I work in communications, am mid-40s, had a part-time role up until the end of last year, but took on a new full-time job in December. It's public sector, the money is good, good pension, the role is pretty good, with opportunities for progression etc ...but I feel like I'm looking down the barrel of 20 more years stuck indoors, in front of a laptop, becoming increasingly fed up with corporate bullshit (I'm pretty tolerant atm but suspect this will wear me down over the years!)
When I was PT I used some of my time to begin qualifications in horticulture but convinced myself that this was probably a bit of dead end, and if I wanted security, decent pay etc that I should stick with comms. Now I'm wondering if I wasted the opportunity to finish my studies and build up some actual work in eg garden design. I don't believe in such a thing as a 'dream job' - I think every job has its negative sides - but this is the closest thing I can think of for me. I think the chance to work with plants and gardens for a living would be wonderful. I love creating new garden borders, selecting plants, advising others on that sort of thing and I love being outdoors.
I realise it's very definitely Not A Problem to have a good, well paying job, especially in the current times, and maybe I'm overthinking this but it's important to me how I spend my days and I'm finding it really hard to engage with my job at the moment and settle into full-time office-based (mainly wfh) life. But walking away to retrain is definitely not an option financially and now I feel like I'd struggle to find the time to do it outside of working hours.
Has anyone successfully career changed like this without significantly dropping their income and/or burning out in the process?? Or is this just another confusing phase of my perimenopausal existential life crisis?? 😣 Maybe I need to suck it up, realise the benefits of my current career and stick to gardening as a hobby...