I feel like a failure of an adult

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A lot of us on the spectrum reach traditional "adult" milestones later than usual (or never). Many of you can probably relate to me.

Here's why I feel like a failure:

1. I don't drive.
2. Even though I work, I don't make enough money to live on. As a result, I partially rely on parents.
3. Even though I don't want a wife or kids, the fact that I lack enough income to attract a wife or afford kids even if I wanted to, makes me feel like a failure.

Does anyone else feel like a failure? Feel free to comment/share your story.

You may feel like a failure but you're actually not a failure. Failures are mostly people who descend to drugs and alcohol and rely on government hand-outs instead of trying to help themselves. These people are usually trouble-makers that upset or harm other people and get their children taken away. But it still depends on the person's life circumstances.

A person with some challenges like autism or other disorders or intellectual disabilities that rely on their parents financially are not failures. You have a job. So what if you don't drive? But some people with autism and other conditions like that are unable to work, but they're not failures either.

The other day I was in the bus station, and I saw 2 men sitting on a bench smoking weed and swearing loudly and not being very respectful. I've often seen them there, like they don't do anything else with their lives. They looked quite intimidating. Then I saw a guy with noise-cancelling headphones on, that I could tell looked autistic, and he was standing on the corner taking photos (not on a phone but a real camera) of the buses that were coming in and out, like his hobby or special interest was buses. Who was the failure? The two druggies sitting on the bench of course.

I'm not sure there's enough known about any of those people to dismiss them as failures.

People are quick to judge others as failures for not meeting standards that might not even be that reasonable to begin with.

We don't always know what causes people to struggle to perform the best they can within society and the formative factors are largely outside of their control. Some paths are harder to get off of than others, but people seem to sometimes develop superiority complexes over having not ended up in similar circumstances while ignoring how things ended up at that point.

In many ways the concept of failure is inherently flawed because who's standard is correct to judge failure or success by in the first place? I'd worry about harm rather than success or failure. Harm is easier to evaluate and define; harm is more objective.

Most of us succeed and fail in different ways regularly, it's not binary. We're all failures and we're all successes, at least in limited ways.

A person who smokes weed all the time, sits on a bench all the time, and berates people all the time, IS a failure.

Now.....if this person could realize this, and try to change....then the person might soon NOT be a failure.

exactly

I did say that it can depend on one's life circumstances, but I'm talking about perfectly able people who choose to pick the life of drugs and drink and decline any help they might have a chance for to better themselves. There's loads of them around my city. Some of them are known to mug people.

If there's a person who goes around showing a knife to people on a subway train, and yells about nonsense, I really don't feel sorry for that person. I feel like that person is a "failure."

Because, frankly, these days, people who go around showing knives to people-----tend to actually stab people.

By the way, I don't feel the OP is a "failure" at all.

I didn't drive until age 37; I wasn't a "failure" at age 36 because I didn't have my license.

Except for that's an obvious exaggeration. For starters, how will they get their weed if they're always on the bench? And, odds are they're pretty polite to their plug.

I can definitely relate. I also feel like a failure.

I smoke weed all the time, but I don't berate people all the time. Granted I do not always smoke an amount that gets me stoned just a bit to take the edge off, But yeah you can smoke weed and not be a sh***y as*hole both at the same time.

I've failed at some things ans succeeded at others. I can't measure myself on other people's successes and failures because I've not led their lives.

I can definitely relate to this.

I don't drive. To be honest, the idea of driving is just frightening for various reasons.

My salary is low. I'm badly underemployed. Fortunately, in Australia, if you have a full-time job, you can live independently.

I can also understand your third point, social status based on one's income, although I hate the idea of a man having to financially support the family. If I had a wife, she would have to make her own money. I wouldn't give a cent to her. In other words, I would hate to have a wife and children. But, yeah, I see what you mean. "Low income = low social status = loser" kind of feeling, isn't it?

I never said that smoking weed necessarily makes one a failure. There are many successful people who smoke a lot of weed.

I was speaking of the combination of weed, just hanging out with no job as an adult, and getting into people's faces in public----that would make one a "failure."

Smoking weed, in and of itself, does not necessarily denote failure. Having no job does not necessarily denote failure. Berating people in public for no reason-----that could be said to be an example of "failure."

The dictionary definition of "failure" says nothing about salary or driving

Anyone could define "failure" as anything

Do you label anyone that doesn't drive a "failure"? There are many reasons why someone might not drive a car. For example, epilepsy.

What is so great about driving anyways?

Plenty of people don't have children or spouses, especially recently. Do you find them "failures"?

What is so great about children anyways.

Plenty of people here no job or earn minimum wage.

That's what I meant too. People who are capable but can't be bothered to try to help themselves so they just squander on state benefits and don't want to do anything with their lives and just cause a nuisance.

There's a difference between can't and won't. People that can't are not the failures. There's a lot of people here on WP who don't work and claim benefits to financially support themselves (or have relatives that help out) but there is nothing wrong with that if you have personal reasons, which is none of my business.
But people choosing to not work or do anything with their lives because they're lazy and just want taxpayers to pay for their benefits and drugs, are the failures. But it's all about context.

Besides being the most fun one can have while remaining 'decent'?

Give autocross a try and you'll get it; in some places you can do it without a licence even, since it's just in a parking lot at fairly low speeds (you might hit 80 km/h once or twice if it's a longer course).