I know that this is probably not a good idea but I really and truly cannot help myself at the moment. I am thinking about the future and wondering what I am going to do to earn money. I think I would like to eventually go back to working in Information Technology. The problem is that my skills are out of date and softening. I don’t know where to begin to retrain and what makes sense. I know that I am really interested in Linux and love working with it. This would make getting a Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator certification a logical next step. But is this enough?
I am guessing the RHCSA will probably be a good start but not quite enough. I will probably need to get the Red Hat Certified Engineer level certification in order to make myself marketable. I may also need to become comfortable in some kind of programming language like Python. The good news is that I would be writing automation scripts in Python, not so much developing for the end user so that would be easier.
I also wonder if I am even capable of getting both the RHCSA and RHCE certifications. Given the level of depression I have, focus continues to be the problem. Part of me feels as if I won’t even be able to get back into information technology anyways. The field changes faster than I can even adapt to it and it is frustrating and depressing. While I have significant experience as a systems administrator, at least I could always fall back on doing desktop support if I had to re-train in an area. Now, I cannot even fall back on desktop support because even that area has technologies that I’ve never even worked with.
Age discrimination in employment after 45 or so years old is a real and tangible thing, especially in high technology fields. How do I overcome this? Where can a washed-up, mentally ill person find work? I certainly have no idea how to answer these questions. I feel doomed to work minimally skilled jobs for the rest of my life. I might even need to go back into the security field and work as a security guard again because the money is the best of all of the low-skilled fields out there.
I’m also having really mixed feelings about moving into the section 8 housing that I have signed my lease on. On one hand, I know I will be saving significant sums of money, but on the other, I know that it will be a struggle. Why is it that America punishes those who struggle? Why is poverty punished like a prison except without walls? Why does it feel absolutely inescapable? I feel like I am being punished and I’ve done nothing wrong, although society seems to be punishing me for being mentally ill and unable to work for the moment.
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