Hey c/self_improvement.
Right now I’m really hitting a bad part of my journey. I’m seriously doubting my reason to keep going. I put in all this work and I almost never see any reward for it. Can’t lose fat no matter how hard I work out. I’m totally unemployable and while I have a summer gig right now, I can’t live through another 9 months of unemployment and I know that’s what’s in my future because no employer wants to touch me with a ten foot pole.
Right now, I’m looking at taking some college courses. But what’s the point if I’m not top of my class? No employer would want to hire me if I’m not perfect in every conceivable way. I have nothing to offer the world that literally everyone else can’t. It’s like I am ontologically inferior to everyone.
EDIT: thank you so much for all these responses.
The point of working out is not to lose fat per se, the point of working out is to get stronger. You do a muscle motion to the edge of your ability enough times, and your muscles get better at doing that muscle motion. If you can do pull-ups and a respectable number of push-ups and run a mile without walking… if you can move yourself in the way you want to move, that’s all that matters.
I’m on the skinny side, people have often wondered aloud to me “why don’t you just bulk up”. It’s not really in my biology. I wish I had a layer of fat so that you couldn’t see my ribs. But if I can hoist 80-pound bags of cement, I can jump and pull myself onto things, that’s all that matters. I really don’t need to do the stupid gymbro numbers game.
A big part is lifestyle. My fitness is integrated into my lifestyle (bicycle transport, manual labor). Another big thing is habitually cooking for yourself. Even if it doesn’t make you slimmer, then hey, at least you end up as a capable cook, and able to take the agency for your own sustenance instead of accepting it from a ready-made source.
Take the college courses that are intrinsically valuable to you. Learn what you want to learn. Taking a few courses doesn’t immediately force your commitment into a 40-year career; lots of things will inform your experience indirectly. And at a community college, you can take a 3-credit class for a total sum of less than $1000.
I promise you, 95% of Americans (and 90% of American college graduates) can’t use the word “ontologically” in legible prose. In the age where everyone seems to make heavy use of assistive technology, you can put together a coherent thought.
A lot of what you’re experiencing is the effects of alienation. Being able to get into the nuts and bolts of something, instead of assuming “this is entirely the purview of someone else” has been one of the biggest mindset shifts of my life.