What do I want to do with my life is a question I’ve been asking myself over and over again the last few weeks. I graduated from university almost a year ago now and decided against following my fellow class mates into full time employment and instead went down the full time entrepreneurial route.

Fast forward 10 months later and here I am after being the director of 3 legal companies in the last 18 months, none of the start ups I’ve been involved in having made enough money to support me or my friends, and nothing more to show than one hell of a bruised ego. My friends and family are all saying “well look at least you tried”…. but I can’t help thinking a lot of them are saying “thank god thats over” and “now he can get a proper job like the rest of us and stop fucking around”.

The problem is, I love fucking around.(By that I mean doing interesting things) I mean what is the point of life? To do the same thing day after day, trading in your time for money just to survive, spend it all on meaningless junk that gives you a momentary high and then leaves you feeling like you need to buy something else to feel that same brief high again?

Screw that!

On the other hand sometimes I wish I could be happy with the simple things in life and not always want to be challenged and thrown into stupid, frightening situations. Life would be so much simpler!! I hoping that one day I just burn the craziness out of me and can settle down, live a nice quiet life and die.

Right now I have the problem of having the choice to, in my eyes, do anything I pretty dam well want to. I’m 24 (just turned it), single (recently broke up with my long term girlfriend), I have no debts hanging over me and yet I feel more paralysed and unsure of what to do since ever before.

I’ve got goals written down for the next few year and I have a fairly good idea of where I want to be in 10 years, the problem is this, actually wait there’s several problems…. First off, I’ve always wanted to work for myself, since I’ve been 15 I’ve almost always had a job and most of the time the managers & owners of the businesses either didn’t do much or I could have pretty much done their jobs. (Or so I’ve thought anyway)

So while working as an intern as part of my university degree in computer science I decided to use some of the money I was getting to set up something that would bring me in some revenue. I researched a few things, bought into a load of those online courses on how to make money quickly and easily online(Not many ways really). Most of the stuff was terrible, but I was learning as I went.

I tried a lead generation business where by I would sell the leads I generated from people who were interested in a type of business to people who owned that type of business. All that happened was that I ended up loosing money and time. But again…. nothing ventured nothing gained.

Eventually I spotted a course on selling items online on amazon as a third party seller. Seemed interesting enough and after watching a few hours of video I decided to give it a bash. I was a rowing coach at the time and got the idea to sell a type of tool that is used to take the rowing boats apart. The tools was in demand as people were always losing them and there was only one other main manufacturer at the time.

So I contacted several companies in china and ended up getting 5000 of the spanners made and shipped to my front door. Took months and a nice chunk of the money I had saved up at the time. At the time my gut feeling was telling me to do it and that I was going to be fine regardless. I was taking hardly no risk(well apart from the money I was spending) and I knew I could sell them and make my money back.

I did end up making my money back and lots more. But as it was such a niche market there was never enough money to be generated to make it a serious business let alone turn over enough money to be paying for the type of lifestyle I wanted.

Following on from that I was involved in a software start up and then a food/ technology start up that over the last year and a half made me age mentally by about 10 years.

I learned a hell of a lot but also now I feel really burned up with not that much motivation to get back into the start up game in the near future. Well certainly not without a steady wage and the constant pressure of having to make it work or be on the street. The novelty of being poor and living on the breadline really wears off after a while. (The story of how and why they failed will be up as soon as I can mentally get everything out on paper.)

So to wrap up, my first problem is that I want to work for myself but am also totally sick of the idea of working for my self.

Second problem is that when I’m not fully engaged in the work I’m doing I tend to do a terrible job of it. So basically if I end up going to work for a large corporation/organisation and I’m finding it hard to buy into the mission of the company/organisation or I’m not getting suitable challenged I’m probably going to do a terrible job.

Thirdly I’m not sure what type of job I would want if I was to go to work for a company. I love discussing/ debating and having my ideas and opinions taken on board. But if I am to go and get a job as a software engineer will I really get the chance to do that with the eventual path of going into a management roll? Do I want to just be another senior software engineer in 10 years time? I think I’d much rather be the person making the decisions and telling the engineers what to make! It all comes down to where I want to be in 10 years and as I’ve always wanted to own my own company. Therefore it would make sense to learn to manage and lead which would be a much more useful skill to be learning rather than more coding.

Next, if I work for a start up, I will probably (if the startup is small enough) get some equity but with conditions attached, one being that I am at the company for a certain amount of time. Again if I started to get board of the work I was doing or I felt that I wasn’t enjoying the company mission any more, I’d enjoy to leave, but then I would probably stay just until my equity had vested while enjoying my job less and less every day. Or I could always leave and know that I’d given up on a nice chunk of money.

Lastly if I wasn’t to go down the route of either going to work for a startup or a larger company (.ie do contract) work then I wouldn’t be advancing myself on the professional ladder. Its already strange being at parties with friends and hearing them talk about their jobs, getting bonuses and salary increases. I know its a bit of a case of FLOS (fear of losing out syndrome) but I can’t help thinking it!

Basically I’m coming to the conclusion that I can’t have it all. With all this inactivity in the face of making a decision I’m slowly losing more and more of this precious thing called time. I need to just jump at something and face the consequences.

It all comes down to what I value in my life too I suppose. It is money, or professional experience, or life/travel experience or all three, and how can I go about getting them all if that’s the case?