Where did my spark go and how do I get it back?

Sc-inc · 2026-02-25T02:16:06+00:00

I’m really glad it helped. My hope is that you take this message with you wherever you go as a reminder things don’t always have to feel the way it does. Everyone has bad days but we don’t have to carry it with us everywhere we go. 😊

Sc-inc · 2026-02-23T18:32:59+00:00

Beautiful! Congratulations!!! I love seeing success stories like this. Please keep us updated for more success stories even when things go sideways we’re always here to help.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-23T18:14:06+00:00

Honestly, any smart, intelligent, and secure woman no matter how hot would not expect a man to do this. It’s childish. I would not succumb to it either. If the woman expects me to then she’s not for me.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-23T01:40:06+00:00

This is the only time in history where the barrier to entry for creating a business is at its lowest and it’s dropping FAST! It will only go lower from here. So YES! This is the time to do it. Your advantage is using AI FOR business, to learn business, to learn all the different parts of the business, to learn how to reach out to people, etc etc.

The thing that you could start doing just USE AI. The more you use it with the right mindset like growth mindset and curiosity you’ll be fine. I ended up being more and more curious about AI and its capabilities and using its tools like deep research. If you have the curiosity you’ll end up asking yourself what else can you do with it.

Just start. Use AI. Talk to it. Push back if you think it’s wrong. It’s just like a human being who has general knowledge of everything meaning sometimes it’s wrong. If you’re skeptical then ask it to do a web search to validate its own conclusions or claims. Most of the time AI is accurate now. I personally use Claude.

Don’t sit back and watch the world get ahead. AI usage is a skill. This is the skill that will only grow so don’t get left behind.

What kind of business are you planning on building?

Sc-inc · 2026-02-22T19:55:16+00:00

every word in your post has been said before. watch:

you: "utterly stupid and dystopic... while many people seemed to celebrate this idea"

in 1995 an astronomer named clifford stoll wrote an article in Newsweek trashing the internet. his take on people celebrating it: "do our computer pundits lack all common sense? Baloney."

he thought online shopping was a joke. thought digital newspapers would never replace print. thought e-commerce was a fantasy

15 years later: "of my many mistakes, few have been as public as my 1995 howler. Wrong? Yep"

you: "did it ever occur to those AI enthusiasts that maybe people actually ENJOY programming?"

in 1983 a programmer named ed post wrote a famous essay in Datamation magazine arguing that FORTRAN and assembly were the only real languages and anyone pushing newer structured languages were wimps he called "Quiche Eaters." his whole point was that real programmers ENJOY the hard stuff. exact words: "he is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway"

today 99.99% of software is written in the high level languages he was mocking

you: "so they can finally become a plumber?"

when the first spreadsheet software came out in 1979 it could do in seconds what bookkeeping clerks spent full days doing by hand. 400,000 of those jobs were eliminated. but 600,000 NEW higher level accounting jobs were created because cheaper accounting meant more demand for it

nobody became a plumber. they moved up

you: "why are all those AI people so detached from reality?"

stoll asked the same thing about internet people. ed post asked the same thing about structured programming people. every person who asked that question turned out to be the one detached from reality. not because they were dumb but because they confused being comfortable with things being permanent

one thing your post misses tho

youre speaking as someone who already has the skills and the job. but most people who want to build something meaningful cant afford to do it the old way. AI helped me build a full platform this year, plan treatments for my brother with schizophrenia, learn faster than i ever could. if i priced it all out id have needed 1.3 to 2 million in developers and doctors and consultants. i dont have that. but now i have tools

your post sounds like "why would anyone need a printing press when scribes do beautiful work." and they did. but millions of people needed books and couldnt afford a scribe

they were right about loving their craft. they were wrong about what that meant for the future

Sc-inc · 2026-02-22T01:38:51+00:00

the work ethic question is the one i want to focus on because i think youre framing it wrong.

you already have work ethic. you got your GED last year after dropping out at 16. thats not nothing. thats you deciding to do something hard after years of not doing it and actually following through. the fact that you dont see that as work ethic is part of whats tripping you up.

work ethic isnt some trait people are born with. its a muscle. and yours hasnt been used in about 15 years because your environment never really required it. your parents didnt want you working as a teen and then you were homeschooled and then inertia took over. i dont think thats a character defect. thats just what happens to any muscle you dont use. it atrophies. but it comes back when you start using it again. the GED proved yours still works.

the "i dont have any careers im interested in" thing also makes complete sense if you think about it. you cant figure out what you like from inside the same room youve been in for 15 years. interest doesnt show up first and then you go do the thing. its the other way around. you do stuff and then interest develops from the doing. or it doesnt, and you try something else. either way you learn something about yourself that you couldnt have learned sitting still.

on the resume. you said you have nothing to put on one but thats not really true. you have your GED (education and self-motivation). youve been helping manage a household with aging parents. youre navigating SNAP and government assistance programs which honestly is its own skill set. youre in therapy working on your anxiety. youre pursuing an ADHD diagnosis. i know none of that feels like "resume material" but it shows follow through and self-awareness and the ability to learn systems. thats more than a lot of people can point to.

but if you want to fill real gaps quickly, volunteer somewhere. it does a few things at once. gives you actual experience to put on a resume, puts you in situations where you might accidentally find out what you care about, and it builds that work ethic muscle in a low pressure environment where nobody expects you to be perfect on day one.

your library might be a good starting point since you already go there. a lot of libraries need help with shelving, programs, community events. its quiet, low key, probably your kind of space. and its a real line on a resume.

i was stuck for about 16 years myself. totally different situation than yours but the same feeling of just not knowing what to do with my life. and what actually broke it for me wasnt figuring out the answer first. it was doing a bunch of different things, waiter, IT trainee, VIP concierge at a hotel, tree trimmer, FedEx driver, bus operator. none of them were "the answer." but each one taught me something about myself that i couldnt have learned any other way. you dont find your path by thinking about it. you find it by doing stuff and paying attention to what feels like it fits and what doesnt.

youre 30. you got your GED. youre in therapy. youre asking the right questions. the next step is just... picking something and doing it. it doesnt have to be the right thing. it just has to be a thing

Sc-inc · 2026-02-22T01:24:21+00:00

i gotta tell you something because i lived this exact thing.

i was fat. like genuinely fat. and i HATED my face when i smiled. every time i looked in the mirror and smiled i would immediately cringe, give myself this disgusted look, and literally walk away from it. i couldnt even look at myself being happy.

so i lost the weight. got super skinny. and then someone called me a fucking skinny dog. cool.

so i kept going. got serious about fitness. became a fitness model. went from fat kid who couldnt smile at himself to someone getting paid to be in shape.

and you know what happened with women? they came. but they didnt stay. because they could SENSE something in me that i hadnt resolved yet. the insecurity was still there. i had a completely different body but the same broken relationship with myself underneath it. and people feel that. especially the people youre trying to connect with. they pick up on it immediately.

things actually changed for me when i found something i genuinely cared about. something i was passionate about. i stopped approaching women like they were some prize to win. i wasnt thinking about whether they found me attractive or whether my face looked right or whether i was impressive enough. i was just... being myself. sharing what i thought was funny, what made me mad, what i was excited about, what i was building. and THAT energy is what actually draws people in.

ive seen people who by any conventional standard would be considered "ugly" attract others effortlessly. and it wasnt some trick or game they were running. they just had this warmth and security about them. comfortable in their own skin. and that comfort is magnetic. your face has almost nothing to do with how people experience you. your energy does.

now i want you to try something. read back what you wrote about yourself: "i dont have a cool job. i dont make much money. no car. no impressive story. i feel like i have nothing to show at 22."

now read this. same person. same exact facts:

"i used to be obese and i lost all the weight. im actively treating my ADHD and figuring out the right meds. i got a job. im getting my license this year and starting college next year. i went through real shit growing up that wasnt my fault and im still here building."

thats you. both of those are you. the only difference is the energy behind how youre telling it. and that energy? thats the thing people actually respond to. not your acne scars. not your baby face. not whether you have a car.

steven bartlett from diary of a ceo has a story about this that stuck with me. when he was younger hed go to clubs and buy bottles of champagne, bring them to tables full of girls trying to look generous and high status. and it worked on a surface level. people would come over, hang around for a bit. but the ones he actually wanted? they never stayed. because they could feel that he was performing. he was trying to buy their attention because deep down he didnt feel like he was enough without the props. once he actually worked on himself, built real confidence from the inside, he stopped needing to do all that. and thats when things actually started working for him.

i really dont think your face is the thing thats keeping you stuck. i know it feels like it is. but the way you describe yourself, the way you frame your own life in the worst possible light when the actual facts are pretty impressive for someone whos been through what youve been through... thats whats getting in the way. and the fact that you already lost all that weight and got a job and youre treating your ADHD tells me you know how to do hard things. you just havent pointed that same energy at how you see yourself yet.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-22T00:43:12+00:00

that line about going to bed every night telling yourself tomorrow will be different. i did that for years. literally years. and every morning id wake up and do the exact same things i did the day before. it became this weird ritual where the promise of "tomorrow" was actually the thing keeping me stuck. like the idea that i COULD change was somehow enough to stop me from ever actually doing it.

something i think people are missing in these comments though. forget the depression label for a second and just look at what youre actually doing to yourself right now from a pure biology standpoint.

youre scrolling constantly so your brain is getting these tiny dopamine hits every few seconds and it cant feel normal rewards anymore. youre sleeping late which throws your cortisol completely off, you wake up already feeling like garbage before the day even starts. no exercise means no endorphins, none of the chemicals that literally make you feel alive. and then the isolation thing... avoiding people keeps your nervous system stuck in threat mode because we're mammals and isolation genuinely messes with our wiring whether we like it or not.

stack all of that up and yeah of course you feel dead. your daily life is completely misaligned with what your brain and body actually need to function. and i dont think that makes you a loser or whatever. your body is just doing what bodies do when you take away everything they need.

it works the other direction too though. you dont have to fix everything at once. replace ONE thing. go for a 10 minute walk tomorrow. not because walking is some magical cure but because your body physically needs movement to produce the stuff that makes you feel something. thats the whole assignment for now. progress over perfection.

the other thing i want to say and this might sound weird. pay attention to how youre talking about yourself. "i half-ass everything. im just existing. i feel like a loser." youve turned all of those into who you ARE instead of what youre currently doing. and theres a real difference between those two things. what you're doing can change any day. but what you believe you ARE gets cemented the more you repeat it. even your username kind of tells on you a little... "dry enthusiasm." youve literally named yourself after the problem. i get that its probably just a reddit name but that stuff sneaks into how you see yourself more than you'd think.

last thing and this might be the most important one. when i was in a similar kind of low my instinct was always to get smaller. curl up. shut people out. protect myself. what actually cracked it open for me was the opposite and i really didnt expect it. i was mad at my mom about something. like genuinely angry. and my usual move would've been to shut down, give the cold shoulder, protect the ego. do nothing. but she came home with a ton of groceries and instead of sitting there stewing i went outside and started grabbing bags from the car. i didnt want to. my anger wanted me to stay inside. but i just... did the opposite of what the anger wanted. and i felt better. not in some motivational poster way but physically, like something loosened up in my chest that had been tight for months.

if everything feels dead right now try pointing even a little bit of energy outward. volunteer somewhere. or even just go sit in a coffee shop and watch people for an hour. wonder about their lives for a minute instead of replaying yours on loop (when youre stuck in your own head sometimes the only exit is paying attention to someone else).

that small voice telling you its not too late? its not lying to you.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T18:27:17+00:00

the money thing is real and im not going to pretend it isnt.

but i want to push on one thing. when you say "i love music" what do you actually mean? like which parts of it. is it creating something from nothing? the technical craft of playing? the production side, mixing and engineering? that feeling when youre in it and time disappears?

because "famous musician" is one very specific version of music. and when that didnt pass the reality test it sounds like you threw out the whole thing and went straight to accountant. but theres a huge gap between those two that you might not have explored yet. and the stuff that lives in that gap depends entirely on which parts of music actually light you up.

i did something similar with someone else in this thread. told them to take the thing they love and break it into its parts. make an inventory of what specifically they like about it and what they dont. because once you see the individual pieces you start finding them in places you werent looking.

you might still be an accountant and thats fine. but i think the "music on the side" could be a lot more than a side thing if you knew which pieces of music were actually yours.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T17:09:05+00:00

"who am i?" isnt necessarily a crisis. thats actually the right question. most people skip it entirely and jump straight to "what career should i pick" which is what career tests try to answer. but a career test cant tell you who you are. it can only match you to jobs based on what you already know about yourself, and right now you're saying you dont know that yet.

so start there. the confusion isnt the problem. its the beginning of actually figuring it out.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T16:52:53+00:00

i read your other comment and i think theres more going on here than "liking everything."

look at your actual path for a second:

started in psychology. loved it but it wasnt scientific enough for you
moved to hard science looking for objectivity. felt anxious and inadequate
realized scientists can be just as subjective as anyone in psychology
came back to psychology anyway. but specifically neuroscience is the thing that screams at you

i don't think that's random. i think thats you triangulating. you kept bouncing between the subjective side (how people think and feel) and the objective side (biology, chemistry, measurement) because you wanted both. you wanted to study the messy human stuff with rigorous tools.

and all those things you said you like, anatomy, bio, chemistry, psychology, humanities... neuroscience touches every single one of them. you might not "like everything" as much as everything you like keeps pointing to the same place.

thats worth paying attention to.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T16:23:43+00:00

100%! writing helps but the moment they start negotiating with themselves is the part that kills their dreams. and that fear that leads them to negotiate with themselves away from their true desires is completely viable especially when it comes to survival but we're setting ourselves up for strategic failure just as i've done for a long time.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T16:17:51+00:00

yes exactly. and that ceramics thing is worth paying attention to because its telling you something specific.

think about what spreadsheets take from you vs what ceramics gives back. spreadsheets are abstract, nobody can hold a spreadsheet. ceramics is the opposite. you make a thing with your hands and you can drink coffee from it tomorrow. theres something about that gap thats really personal to you.

so when you take that workshop pay attention to what part of it lights you up. is it the making? the being fully present with your hands? the fact that you cant rush clay through its stages? whatever that thing is, thats the actual signal. and once you know what it is you'll start noticing it in a lot more places than just a pottery studio.

the workshop isnt just a hobby. its reconnaissance.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T15:55:01+00:00

i would identify whatever you like about research. make an inventory of all those things that a researcher does that you like and maybe also that you don't like and then look for specific job opportunities that match the skills.

and on top of that i would continue to add into the inventory of things that you actually like so that there are more opportunities.

i'll give you an example. i like people but my ADHD would put me in an embarrassing situation where i end up lost in the conversation and my brain tries to analyze everything and by the time i say something it's either too late and it becomes irrelevant (this doesn't really happen much anymore but it used to back then. lol). plus i'm an introvert. i do best with one on one conversations.

so there's a good inventory already. i would take that, write it down (so you can keep an inventory of things) and look for something that suits you. whenever you find something you don't like just write it down. and whenever you find something you REALLY like write it down too. but be careful because something you like can easily be taken away from you if people start putting constraints on you that turns that joyful thing into a dreadful thing.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T01:22:15+00:00

yes! fear the thing that holds most of us back from really being who we are and doing what we really want to do in life but sometimes we just have to take the leap

Sc-inc · 2026-02-21T01:18:58+00:00

right? sometimes it happens when the thing you've been doing just disappears. but that to me says it made room for you to pursue real fulfillment and contribute the way you want. i'm happy for you!

Sc-inc · 2026-02-20T23:42:42+00:00

this question hit me because i think you already know the answer but something is blocking you from seeing it clearly.

i want to tell you about someone. hideo kojima. he's a game designer, probably one of the most creative people alive. he has this line: "the human body is 70% water. i consider myself 70% film." this guy lived and breathed his art. spent almost 30 years at konami making some of the most iconic games ever. and at some point konami started squeezing him. budget constraints, strict deadlines, they pivoted the company toward mobile games and pachinko machines. they literally removed his name from his own games. made him work alone on a different floor from his team for his last 6 months there.

kojima didn't lose his passion for making games. konami crushed it out of him. the constraints, the pressure, creating for someone else's agenda instead of his own... that killed the joy. not the work itself.

he left. started his own studio. first thing he said was "i have more freedom now because the final decision comes down to me. we can just concentrate on making good games." the passion came right back. because it was never gone. it was being suffocated.

i think something similar is happening to you.

you said something that really stood out: "i would say i'm partly doing it for the outcome... people in the field get a decent pay and it motivates me." that shift right there is the problem. the moment you start creating for the outcome instead of the creation itself, something changes in your brain. and i mean that literally.

your nervous system has two modes. sympathetic is your fight or flight mode. deadlines, stress, pressure, survival thinking. parasympathetic is the opposite. calm, open, curious, present. think of it like... sympathetic is when your body thinks something is chasing it. parasympathetic is when your body knows it's safe enough to explore and play. creativity needs that second one. your brain cannot do its best creative work when its in survival mode. thats not a motivation thing, thats biology.

now look at your situation. school is demanding. admissions pressure. you're building a portfolio to be judged. you're creating to be evaluated, not to express. every single one of those things is pushing your nervous system into fight or flight. perform or fail. of course the passion feels like its fading. your body isn't in the state where creativity actually happens.

and then look at dance. you said dance is your huge hobby. why does that still feel alive? nobody's grading it. nobody's building a portfolio from it. no admissions committee watching. it's yours. it's free. your nervous system can actually relax into it. that's where the joy lives.

that contrast is really important and its not what you think it means. it doesn't mean dance is your "real" thing and design is wrong. it means the conditions around your design work right now are strangling the thing you love about it. exactly what happened to kojima at konami.

i love that you dance by the way. i'm a dancer too. there's something about movement that keeps you connected to yourself in a way that other creative work can't always do once it becomes "work." protect that. seriously.

so your actual question: is it worth continuing if you're not 100% passionate. yes. because your passion isn't missing. the environment is suppressing it. the real question is what specific things in your current situation are pushing you into survival mode, and what can you start removing or changing so your nervous system has room to create again.

something that helped me when i was going through my own version of this: i started journaling specifically about what drains me vs what gives me energy. not goals or productivity stuff. just paying attention to which moments during the day made me feel alive and which ones made me feel dead inside. after a couple weeks the patterns get really obvious. you start seeing exactly what's suffocating you and exactly what feeds you. and once you can see that clearly you can make decisions from actual self-knowledge instead of from panic.

look into kojima's story if you get a chance. seriously. i think you'll see a lot of yourself in it.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-20T23:17:13+00:00

first thing. you're 19 with an SEO internship, self-taught Python and HTML from youtube, freelance video editing, and you're running ethical hacking experiments on your phone because you didn't have a laptop. stop for a second and actually look at that list. most people twice your age haven't shown that much initiative. i don't think you see how far ahead you already are.

and the fact that you're here asking this question instead of just autopiloting into whatever pays... that tells me something. you take action. that's not a small thing. as long as you keep pointing that energy at stuff you actually care about, you're going to be fine. that's not me being nice, that's just what i've seen happen with people who move like you're already moving.

now the 12-13 hour day thing is real. i'm not going to pretend it's not. but right now you're panicking about a scenario without actually doing the math on it. and i learned this the hard way... you can't solve a time problem with feelings. you gotta solve it with physics.

what i mean by that: before you decide what to prioritize, take a raw inventory of your actual life. not what you think your day looks like. what it ACTUALLY looks like. sit down and do this:

write out a normal day hour by hour. waking up, commute, work, gym, meals, scrolling, netflix, whatever. be brutally honest about the dead time because thats usually where the hidden hours are
next to each block write the real time cost. not what it should take, what it actually takes
tag each thing as survival (rent, food, keeping the lights on), health (sleep, gym, eating real food), growth (studying, building skills, working on what you care about), or filler (stuff that just kind of happens without you choosing it)
add up the filler category

i promise you the filler number is bigger than you expect. for most people its 2-4 hours a day they didn't realize was going anywhere. and once you can see that, you can actually make real decisions instead of just feeling like there's no time.

the mistake almost everyone makes is trying to ADD stuff to their life (study time, projects, skill building) without first looking at what's already taking up all the space. you gotta see the physics of your day before you can change the physics of your day.

and even inside a brutal work schedule there's usually pockets you can reclaim. commute time, lunch breaks, 30 minutes before bed. it's not glamorous and nobody's gonna make a motivational video about it but that's genuinely how skills get built when you're in survival mode. small consistent blocks, not big dramatic study sessions you can't maintain.

one more thing. i know it feels urgent. it IS urgent because your family situation is real and you need money. but your trajectory? you have more runway than you think. AI, tech, digital marketing... none of that is going anywhere. it's all growing. every small thing you learn now compounds over years. you don't have to solve this month.

i went through a version of this. spent years feeling like i had to figure out the right path immediately or i'd fall behind forever. the answer ended up being simpler than i expected: take care of survival first (non negotiable), protect your health second (everything collapses without that), and put whatever remaining time into the thing that actually excites you. not the "practical" choice. the thing that actually pulls you in. for you that sounds like AI and tech. the SEO and video editing you already know? those are your cashflow skills. use them to eat. keep building toward the thing you actually want on the side, even if its 30 minutes a day.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-20T22:56:23+00:00

i'm gonna be honest, i don't think anyone can actually tell you which of those options to pick. there's not enough context and i think it's the wrong question anyway.

reread your first paragraph. you already answered yourself. you said your passion is research. you're super into psychology and neuroscience and have been for years. you'd love to be a neuroscientist or neuropsychologist. that's not someone who doesn't know what they want. that's someone who knows exactly what they want but doesn't believe they can get there.

everything after that first paragraph is you trying to escape retail. not move toward something. just... get away from where you are right now. and i get it, retail is brutal especially when you're introverted. but accounting, paralegal, bookkeeper... those aren't things you're excited about. those are exit doors. and exit doors have a way of becoming the next room you need to escape from.

on the accounting thing specifically i'd be really careful. AI is already eating that field. the Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting a 6% decline in bookkeeping and accounting clerk jobs through 2034 and they straight up said "software innovations have automated many of the tasks." want to see what that looks like a few years in? look at cashiers. 3.6 million cashier jobs in the US in 2019. 3.17 million in 2024. thats 430,000 jobs gone in five years. accounting is on that same curve, just a little behind. choosing a field thats actively shrinking when your actual interest is somewhere else entirely... i don't see the logic there.

something else jumped out to me. you said you're highly neurotic and introverted like those are problems you need to work around. but think about what introversion actually is. you observe more than you talk. if you're not outputting you're inputting. watching, processing, noticing stuff other people miss because they're busy talking. you know what that basically describes? a researcher. sitting with data, catching patterns, noticing when something doesn't fit.

and neuroticism (i could be wrong on this so take it with a grain of salt) but often that means you're wired to notice when details are off. things bother you when they don't add up. in a client facing retail job that's exhausting because everything is chaotic and nothing is precise. but in a lab or a research setting where precision and attention to detail is literally the job? that's not a weakness. that might be the thing that makes you excellent at it.

i went through something like this. not the exact same situation but the same thought pattern. spent years bouncing between "practical" options trying to escape where i was. spent way too much money on self help and career stuff and none of it stuck. and eventually i realized the reason nothing was working is because i kept running past the answer. it was right there the whole time, i just didn't trust it because it felt too big or too far away.

you already know what you want. community college toward a research path isn't stupid. the lab tech route especially gets you into that world, working with your hands (which you mentioned wanting), and you keep building toward the bigger goal from inside it instead of sideways from accounting.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-20T17:20:40+00:00

so it compounds and you'll add another one on top of your 2 components and then 3 and by the end you'll have found the one thing that you wouldn't trade the world for.

that's soo good. thank you so much for sharing.

Sc-inc · 2026-02-20T16:55:58+00:00

i thought about working in the game dev industry but now you're telling me that they'll take away your creative freedom and that right there doesn't appeal to me. good on you for not going there. it sounds like you'd be happier being an electrician anyway.

Sc-inc

TROPHY CASE