22 w/ 40k saved... what do I do with my life?

I know I was born.
I know I will die.
The in between is my time.

I lived by that quote 6 years ago, when I was in the same exact position as you. I've been there done that. It takes a special kind of person to be a professional steering wheel holder.

The industry has changed and will continue to do so and not in a good way.
Go back to school and get a degree. Live a normal life, be in your own bed every night, eat healthy, and don't worry if you will be pulled into that weight station for a level three inspection ever again.
I tell you your mind body and soul will thank you the second you say that's it I'm done.

 

Everyone is giving great advice. I'd like to add something philosophical & wishy washy if I may? It doesn't matter what your making a year. Doesn't matter at all. If you work on your morals, your values, your ethic code, your belief system as a whole... If you want to work on your ego, & make it healthy, and be humble... If you want to find a GOOD woman & raise your children to believe in your morals and values, then the value of money goes down the drain. Live within your means & mean the way you live. Happiness comes from within. A healthy positive mind. You can enslave my body, but not my healthy positive mind. You figure out whats most important to you. Your at the perfect age to focus on yourself without derailing a plan for a family. Take the route that you know you'll enjoy & know that if your secure within your own mind, you'll enjoy life, no matter what comes your way.

 

The degree thing maybe a wash, what we have now is something that seems to be just a step to mediocrity. I've got a few degrees, all of them are worthless and even with years of experience, the only thing they provide is a step above the other person to get noticed.

I've got a relative who is in advertising and marketing, lost his job last year (along with his B**** of a wife at the same time), he had a good degree with 25 years of experience but he can not find a job. There are kids in his 'profession' now that barely made it out of highschool and are taking over his specific discipline in advertising and marketing. My niece who graduated top of her class has yet to find a job in her field of study, I told her and my sister when she started college, she will not be working in that when she gets out, they told me I don't know what I'm talking about. I was right.

IF you do decide to go to college, do yourself a favor, take courses that you can apply the knowledge into a skill, like welding AND take finance/management courses that will give you a discipline to think right for this business. Without my finance and management education, I would have a hard time pulling this together and making it work right.

 

WTF is a normal life? Driving the truck is normal to me. Maybe he should go out and get a big mortgage, owe on 2 cars and have student loan debt. Because that is the normal of today.

 

Don't invest in Trucking right now!!! For sure... Your life is ahead of you pick whatever is your passion

 

You're young, invest aggressively. Keep working to build a better cash cushion, and buy your own older truck, or save enough to pay at least 50% down on a glider. I was pursuing two different degrees at different times in my life, both of which I actually cared about and had an interest in. So, I wasn't doing it just because they were lucrative, but then after speaking to several people in those fields, I make more money even as a company driver, and I now have more quality time at home, rather than working nights 12hrs at a time, 6-7 days a week. Even if I had finished getting my degree, the hours would have been the same. Really not worth it at all to me. And if I'm ever disqualified from driving, the degree would be fairly easy to finish. It's just not worth it to me at this time.

 

Maybe I missed it but out of curiosity, what were you planning on majoring in college? Seems the medical field would be a good place to focus on but what do I know. I get anxiety attacks just walking into a Doctors office

 

Me?

 

The others speak truth, the Degrees are worthless.

I went to college like decades late in life and being the old man in a room of 50 young uns learning IT stuff was a bit... off. Fortunately there were other oldsters there too.

Wife had a 4 year, worthless. I had half of a two year, got out when I realized that Arkansas is investing in H1b vista workers from India to do my work including internship at the data center in Little Rock. It's Bull*&^%, But it's what it is. The other thing that struck me in college was all those unnecessary classes. Im not a liberal anything. Hardly, actually far right myself. But half of those classes had nothing whatever to do with the final goal in mind then.

I worry that our kids (Those 18 and over today) are spinning wheels in classes that do not point them to the final trade they are working to acquire in life. It's going to screw them up.) Nursing school had thousands, but according to the Nursing Board in Arkansas who hold the lists of all Nursing from wipers through the ranks to the RN's only enroll a few hundred each year when many hundreds more will not get the work through the Board.

Life is a very easy thing to lose. If you live each day and night to your very best then you will get a great deal out of it. Sometimes better to burn bright as a star and be taken early rather than endure decades of rot and loss of your body's eyes, ears and other important needful things to age. I myself did not save very much, did not feel the need to. Whatever was necessary then was taken care of then as is now. IF I had a million or 500K or even 50K.. I would not do much with it becuase it's not needed. Some of it will certainly be burnt fast but the rest? There is nothing for it.

This Nation is under a form of stress that I have never expected to see in this life. And if you are able to keep America as it was wherever you are then you will be able to understand where you are going while the rest of the people flail about not knowing anything at all. The grass is not always greener over here or there.

I spent some time by the sea growing up. And then learned the mountains because I was feered of them once. Now I love them. But it's the Sonoran Desert in the US Southwest that taught me how to always be close to water.

You can take that meaning to be staying close and true to who you are wherever that may be. Stay close to the waters in your life and you will never feel the peeling and bleaching of bones in the hard sun.

 

Have you talked with people in the field you want to go to college for? Even just a forum or IRC on freenode would give you a gist of what to expect.