When Your Child Feels Lost
Why Your Child Lacks Ambition When It Comes to a Career
One of the most meaningful parts of writing online is hearing from readers who are navigating real crossroads in life. Over the years I’ve received thousands of emails—from burned-out professionals, restless creatives, and people quietly questioning the path they were told to follow.
Recently, I started sharing some of these letters here in a series called Reader Stories.
Each one offers a glimpse into the struggles many people face when the conventional script for life stops making sense.
Today’s story comes from a parent.
Email from a Reader
Hi Scott,
I hope you don’t mind me reaching out. I’ve been reading some of your posts here on Substack and they’ve really made me think.
I’m writing about my son. He’s in his early twenties and completely lost right now. He spends most of his time in his room and has absolutely no ambition when it comes to a career. Whenever the topic comes up, he shuts down or says he doesn’t care.
He tried college briefly but hated it. Since then he’s taken a few part-time jobs but none of them lasted very long. It’s like he has no direction at all.
As his mother, it’s incredibly painful to watch. I would honestly do anything just to see him get excited about life again. I want him to get out of the house, meet people, experience the world—but I don’t even know where to start.
The hardest part is that he seems burned out before his life has even begun. He often says things like, “What’s the point?” or “Everything just leads to the same miserable life anyway.”
I don’t know if it’s depression, burnout, or something else entirely.
When I read your writing, something about it made me think of him. You talk about people who never quite fit into the conventional path, and that sounded a lot like my son.
I noticed you have a book called I Don’t Want To Grow Up. Do you think something like that could help someone in his situation? I’m willing to try anything that might help him get unstuck.
Thank you for your time,
Laura
My Response
Hi Laura,
First, thank you for writing and for caring so deeply about your son. A lot of parents feel this same worry, but many don’t talk about it.
I’ll tell you something that might sound surprising.
What you’re describing is becoming extremely common.
For decades, young people were handed a very clear life script:
Go to school.
Pick a career.
Work for forty years.
Hope retirement finally feels like freedom.
But many young people today look at that path and feel something isn’t quite right.
They see burnout everywhere.
They see people exhausted by jobs they don’t enjoy.
They see adults who followed the rules and still feel trapped.
So instead of feeling inspired by the system, they quietly check out of it.
From the outside it can look like laziness or lack of ambition.
But often it’s something else entirely.
It’s disillusionment.
Many young people don’t lack ambition—they lack a vision of a life that actually feels worth pursuing.
And when someone can’t imagine a future that excites them, they retreat.
They stay in their rooms.
They avoid decisions.
They feel stuck before they’ve even started.
One thing I try to do in my writing is offer a different lens.
Not everyone is meant to follow the conventional career path.
Some work seasonal jobs in national parks, guide rafting trips, or work as ski patrollers in mountain towns. Some manage surf hostels on tropical beaches or work on sailing charters. Some work on organic farms or on conservation projects protecting wild places. Some run small online businesses that let them work from anywhere.
But our education system rarely talks about those paths.
It mainly trains people to become employees.
For someone who doesn’t naturally fit that mold, the system can feel suffocating.
That’s exactly why I wrote I Don’t Want To Grow Up.
The book isn’t about avoiding responsibility or refusing to work.
It’s about realizing there are many ways to build a meaningful life, and the traditional career ladder is only one of them.
For some readers, the book simply helps them see that they’re not broken.
They’re just wired differently.
And sometimes that realization alone can be incredibly powerful.
I can’t promise it will solve everything for your son. Life is complex, and depression deserves serious attention and support when needed.
But what the book might offer is a spark—a new way of thinking about work, money, and what life could look like outside the narrow script most of us were handed.
Sometimes all someone needs is permission to imagine a different path.
That’s where change begins.
Wishing you and your son the very best.
Scott
If You’ve Ever Felt Like the Script Didn’t Fit
Over the years I’ve heard from thousands of readers who felt exactly like Laura’s son—burned out, confused, or disconnected from the traditional path.
They simply couldn’t imagine spending their lives inside a system that didn’t feel aligned with who they were.
I Don’t Want To Grow Up explores a different way to think about work, freedom, and designing a life around your values instead of society’s expectations.
If you’ve ever felt like the conventional script for life was missing something, this book might resonate with you or someone you love.
I Don’t Want To Grow Up
by Scott Stillman
Great letter and great response. I have a son, 25 years old, so as a mother, I understand. I think one of the big lies in this country (America ) is that children grow up and at 18 society screams they should be out of the house, surviving. If society hears you're not Iin college to be a doctor, lawyer, or pursuing a business degree, then they go, "oh, you poor dear" or if the kid is living at home, even if they have income to afford otherwise, society looks down on it. Give him room, but at the same time , take notice of his interest. Even if you go back to interest, hobbies he had as a child. Reassure that it's alright to not have all the answers right now. Maybe sign up together to do a weekend class, such as woodworking, cake baking, or pottery making or photography. Be surprised what channels open in the mind when you start doing just to do. Join poetry clubs, karyokee , community theater. We all have moments when we are lost, but if you set and take a look, what is it he is really worried about? Is it that he still lives at home , is it the job market he's worried about, world problems. Challenge him to stay off his phone, social media, YouTube, news, and do the same. Go for bike rides, say the first person to watch the news or pick up the phone for anything other than to order pizza, has to clean the bathroom for the next month. Or kitchen, your choice. It's spring, find the farmers market, bake something and let him sell it. It's the act of doing and pushing him into that. Everything else is trivial.
Your reply is one that a parent can grab ahold of and apply liberally like sunscreen. As a person that has lived tidy decade long spurts as a student, employee, entrepreneur, and now artist, I can attest that my 18 year old self was not wrong to lack out of the gate enthusiasm. My pivot took place when I wanted a Ducati motorcycle, because I saw some advertising agency creative type park it on Battery Street in SF in 99. I’ve never owned a motorcycle, but I saw a life I wanted and asked people how do I get that? That’s all it took.