Start thinking of a marketable skill.
School does nothing to help you because all it is is lead gen for university. After you can read & write, it just teaches you useless fluff. Basically at your age it's peak useless.
I got the same "piece of paper" line from know-it-alls too. Treating it like it's some kind of magic ticket to a good life. Turned out that was an abject lie from people I thought meant well, but now realized had no id. No-one who actually mattered really cared less that I had it, and plenty of other guys did just as well without it. And it was on the opposite end of the spectrum to a "liberal arts" piece of paper too. Be very careful what those older than you say. 95% of them either have no idea what they are talking about, are apathetic, are negligent, or even malicious, regardless of how they present themselves and how wise or helpful they pretend they are being.
In fact some guys did much better without the piece of paper, because they spent those years doing what mattered. One guy just started a real estate agency (completely unrelated to his original field of study) and you could tell by his epic grin and his car how well he was doing.
All that matters is having a specific, in-demand, marketable, extensible, difficult-to-attain skill, and ideally one that's aligned somewhat with your aptitude so it's easier to get ahead in it. That's all that matters.
Then you can get money in at high rates, which you can then invest and snowball and extend into business.
School does nothing to help you because all it is is lead gen for university. After you can read & write, it just teaches you useless fluff. Basically at your age it's peak useless.
I got the same "piece of paper" line from know-it-alls too. Treating it like it's some kind of magic ticket to a good life. Turned out that was an abject lie from people I thought meant well, but now realized had no id. No-one who actually mattered really cared less that I had it, and plenty of other guys did just as well without it. And it was on the opposite end of the spectrum to a "liberal arts" piece of paper too. Be very careful what those older than you say. 95% of them either have no idea what they are talking about, are apathetic, are negligent, or even malicious, regardless of how they present themselves and how wise or helpful they pretend they are being.
In fact some guys did much better without the piece of paper, because they spent those years doing what mattered. One guy just started a real estate agency (completely unrelated to his original field of study) and you could tell by his epic grin and his car how well he was doing.
All that matters is having a specific, in-demand, marketable, extensible, difficult-to-attain skill, and ideally one that's aligned somewhat with your aptitude so it's easier to get ahead in it. That's all that matters.
Then you can get money in at high rates, which you can then invest and snowball and extend into business.