[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

I have $3,736.06 in retirement!
It would have been fine if I got that townhouse, but I didn't. I went from $6,000 in retirement and no house to $0 in retirement and no house.

This isn't a complete story because it doesn't explain how it cost $6,000 to not buy something.

Why does everyone insist that I am waiting for something?

If "everyone" believes something different than you, there's a chance that everyone is wrong and you're the only right one. Those odds aren't good. This comment is general, because you didn't specify what it is you think everyone is accusing you of waiting for.

Tangentially, you often tell stories about interactions with others where you behaved perfectly rationally, and then the other person had a completely irrational response. Maybe we all have those experiences and simply don't discuss them often, or perhaps you have those experiences more often that others.

Where did I go wrong?

Where your expenses consistently exceeded your income, or merely broke even.

I just want the opportunity to work full-time.

False. You want plenty of other things. You simply value some of those other things more than working full-time. As long as your requirement for working full time must fit within your other wants or perceived needs, achieving that goal will be made more difficult.

Helping out one old person is a thankless job, I want to compound this?!

Only you can answer this. In my view, any sort of low pay care job requires a certain type of personality that can handle the tough job and be satisfied despite the low pay. It's probably best for younger people who are new to the workforce, since the pay is entry wages, and eventually people need career type paychecks, especially if they want to have a family of their own.

My wife was working for $10/hr in Portland at a memory care facility when I met her. After 2 years of that, she worked for 2 years as a medical scribe making $10/hr because it fulfilled application requirements for a medicine program. Then she got into that program.

I would need to work 60 hours a week to make as much as I do working thirty or less!

Why view the entire universe as containing only 2 options; keep the current job, or accept a specific other one that pays terrible?

My wife has a friend that is liberally minded, worked a low hour, higher pay job, has 2 undergrad degrees, student loan debt, and a mom that she feels obligated to help, only wants social work type jobs, has lots of stories of people having unreasonable interactions with her, only has dysfunctional romantic relationships, has nothing but bad luck, and interprets constructive criticism like a personal attack that was motivated by disgust. From what you've shared, you 2 seem very alike.

I don't know if you share a lot of personal stuff just to be heard, but there's a lot of engineering minded type folks on this forum, and if you don't want people analysing the stuff you share and presenting potential solutions, you're going to have to say that. What you won't get is people chalking every negative thing up to bad luck. Even if that was true, it wouldn't be useful. Those who are actual victims of circumstance aren't made better by identifying as a victim.

My sense is that identity as victim or conqueror is mostly hardwired into personality. Maybe a better description would be those who view their lives more as something that is largely passively observed, or those who see most situations as something largely within their control. Being over optimistic about what is within your control generally carries fewer negative consequences as being under optimistic.