to wish I'd been more mercenary when I was younger

[Bennifer]

Just a rant really, but when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I thought those who wanted to best paying jobs were greedy mercenaries and they were fools for becoming management consultants, commercial lawyers and accountants.

Now at 30, suddenly with children, etc, money has become a lot more important, and I wonder if I wasn't very wise not to follow the money. Ok, I earn above the national average, and so I can't complain, but when I read of the salaries for the very average in those fields, I can quite annoyed at myself.

AIBU?

bump

I used to think of the solicitor / banking / city types as being 'wage slaves.' You know, working for The Man

I think it takes huge committment and drive to enter and stay in those kind of fields, and a huge amount of ridiculous hours too for the most part. You don't stand much of a chance unless you are really driven, ambitious and make a lot of sacrifices.

I ahve always regretted not being able to go to uni and get those kind of high paying jobs, but after having dd I totally changed career paths and what I need to learn now isn't taught at universities, iyswim. So I would still be in the same position I am now, but with loads of student debt and a degree I couldn't 'use.'

If you had gone down the 'go for the money' path then you might have burnt out by now, or got fed up, changed direction and started something else from the bottom rung of the ladder.

Could you retrain / add to existing skills?

You didn't find youself 'suddenly with children' Bennifer - it was a gradual process which came about because you made choices, and I hope you had a lot of fun getting to this point in time.

Could be that you've had more fun than those greedy mercenaries, and maybe you also have a better quality of life than many of them.

ManiPanic talks a lot of sense. If you want to find out if the grass is greener on the other side, retrain.

I switched direction 3 times before I was 30 and I'm currently working towards a further change.