If I had my life to live over again, I would follow very different career paths. At least I think I would. Most people who know me might be surprised to learn of some of these careers/fields I think would merit serious consideration:
- Urban planner
- Unitarian minister/Buddhist priest
- Software developer
- Professor of sociology
- Professor of psychology
- Linguist
- Farmer
- Food distribution logistics
- Mass transportation designer
- Physician
- Policy analyst (at the national level)
- Restaurant operator
- Fiction writer
I suspect there are dozens of career fields in which I could find satisfaction. But regardless of what field I might have chosen, I would (in hindsight) have limited the time spent pursuing it to about half of what I did in my real world career. No job, regardless of how much one might enjoy it, is worth sixty or eighty hours a week. Even working for oneself as a farmer, which might require monstrous commitments of time, would warrant paying for help to limit one’s hours; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a good career.
I bet there are dozens of others I’ve considered. I know for a fact I frequently cursed myself for failing to go to law school. Now, though, I don’t feel that so much; I suspect I would have hated myself (on the one hand) or starved (on the other).
I wonder if anyone who reads this post is surprised. I know I am. But only a little.
You seem to like cooking and writing the most, but we’ve reached the age where our bodies can’t put in those long hours. It’s maddening to have to slow down physically when the mind is racing ahead.