Negativities. People trying to talk me out of driving a truck.

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You have the right personality. It’s your life to live, not theirs.

 

It's because you probably are not conforming to what is expected of you. In my time everyone said go to college, which became have you gone to college yet... unaware of my classmates who did go to college telling me stories of blowout drinking and drugs in the dorms etc. To heck with the school work. Colleges at that time started adding a bunch of BS courses too. It got really bad from there to now.

I hit the road. Sometimes filthy rich other times in trouble and working to fix it. I like to think I got away with it. However, trucking is not necessarily THAT professional and respected in many ways it's pretty tough and dangerous.

Anyone can drive a rig. It's getting almost to the point robots are going to replace the human cost of trucking. We'll see how that goes. (Over my dead body...) but to do the job well within some of the problems imposed by stupid dispatchers, vengeful brokers and shippers and recievers who do not acknoledge your existance and treat your load as portable storage a day or two?

Have a few of those abuses against you and see how you feel then. Not to mention the dark side of what we would call commercials and so on at the fringes of the truckstop in some places. You'll be fine, but you need to really be careful out there.

Edit: Wife and I finally went to college. Her first 4 year in family history worthless. My stab at IT was scrapped when Arkansas brought in H1b workers from India to take my place for less cost, learn and go back to establish schools to spread the tech. In total 46000 dollars spun money as we say here in the south. Wasted. Poof. Oh well. But not really. All those computers stuff inside 18 wheelers now and so on... you get to understand them pretty good almost down to what wire did what which is discouraged by many companies intent on protecting certain configurations and so forth.

 

Give trucking a shot. It's not the death sentence those around you feel that it is.
And if you decide trucking isn't for you, then move on to something else. You're not joining the mafia.

 

Tell 'em you're going into trucking and to fuhgeddaboudit.

 

just recently keep hearing complains about how the industry is going sour with cheap freights, more government regulations, tolls, and such. even a FB group, "Black Smoke Matters", is organizing a "shut it down" on April 12th

 

Im banned from that particular topic of April 12th, but I will offer a hard knowledge that you cannot get enough truckers to stop the USA. The whole Nation is within 10 days of being totally out of fuel, food and needed items at any time if the trucks did stop in the millions and refused to work totally that long. (EMP would be one scenario...) I prefer to think there are just too many truckers who love the Country and will roll to pick up the discarded freight on and after April 12 hits.