August 11, 2025

NEET – Not in Education, Employment, or Training; a person who is unemployed and not receiving an education or vocational training.
Wikipedia

Hello friend. Something that I’m currently proud of about myself is that I left the house today. It’s something I struggled with for about a couple days until now. It’s funny how hard the first step can be, but as soon as I get out of the house and feel the sun on me and take a breath of fresh air, my mood improves drastically. Why don’t I do this more often?

You might think that a few days of staying at home isn’t really enough to call myself a NEET. Yea. Might not be. But, it used to be a lot worse.

Memory Start

The First Time I NEETed

Junior year of high school was the first time in my life that stress got to be so bad that I didn’t want to interact with my relative society (school and everything else I was expected to attend). It was, without exaggeration, a scene straight out of an anime. One morning, I woke up and went to the bathroom to get ready. As soon as I got in, just laid on the floor watching youtube videos, and tuned out my mother’s voice asking me to hurry up to catch the school bus. I just waited it out. Eventually, I went back to my room watching my phone and laid there until dinner time. That repeated for about 4-5 days and my eyes only ever made contact with the floor and my phone.

The pressure and stress only accumulated and I started going out again because my mother recruited the help of my youth pastor. I think it was the embarrassment that got me out of the bathroom this morning. i didn’t really want to be seen in that state in front of him. He drove me all the way from deep Queens to the Bronx where my highschool was. It was an awkward drive, but I still appreciated it deep down, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

I remember walking into the cafeteria and seeing my friends for the first time in nearly a week. At the table before first period, I usually sat at, in the company of my friends, one of my closest friends was very concerned for me.

“Bro, you’ve been gone for x-days. What the fck happened?”

“Ahh you know. haha. I just didn’t feel like it.”

I didn’t give him a straight answer. My mind didn’t really know how to be honest about my circumstances, and more than anything, I was really embarrassed. I wanted to cry, but “I shouldn’t let my friends see me like this”, I thought.

Dropping Out of College and NEETing harder

I dropped out of my first semester of college at Penn State. It was the only school I got accepted into. I really wondered at this point in my life what I was even doing there and I didn’t want to continue down a road I half-assedly chose. I started to think that maybe paying full out of state tuition was not a great idea, especially for a major in education. We all know how little teachers get compensated.

It started with me not attending classes for a couple of days. Then, I started staying at the dorm, only ever leaving to eat chicken nuggets or pizza with money on my meal plan. That would be my one meal for the day. I remember being dehydrated and hungry, but for the most part, being unbothered by it. The one meal was enough for survival. Most of the day I was in bed watching youtube videos on my phone, listening to music I liked, or texting my friends sparingly and ignoring most others contacts. That went on for about 2-3 weeks.

One day, there was a knock on the door. I thought it was my roommate who might’ve forgotten his room key. It was my mother. I was shocked. I probably shouldn’t have been; it had been 2-3 weeks of ignoring her texts. She was concerned. I told her I wanted to drop out. She obliged.

What followed after that was around 8-10 months of being a NEET. It’s hard to recall how long it was because of how much I disassociated from everything. But even NEETs have routines you know. I would wake up late, eat lunch, play games, watch youtube videos, eat dinner, play games, and go to sleep. I was a professional bum ✌️. Also, severely depressed.

Since then…

it’s been almost almost 10 years. Crazy how time flies.

Even though this was a super depressing memory, it gives me a bit of perspective. This morning I was reprimanding myself for letting the NEET in me out. (Kind of ironic to say I let the NEET out haha). But, in 10 years I’ve made great progress. These days I rarely ever let it go on for more than 5 days. From 8-9 months to 5 days. At this rate in a year or two, it’ll get to be 1 day of NEETing; which at that point, it’s more like just having a lazy Sunday or an oxygen day.

The Advice Part

If there’s anyone who’s struggling with something similar. I think you should just try and leave the house for a bit. In my experience, walks outside while the sun is out do wonders for your mental health.

You could maybe even go to a cafe with a notebook and a pen to write if you’re feeling up to the challenge. Write anything that comes to mind, so that you can read, literally, your mind.

If you live in a remote area, you could even talk to yourself out loud while walking since it’s unlikely you bump into anyone. Hmm, If you live in a bustling city, you could probably still get away with it if you have earbuds in. Those people will think you’re on a call. It helps to talk out loud more than it does to talk to yourself in your mind. Your mind talks to you too fast.

Really, the point is to just get out of the house first, and move your person away from home for a while. Don’t get into any trouble though. Oh, and try and avoid being on your phone.

This Is What I Think

Your problems as big as they may seem in your mind, aren’t that massive in reality. If they were, you wouldn’t be able to afford being a NEET. That sounds mean for me to say. But you as a human being are capable of a lot if you just try to take action.

You’ll probably stumble as you try to better yourself. You might be able to stay out all day and be productive today, and then tomorrow for “no reason” at all, you’re stuck at home again for a week. That’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day right? And we’re not even building Rome yk; we’re just tryna live a life we can be happy with. Arguably harder. Romans didn’t have all this friggin technology to distract em.

End of Yapping

Okay I feel a lot better now about myself. This was pretty therapeutic. I think it’s about time I get to some chores. My laundry basket is taking on the shape of Everest. If I could get one batch of laundry done today honestly I’d be pretty happy. That’d be like 40% of my laundry. Also running out of underwear so I should probably get on dat… Anywho, ciao to anyone reading. I hope you have a productive day as well. 🙂