disability or a job?

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im hoping to find a job soon because ill be graduating.
my family that doesnt live with me says i have to work and not get disability.
i want to work on school or college once i graduate.
but they say i have to get a job.
i want my own money and not my familys money.
but im no so sure i CAN get a job.
my family says im fine and im ok and i need to work.
if i do work ill be cleaning a hotel.
if not ill be getting a check.
what do you think?

If you want to keep your self-esteem, get a job. If you are capable, chances are you won't be able to get disability anyway. On disability, you won't develop as a mature person with morals and standards. If you know you can work, you will not feel good about yourself and you will be looking over your shoulder your whole life living under meager circumstances and on the lower fringe of society. Those who honestly cannot work, know there is no choice for them and can still live with dignity knowing they have done all they can to become a useful member of society if they can shake off the self-pity.

I was going to say that competence is the greatest self esteem builder and nothing creates competence except work; even cleaning work. SSI checks cannot build self esteem.

But, Cinbad NAILED IT.

Every job I ever worked I was treated like s**t, kept from getting advancements that I was due, called a ret*d almost daily, and no matter how much better of a worker I am compared to some of the other employees I was always considered second class. My suggestion to you is go to college for a degree in some field where you are away from people most of the time.

Paid work is a very good thing to end up with, for reasons of self-credibility, life choices generally, and the regard in which you are held by most people you encounter. It can be difficult to find the exact right field, however, and my experience has been that some experiments fail spectacularly - even ones that may have involved years and years of training. So persevere. My professional life is now on track, although it has taken decades to accomplish this.

Many aspies might assume that client contact is to be avoided. Actually, this has not been my experience. In delivery of many quantifiable services, whether waiting tables or lawyering, the client contact component can be ritualised and standardised. It holds few surprises, and clients do not expect you to be their best friend or particularly multidimensional in your behaviour, as long as you deliver the result they expect (you get their order right and keep the table clean/you represent them in court according to the rules).

It is colleagues that cause the greatest trouble. They are the backroom guys who hold and impose a separate set of intangible social expectations, usually unspecified, that have nothing to do with the work you do or how good you are at your job. Failure to meet these invisible standards can result in ostracism and sniping and outright sabotage.

So my recommendations are these: if you can, choose work rather than disability as a source of financial support, in areas that create the greatest independence for you, where the focus is on the end result not the background environment. Absolutely anything can provide a launching point. Cleaning a hotel sounds like a great place to start. Go for it! Grab all opportunities with both hands, and make every moment count: learn from EVERYTHING that happens, stay alert for new possibilities, and above all keep going.

College only takes about 4 years. If you put in just a little extra time to get a degree, you'll be doing things much more interesting than cleaning a hotel. The truth is, it's hard for even neurotypicals to find work without college. If they do find work, it's because they were lucky. If you go to college, that will be an asset to your resume.

You can work and collect disability.

How stupid of me....I received a $20,000 grant from the government when I was diagnosed with carpel tunnel. I went for another degree in IT at SNHU. Believe me, you CAN go to school and with a disability you can get any help you might need with your classes. You do have another choice other than work or disability rabidmonkey4262 that was an incredible idea. If you do have a social anxiety you can take your courses online, or most of them. You can also collect disability while you are attending as well. People do it all the time. You just have to persevere. Don't give up...Just find an interest and the school and you are getting started!

Definitely go for the job option. As others have said, disability income leads to a life of dependence and boredom, leaving you feeling worthless, especially if you're capable of working.

If you go to college, make sure you study something that will lead to a job afterwards. This is my situation. I went to college to study meteorology (basically, the study of weather), and have not found a job in my field. I even stayed on at my college to get a Master's degree in the field to further enhance my credentials, but to no avail. Jobs in the weather business are scarce and fiercely competitive (200 or 300 people applying for 1 opening is not uncommon). I spent 6 years in school obtaining 2 degrees and nothing to show for it. It has left me feeling like a spectacular failure and in an indefinite limbo. I am trying to restart my life and have begun the process of going back to school for IT. Hopefully this is a field that has more opportunities and will yield some fruit.

I sometimes feel like I'm destined for disability or welfare despite my educational background. The problem is that my education is useless. What good is an understanding of weather phenomena going to do me in the real-world? Anyone going to college/university really needs to pick a major that will lead to a job afterward. Am I saying do something you hate for the sake of landing a job? No, but your major should best combine your strengths and interests with career prospects upon graduation, something that for some, may require a bit of compromise.

PS Although my first post concentrated on the choice (disability or a job?) posed by the thread topic heading, I actually agree that college is the best option if you are both attracted by and suited to it. This proviso is important, because not everybody who is bright is suited for further education, and failure to complete brings its own deficits in terms of self-esteem. If you choose the further education route, any income support you can manage while studying is fair play, I reckon.

But I don't think the only value of college is to study something that will get you a job immediately or forever. First, there are no guarantees of employment whatever you study, because favoured fields change with the wind these days and so do people's career paths. Second - and this is really big, and the quite wonderful part - apart from qualifications per se, there are many indirect personal benefits of college/university, having to do with growth in areas of value for later life. These include improved ability to think and articulate your thoughts clearly; the chance to find out what sort of people are your sort; discovery of interests you didn't even know you had ...

So if you believe you have the staying power to finish the full duration of your chosen program - and breaks may be an option in order to accomplish this - absolutely go for it. While there, to get the most out of it, keep yourself wide open for experiences outside the formal curriculum, because they may be the ones that give you the most and stay with you the longest. Good luck.