Looking for some advice/opinions

It’s not enough to have an interest in something - but that’s a great place to start.

There’s got to be aptitude, talent, and hard work involved if this will be your life’s work. Have you found out what all would be involved?

If you want a Career in either (or both) of these fields, that will take furthering your education.

Even if you want to do hobbies that involve these interests, it will take study and investment. ( if you want all the “stuff” that goes along with that subject matter to make it fun.

Have you ever taken an Appitude Test to see what your talents are?

I've never thought about taking an aptitude test, I'll have to try and find a decent one to take.

I agree with everything you said, too, specifically the part about having aptitude and talent. That's mainly why I don't know what to pursue. Practicing will improve my aptitude/talent, I just don't want to spend all my time and effort doing so on something that isn't going to yield a 'successful' result...

Career aptitude tests are sometimes helpful, sometimes not so much. If I had followed through with the one given me by the high school guidance counselor (oh so many decades ago), I'd have ended up as a farming sociologist. Instead I followed my own path (and instincts) and became a science teacher.

Additionally, keep in mind, you can change your pathway if it turns out to not be what you expected or truly want. You can even head down a new road several years after college.

Are you working now?

Do you have the finances/interest to allow you to complete high school or college?

If you haven't completed high school (dropped out) you're pretty much out of the astrophysics.

Feel free to elaborate. Don't really see an undoubted correlation between completing highschool the first time around and a career in astrophysics.

I could see why if I just flat out never got my diploma, but there are plenty of options when it comes to getting it later in life, enabling pretty much just as many options as if I got it in my teenage years.

Is finishing high school a possibility? That is where I would start. High school is a pretty good way to better your chances in any field.

Sorry. I didn't see (and still don't see) anything in your posts about finishing high school at a later time.

To elaborate, astrophysics (in my understanding) is pretty much applied mathematics. You may well be qualified, but it isn't apparent from your posts here, unless you would like to add additional information at some later time.

Let's get real, shall we? Just liking something does not mean you should make your living from that. Ever hear of Gary Larson? The famous cartoonist? He really liked biology, but biology wouldn't support him without a rather large investment of time and money. So he sold jokes instead.

I always liked electronics, and I even did fairly well in that field, but when the entire field got exported to China, I went into driving limos and I found that to be a much more pleasant lifestyle. I started buying silver at five bux an ounce, and silver has been good to me.

If you are still young, a truck driver makes as much as most college grads, and with a lot less time and money spent on schooling.

If you get any wage earning job and live cheaply, saving half your income, you can be relatively wealthy in a few years. For example if you earn ten bux an hour and save half, it only takes ten years to save a hundred grand in cash. No college program will give you a net worth of zero in that time.

If you really want to go to college, take ECON 101 at the local college and ask the professor what else to study, assuming you are going to sell options.

There are limited career slots in astrophysics, and the competition for them is fierce. Unless you are the best of the best, you probably won't get a career as an astrophysicist even with a PhD in astrophysics. You'll probably end up as a high school science teacher or something similar -- or a professor at a small college if you get a PhD.

On the other hand, being a science teacher is a decent living, and your career would still involve knowing about astrophysics, so maybe that isn't too bad of an option.

part of it is the amount of time it takes to get through high school and then the series of advanced degrees you need (plus talent/plus luck/plus extraordinary mentorship) to get any kind of employment in astrophysics

we had a poster here whose husband is a fairly well known physicist. it took him about 20 years post high school to get near the position he wanted.

have you completed high school in some form? are you actively taking classes?