1) you seem to have worked a quite a few terrible companies ("salary is how much it costs to waste your time"?? Really?)
2) your attitude is almost always negative, which may have had a significant effect on #1
Don't chase money. Go for experience. And that's not just career experience. Life experience. Travel. Choose adventure, and connections with others.
Some of the best things that happened during my 20s:
- getting fired from my first job after only 6 months. I didn't demonstrate my value to the mostly non-technical management enough, and a later hire above me made it seem like my role was unnecessary. He got a 30% raise and 14 hour days, I lost my job
- after working for a few years and feeling confident in my skills, pushing pause and leaving to travel the world for the better part of a year. During that time I learned to ride motorcycles and scuba dive which have become my non-code passions
- deciding that coding was not just my job, but a craft and skill I would make an effort to always try and improve
- most recently, joining a group of awesome folks to do a startup that has already begun to change people lives for the better, and I hope will continue to grow and do so even more
There have been ups and downs, I've never fought super hard for the highest salary possible, but I've always felt fairly compensated and been comfortable. Most importantly, I've learned to enjoy every experience of it all, even the bad ones.
When it comes to your career, it's pretty simple: have a good attitude, be honest, do the things you say you will, to the best of your ability, and always be improving (aka learn from your mistakes and move on). Out of that, you will have a career. There is no end game, there is just the journey