Ok. So it sounds like you're thinking "Is there any way that I can get up to the same level that everyone else is at and catch up from where I am now?"

And the problem with that is that it's based on some flawed assumptions.

When you were still in school, thinking that way made sense. You all had to do the same things in the same order and were measured against one another according to age group.

And that feels normal, right? Our lives are set up and operated that way from the time that we're able to talk. So it's actually a bit shocking when you get out into the world and realise that it's totally invented. Constructed. It's a convenient way to organise and manage children but it's actually totally meaningless and once school is over everyone is on their own timeline. There will be some parallels for people still in education but again, that's just about convenience in education.

Once you leave school, you're no longer achieving someone else's goals to someone else's timeline, you're working to your own. So you can't "catch up with everyone". That's like throwing a bucket of water into a river and trying to swim along only inside the water which used to be in your bucket.

Truly. The march is over. You're free.

My advice to you? Pick a thing and do it. You won't be the best at whatever it is. You also won't be the worst. Pick something that sounds interesting, or just sounds tolerable, and get started. There is no "one perfect career" for 75% of us - we work at stuff till we find something we can do.

The worst that happens is that you hate it and you try something else. But you'll learn some stuff about yourself, you'll learn some new skills, you'll have awkward days and disappointments. But you'll have stories, you'll have experiences. You'll have a life.

Over the years I have: - Scrubbed out industrial cottage cheese bars - Typed clinical letters about spinal injury patients - Delivered training about corporate expenses systems - Served ice-cream - Rigged theatrical lighting - Organised clinical reviews for people with skin cancer - Cleaned fancy dress costumes - Reviewed funding for dementia patients - Managed travel and calendar bookings for millionaires

I'm 42. I have a degree. I have never used it. I never planned to do ANY of those jobs, bar one. I trained to do only two of them. I was not very good at any of them initially. I learned a hell of a lot along the way. I suffered horribly with depression for a long time and didn't find out I was neurodivergent till I was 39.

Have I "caught up" with the people I went to school with? That's not a question that makes sense. Did I find my dream job? No, because my dream isn't a job. But I've met some great people, learned some cool things, and I've kept the bills paid.

You can do the same. Believe me when I tell you that there are a LOT of people out there driving cars and dressing well and earning good money who are shockingly stupid and careless but who can smile and nod and coast along in life.

I know it all feels like a lot, it all feels unknowable and unmanageable and you don't feel like you know enough about anything to make the best decisions.

So how about this: don't make the best decisions.

Make any decisions. Pick something. Pick a course at college which aligns with something you're interested in and go. You're not fixing your future career, you're just doing a thing.if you can't find a Saturday/evening job, find an organisation near you that needs volunteers. Go do that.

The only two things that you urgently need to do are: - Discover that you can actually do things, and - Keep proving that to yourself, every day, until it starts to build up some momentum in the centre of you. Until it starts to mean something.

There are people out there, right now, whose lives you're going to change for the better - in large ways or in small ways. You're going to be a piece of what makes them who they are, or shapes their path through the world. But it won't happen in you're just sat there indoors, worried that you're not matching up to some template of life which you don't even really want for yourself in the first place.

Get out there. Do a course. Volunteer. Look at skills-based CV templates. Start building yourself. You're not going to find out what things you like or what things you're good at if you aren't doing any of the things. Go do them. The getting started is the scariest bit and you're almost there...