the contributions I've made. The money sucks, but it's enough. I don't have any debt, and am slowly building up a sizable savings.

The "career path" and "big paycheck" things are all bullshit. What you really need to do is find something that you'll be proud of doing. Sure, you can boast to your friends and family about the money you make, and the great job title you have, but are you really PROUD of what you're doing? Does it make you feel good about yourself? Does it EXCITE you? If not, find something else. Maybe not civil/military service, maybe something else in the private sector. Maybe working for yourself. Maybe producing porn. It doesn't really matter. But being miserable your entire life just so you have a few extra bucks to retire with when you're already old and miserable is just plain stupid. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, I'm already retired. It has never felt like work to me.

A wise person once said, "If you love what you do, you'll never work another day of your life."

You said Ivy League. Sounds expensive. Part of the problem may be that you didn't study alternatives in college because you wanted to get out of there. Take a few hobbies on the weekend. If you enjoy your life more in general, work might seem more bearable.

I got straight A's in school all my life but I wasn't particularly smart. I didn't care about learning; all I cared about was getting good grades because that's what my parents wanted. So I memorized just enough, studied just the stuff that would be on the test, and generally looked at the material as crap I would have to know to pass a test.

People focus on the end products: good grades, a respectable career, a well-paying job, etc. That's what people think success is, but it's really doing something you love & care about; going to work every day happy to be doing something you're passionate about.

It's just like in school--success isn't making the good grades, it's caring about what you're learning, wanting to learn, being passionate about filling your mind with knowledge.

So until you do something you're passionate about, you'll never be successful. Good luck!

FIGHT THE MAN

I believe that it may be that you feel you are lacking purpose in life, perhaps you find your job souless. it probably isn't what you imagined doing when you grew up when you were a child.

Perhaps you got swept along in school and college by teachers/parents/peers saying you were really good at such and such, and should stick to it, or you were proud of achievements that others didn't expect of you, and it lead you in a direction away from your real love.

Often creative people find themselves in heartless jobs they've worked most their lives getting to. The only plus is that they perhaps can earn enough money to get out of the rat-race and live in a cottage in the country and be self-sufficient and write or sell craft work, and realise the real purpose in life is to grow as a person not to accumulate material goods.

Use what you've learned and the people you know to find your way to an occupation in something that feels like the real you.

The industrialized world is structured in such a way that corporate/business interests, if allowed to by the individual, will dominate and repress personal desires and goals. If you don't mind working "to pay the mortgage" and to "make ends meet," then this model is great. And for a lot of people it works.

But I don't think it's much of a prescription for happiness; the challenge is believing in yourself rather than buying into the standard workaday business lifestyle (which even social service jobs often seem modeled after -- can't figure that one out).

You are a responsible person. Learn to take risks, and trust that you are responsible enough not to be stupid about it. Quit your job without a plan for a next job. Spend some time trying to figure out what to do next. Put yourself in a new place, outside your normal patterns. You might learn whatever it is you sound like you want to learn; doing the same thing won't help.

Nobody can have answers for what you should be doing -- the closest anyone can get is giving you ideas about what things might help you figure out what you need to figure out. (And you do need to; it's of critical importance. Just don't stress out about it.)

I quit my job 3 years out of college and haven't "worked" since then, and I have never been happier. I keep a lot of projects in the air at once, and run with what works. Some of them make money and others don't, and I am lucky that I can pay the bills without feeling that I am "owned" or "wasting my time." I can live the life I want to live, for the most part on my own terms.

I am by no means completely fulfilled or 100% enthused by my life as it is, but I am willing to take a critical yet caring (and that is important!) look at myself and do my best to change what I can.

As someone else mentioned, you get one chance at life, at least as far as any of us know: don't waste it doing something you hate.

Don't be afraid to ignore society's messages, because they are designed to serve society itself, and the success of the tribe -- not the happiness of the individual.

This is a shortcoming of the zero-sum, quick-profit mentality.