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Need some help moving forward in life/career
I will start this off by saying my life is kind of in shambles right now, but I think I've had a change in heart when it comes to education, but I have no direction on where to take my life.
I was formerly enrolled with DeVry University for computer science, but I've recently discovered that I think I want to grow plants for a living.
But not a farm, per se. I live in a rural area in southern Illinois where agriculture is pretty important. But what I really want to do is plant biology/botany, mostly herbalism and natural remedies, non-MD.
I've looked into some of the implications of 'practicing' herbalism without a medical degree. It's kind of vague, but for my own protection, I wouldnt want to make remedies for others. I simply want to grow the plants, provide information on those plants, like their healing properties or the tips and tricks you can use them for, and sell them. Maybe some workshops on how to grow certain plants/how to utilize the plants. I'd still make remedies for myself and my family of course.
I eventually want to be in a place where I grow flowers and other medicinal herbs, kitchen herbs, etc. (not in mass quantity, just for like the people of my community) in a decently sized greenhouse on my own property, with another little building that I can sell the herbs out of, or maybe a little shop somewhere in the small towns i live around that i could sell the plants.
However, i dont know if i'll make enough money here/if there will be enough of a market out here to make a living growing and selling my plants.
Plus i'm a poor nothing from a single mom who has no money either, so i would have to work even harder to get up enough money to even do this.
Also, my mom wants to help me with all this, but i dont know if i should be like a partner with her or just let her work for me or vice versa. However, i would feel much better if she just worked for me, but she always talks like it's our plan. I dont mind sharing, but mom has never been good with money and she kind of lies a lot. I wouldnt want to exclude her, but at the same time i wouldnt want her to jeopardize my life's work.
When i envision this, it's mostly me by myself doing everything. growing, selling, organizing, etc. I would let my fiance help me of course, but I honestly dont know if i'm going to stay with him in the long run. He still has a lot of growing up to do, is selfish at times (i know he's not perfect and i dont expect him to be, but it's a continuous feeling of 'I have an adult child'. and i dont think i want that forever.) and he wants kids but i'm about 75% sure i dont want children. At 28, i've thought a lot about this. The thought of being big and then giving birth is terrifying to me. However i might adopt one day if i ever manage to make it financially.
I havent enrolled for the botany classes yet, but i intended to and i just thought i would get some advice.
Also, I've recently learned I love to cook. I make things out of nothing and it's awesome. But i dont think i could be a chef working in a restaurant all day every day. But i also dont want to work as a chef for a snooty family or something like that. So i might just stick to cooking for myself, but also, learning how to cook would indeed help my herbalism and I could also have workshops on tidbits for cooking.
I have a plan, i just dont think i can get there without some advice and/or encouragement. Am i making a move that could potentially turn into my life's work, or is this just a dream that i wish i could do like space exploration?
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I rely on natural medicine a lot. I can tell you that the amount of people using plant and herbal medicine is just a fraction of the amount of humans relying on big pharma. The amount of people relying on natural medicine who make their own concoctions are even a smaller amount. Why? Well, even to self treat, no one without any background studies in it want to take any changes and possibly get the amounts wrong and cause themselves problems. It's much easier to rely on natural health companies who sell items that are guaranteed to not cause new problems while treating the one its supposed to be for. But these companies have to get their herbs and such from somewhere. If herbal supplement companies don't grow their own, they buy from someone whom they have come to approve of how you raise the flowers and herbs and whether you are using natural repellents or insecticides, etc. YOu likely won't get hardly any customers who come buy their own. But workshops might do the trick. And perhaps finding one herbal supplement company that always relies on you for certain ingrediants. Things like that can be shipped overnight as far as I know. I've had a couple plants shipped to me and they were just fine. It won't be big money. Besides workshops, some of the people interested in workshops and other like minded people really like taking a nature walk with a guide (you) to show them where they can find natural growing plants for your area, for folks who would like to go foraging. You might study mushrooms as well and show people where and how to find and identify their own. I had a neighbor who made extra money mushroom picking. For some people, this kind of work is not a dream but what they have chosen to do for a living. What ever you choose to do to earn a living at, don't decide based on your bf. Once you are taking the classes with like minded people, you may make friends who think and feel the same. You never know but you may find a guy whose interests match your own and he has a good business, entreprenuer mind as well. You can also find like minded people to meet right now in informal get togethers on almost any topic you can think of. Look on line at meetups.com its not a dating site in case you wonder at the name. You search for your area and put in the topic like natural health, herbalism, wild food foraging, etc and see what comes up. You may have to search under catagories you wouldn't think to find such things under. It all depends on the people who started the group and under what catagory they placed it. But you should be able to find at least one.
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