At what age am I allowed my own space?

I'm going to probably get some harsh responses to this but...

OP, Jesus get a grip man. You are at university, living in a first world country, the majority of your problems are fully accounted for through the state if worst comes to worst. If you live in a dirty flat, you are partly responsible.

The key to happiness does not come from owning your own space, but form enjoying life. You have it easy compared to SO SO many people. Try and think about that before you get too down. Things could be much worse; be happy now for these reasons. There is no age where happiness is not achievable, and you certainly have no excuse with your current situation.
 
StriderX said:
Lol, I hold no sympathy for people who believe that everything must be done in London. To choose hardship, and moan about it, is abrasively dysfunctional.

This southeastern firmament, is hilarious to read sometimes.
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It's not entirely a myth though, we're either in or entering a viscous cycle where the jobs created are in London, so people move to London, so more jobs are created etc. So far any attempts to encourage people to do stuff not in London have fallen a bit flat. Potentially related to the eye-watering rail travel costs between there and Manchester for example.

If the business is one that doesn't rely on being near to your customers then trying to do it in London is a bit daft, but there are an absolutely huge number of potential customers in the city that it's not funny. It amazes me how many similar organisations it manages to support, purely because the demand is there.
 
I think the most important thing is living with friends or at least people you get on with. Luck of the draw with randomers.

I lived alone for six months recently and while there was no stress it was boring and lonely after a while.
 
OP said:
After the gap year I started uni and lived in halls, which generally ****ed me off, disgusting kitchen, bathroom etc. Over these couple of years I suffered from depression and sought help through uni and I'm generally okay now. This year I'm going to have to live in another flat share which I'm hugely dreading
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To answer your thread title - which, by the way, bears little to no relation to your thread content - whenever you feel like, can afford to and/or are capable of doing so.
 
GSWAudio said:
SO I ask thee, what is the right time in life to be happy?
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When you're earning enough money to pay for it, welcome to the world kid. It's miserable and you do what you can to survive. That's life.

Either get a part time job alongside your studies and move out or accept that you can't afford nice things because you're not earning and you're lucky to have a roof over your head at all. When I was a student I had to do all manner of **** just to pay my rent or buy food and some weeks I went without, I didn't complain I just got on with it.

I was miserable at university, it put me in debt and cost me a lot of my sanity but I did it because I wanted the qualification and the opportunities it would afford me. If you don't want to put the graft in then maybe it's not for you, maybe you shouldn't get a degree.
 
Speaking from experience, Life is what what you make of it. 8 years or so ago I had depression and felt life was going no where but did nothing about it. I got fat and just sulked a lot. I met my current GF (before we were dating) and she made me realise (through nothing she actually did other than by being herself) that if I wanted my life to change I had to do something about it.

In the last 8 years I have gone from being a helpdesk technician at a college who was going no where and still lived with his mother, to moving to London off my own back and getting a better job while support/looking after myself. I am getting married next year, Have just moved to a better job and now own my own house... Everything happened because I wanted it to and went out of my way to make it happen.

If you aren't happy with something in your life do something to change it, Complaining on a forum and asking when the right time to be happy is is counter productive. The right time to be happy is when you decide the right time to be happy is. If that is not now then it will never be, If you decide you want to be happy right now, find out what is making you unhappy and change it. Everyone has the ability to do this and anyone who says they cannot has either not tried hard enough, is a defeatist or has a MASSIVE run of bad luck...which they will just need to pick themselves up from and carry on.
 
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I am often baffled at how well educated individuals with a lot of potential can be so ridiculously naive. :eek:

So to the OP - You are allowed your own space at any age really, as long as you can afford to pay for it :)

If you do not like your living arangements, just think of the displaced and dispossessed people in war torn countries or areas of extreme poverty. If you have any sense it should put your predicament into perspective.

Finally, regarding happyness, life is a journey of ups and downs. The key to being happy is to dispense with as much as you can that makes you unhappy and follow your own path doing the things that make your more happy than not (where possible).

But I have to tell you, life for the majority of people is hard work with maybe a holiday once a year if they are very lucky. Running your own business is even harder.

Welcome to real life. Enjoy your stay!
 
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I haven't read the thread in its entirety, so I apologise for any conclusions I may jump to.

I think I see both sides of the story here pretty well. I understand where the OP is coming from, but to answer your question in the simplest way possible - You can have your own space, almost whenever you need and want it - there are just sacrifices that will inevitably come with it.

Although our stories are different, I decided I too wanted my own space, I wasn't happy at home etc. So at 15, I decided to leave home. I had enough money in my pocket I had saved up from odd jobs the 6 months before to pay a months worth of rent. I found a student house to share, I lied and said I was 18 and at uni. I enrolled in the 6th from in the area and took 5 A-Levels (most kids were taking 3) - By moving out I knew my parents would not support me (If I needed the help, their suggestion would have been to move home). Knowing this, I had to get a part time job to live. I applied to every possible place in the city - and found a job within a week. There was no minimum wage for under 18s then, so I earnt £2.05 an hour (This was 11 years ago).

To be able to pay rent and live, I had to work from 6am until 8am every morning - walk an hour to college as I couldn't afford the £1 bus - attend full time classes from 9-4 every day - walk the hour home - then do 6-11pm 3 days a week - I then had to work 8 hours a day every Saturday and either 8 or 16 hours a day every Sunday. This gave me enough money to pay rent, buy school equipment and eat. That was it. I couldn't buy clothes, electronics, nothing. Did it suck?? Absolutely - It was miserable - BUT - that was the price my own space cost me. Instead of complaining about it, I got on with it, I studied and got 5 As in my A-Levels and went on to University, where I continued to pay myself through.

It absolutely made me miserable for those two years, but I was too stubborn to give up - and that hard work and stubbornness - allowed me to make decisions that meant I was able to live alone from 23 onwards, with stability and comfort with enough disposable income to afford what I wanted. It then allowed me to move to the other side of the world, to continue a job I love, buy a house, more than one car and everything else I own.

Moral of the story - Your own space comes at a price. It is more often than not, a miserable price - but its all about personal balance. Sometimes a little misery enables you to move to great things. If things are hard now, push through them, learn from them, and figure out how to make them better in a couple of years time, so you never have to go through them again.
 
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[FnG]magnolia;26602973 said:
Life isn't miserable just because you were and still are. What an utterly awful way to present yourself to others.
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It is miserable, some people say I'm a cynic but I think I'm just being realistic

If you're lucky enough to live in the developed world instead of working yourself to death in a factory or otherwise impoverished destined to die in a tin shed boiling to death. It's still pretty crap.

I mean people nowadays just screw over other people or they feel entitled to something without earning it. And anyone who does work their arse off only sees a fraction of what they put out while someone else who already has it all wants more and more and more all the time and never pay their dues.

All the while our government who are supposed to be a democracy and represent the interests of the people systematically screw us over while patting the back of the big business leaders and screwing over the loyal civil servants if they even have a job left to go to on monday.

It's ok though, because when they lose their job they can go work in tesco for no wages and they'll get £50 JSA at the end of the week, how good will that be?

And even outside of all the misery of politics we're all just consumers at the end of it all, and that is all we'll ever be. Working day in day out in jobs we would rather not do to have a little something and then blowing all of our money and borrowing and begging to own the latest crappy gadget we don't need.

Even art has been turned into a consumer driven business, gone are the days when a musician would send in their demo and get a record contract. Lets get some barely competent singers on a tv show, write all their music and then call them a popstar, we'll sell millions to morons.

No one lives any more they're all stuck with their noses poked in iphones looking at what they're going to buy off amazon, looking at what to waste 8 hours watching on television tonight. It's all crap, things were never great but they get worse every year, it's all going backwards, it's like living in a ****ing george orwell book.

You either accept it and live with it and make the best of it or you throw yourself off a very tall building while telling the world to eat a big old meaty one. Because nothing and I mean nothing changes.
 
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