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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you ever feel you should be living a different life?

68 replies

YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 17:09

Just that really.

I love my life as it is, but I feel such a pull towards certain things that I wonder if I was meant to live a different one.

Anyone?

OP posts:
Tookawrongturnsomewhere · 21/10/2017 19:27

Yes.. I wouldn't change it for my kids of course.. But career wise.. Things could have been better.. Struck a cord with the not being encouraged post.. I wasnt able to really focus at school due to family problems..and sometimes think life would be very different if it hadn't been like that

museumum · 21/10/2017 19:30

OP - are you taking about a career? Or a vocation? Or an artistic expression?

Allabitmuchisntit · 21/10/2017 19:34

Yes.

naturalbaby · 21/10/2017 19:34

Yes. I feel like I settled for the easiest option all my life. Now I'm in my 30's and have decided to retrain in something I never would have considered before. I saw a leaflet for a recruitment evening and decided to start saying yes and challenging myself. I now have a completely different and hopefully very exciting future ahead.

Is it really too late YawningHippo?

Cupoteap · 21/10/2017 19:36

Like a sliding doors moment - if I’d never met exh, I would have gone to uni so who knows where I could have ended up

paperandpaint · 21/10/2017 19:36

HarrietKettleWasHere - I could have written this, at 43 it makes me sad and angry in equal measure.

My dad and stepmother had no interest or emotional connection to me at all. I had absolutely no emotional support or guidance whatsoever and life for me was lonely and sad. I escaped to uni at 17 to do a pointless course at a pointless university. I could have made so much better choices but had to do everything on my own so ended up making poor ones.

I should have and wish I’d either gone to art school or studied English - two things that I had always loved and escaped to. I ended up doing law. I’m now a SEN teacher and am passionate about my job but I still daydream about being an artist.

Original poster
YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 19:44

Ok, no one laugh...

I know I was meant to be a doctor. I can't tell you how I know. I've never even come close to actually being able to achieve it. The closest I got was a week's work experience in a urology department with time to observe in the theatre. I watched several bladder surgeries, a circumcision and a testicle removal. I picked urology because my son has a rare urological condition and I wanted to understand. I got the experience after applying to the hospital and explaining that I was applying for the access to medicine course. I bottled putting my application forward in the end as I was told I would fail. I now feel I've missed the chance to do the one thing I feel born to do.

Any time I'm in a hospital ( quite a number of times with various family members that I have cared for) I'm calm and relaxed. I'm engaged with the environment, interested in everything, have talked with the doctors to further my understanding of the situation I'm in and feel like I'm meant to be there.

Be kind, I may sound completely mental believing this and perhaps you will all say that clearly I wasn't cut out for medicine what with me being batshit! You may be right. But I still can't shake the feeling that that is what I should be doing.

OP posts:
Original poster
YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 19:45

I observed clinics with the doctors too, and various other procedures.

OP posts:
sashimiyummies · 21/10/2017 19:48

Is it too late to train to be a Dr Yawning Hippo?

Trills · 21/10/2017 19:51

What do you mean by "meant to do" or "should be doing" though, if you don't believe in a higher power?

Who or what is that means things, or decides what anyone should be doing?

Do you just mean you think you'd like it and be good at it?

LoveDeathPrizes · 21/10/2017 19:51

That's not batshit. That's exactly what you say it is - the feeling that this is what you should be doing. And I would imagine most don't even find it. Is it too late?

Original poster
YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 19:55

I honestly don't think I could. I have 4 young children and obviously training would need my dedication and time. The children of course win, but I do hope there's another me out there saving lives and achieving my dream. By the time they're grown I'll be far to old to train and make the career I'd love to have. It's just a strange feeling to consistently feel 'at home' in any medical environment and feel I should be in them daily.

OP posts:
ethelfleda · 21/10/2017 19:57

No. I've never been so content. It's awesome.

Moanyoldcow · 21/10/2017 19:58

Yawning - I was about to comment but felt too embarrassed but I read your post and thought I would.

I also was heading towards medicine. It's all I ever wanted. But I fucked it up and my home life was chaotic as hell and I could t get it back on track after my mum died when I was 19 (no father). I did something at university that I didn't enjoy and dropped out (before I was kicked).

I got a job a few days after leaving as a temp, started helping in the very understaffed accounts department.

I'm now a Finance Manager, have a good job, own my home, my husband and son are my world, I'm expecting baby no. 2.

But I'll regret not sorting myself out and doing it because it's the only thing I ever really wanted.

I feel quite sad now.

Trills · 21/10/2017 19:59

I sound pedantic but I think it is helpful to think about it in more mundane terms.

If you shift from "I have missed out on my life's work" to "I would like to do this thing but I have not done it yet" you go from being a helpless victim of fate to a person who is in difficult circumstances but is largely in control of their own actions.

You go from "the planets are misaligned and I can never achieve my dream" to "this is difficult but I'm going to look at what steps I can take, or what similar-but-more-achievable goals I can aim for".

Original poster
YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 19:59

I just feel I should have done it, for myself. That it was the path I was meant to take, had I but known it. No higher power involved. I do feel I would have made a good doctor, and I have often received compliments from the medical staff I have encountered on my knowledge and understanding particularly where my son is involved.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

OP posts:
Original poster
YawningHippo · 21/10/2017 20:01

Moany.

All I can say is I understand. Flowers

OP posts:
Rainallday · 21/10/2017 20:04

Hi @yawninghippo have you thought about working in ambulance control? Get to work with medical problems and help people and save lives every day. You can instruct on cpr, help deliver babies and reassure and give helpful instructions on loads of stroke and heart attack patients. I did it for a couple of years and it made me realise I like a generally peaceful job not in the NHS but there's no special qualifications needed bar basic gcses and customer service experience - all on the job training.
I personally think I was meant to sail the world for a living and I have noticed I go daydreamy at boats and the sea although I didn't grow up doing anything watersportsy.

Dustbunny1900 · 21/10/2017 20:08

Yes.

This sounds so emo-teen and stupid but..I'm very artistic and creative and emotive, I feel a huge yearning to write and be "heard" and create in some way. I also love animals and would have loved a career working with them.
but unfortunately real life happened..kids very young in life and the need to do buckle down and get a job that doesn't excite me, but earns a living. I sit in bed at night and try and pin point where in my life I went wrong and why I never had the follow through.

After the kids are grown enough, I'll be in my 40s and I plan on pursuing some of those interests.

chipsandgin · 21/10/2017 20:12

Every. Single. Day.

Oh & what HarrietKettleWasHere said, practically word for word..

overthemolehill · 21/10/2017 20:14

Another ditto on Harriet’s post exactly Sad

BubblesPip · 21/10/2017 20:14

Yes. I’m only 27, but have been dealt a whole lot of shit that most people my age haven’t. It’s made me grow up far quicker, and also left me very lonely for a lot of reasons. All I have is my dc and I’d be lost without her.
I’m a sociable person, yet have no one to be sociable with.

LoveDeathPrizes · 21/10/2017 20:46

Dustbunny. Please write. Even at bedtime. Even if it's four am and you have kids to look after. It's such a subtle creative reward but it's so important.

Nikephorus · 21/10/2017 20:57

I live multiple lives in my head instead. Saturday nights I'm a whizz on the Strictly dance floor, other times I'm climbing mountains while writing novels that have made me a multi-millionaire who gives very generously to charities. Miles easier than reality.

LunaTheCat · 21/10/2017 21:08

When I went to Paris I felt sure that I should have been born a glamorous and skinny Parisian woman with a small but perfect wardrobe, sipping Lattes and eating croissants in charming cafes...sigh

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