I have learned in this life, the more people try to talk you out of doing it, the more they try to explain how it can't happen like you envisioned it... the more you need to dig your heels in and remove their influence over you.
Everyone else retired broke, or still works.
Remember this.
You get rich by betting on things other people are wrong about. Because most "good" investments have their "goodness" priced into them, making them "mediocre" or "bad" investments in reality.
The key is to find something that looks bad but is actually good. Which means you gotta be willing to have people tell you why you're dumb (then wait). Then get called lucky. Then do it a few more times. Then have people say you're finally good.
But by the time they say you're good it already stopped mattering to you what they thought because why would you respect someone's judgment who was so repeatedly bad? They now only say you're good because everyone else does and not because they could ever make up their minds on their own.
When I was 22 I was in the military making 20k a year.
I firmly remember a master Sergeant sitting me down after I failed to pay a parkin ticket and telling me I was the most incompetent fuck up he'd ever met and that I'd never go anywhere. He just sat there and made fun of me for a half hour in his office.
I now make 5x what I used to make a year every day now. I make his yearly income every day in my sleep. If you feel like a loser, its okay. You probably are. The cool part is is you can just get mad and change all of that.
The most dangerous part of being a loser is convincing yourself its who you are. You can be whatever the F you want to be.
If your life is ass right now, you need to realize...You can push back and change all of it. It's in your power. Nothing is set in stone.