Do you ever regret your career or non-career?

[PavlovtheCat]

I never really followed any direction. I had ended up where i am in my career by sort of default. Well not the position, that was hard work, but the profession. It is close to what i want to do. But, i only realised what I wanted to do by doing this job.

And now, i think it is too late .

Anyone else feel like this? Does anyone wish they could turn the clock back to being 17/18/19 and make different educational decisions?

Has anyone taken a major leap of faith in themselves at the expense of other things, career wise and changed direction? retrained in a profession? How was it?

about your mum, know how that feels, my mum died 6 1/2 years ago and no amount of money/paying off debt is worth that loss.

I think what I was aiming at with my last post was you are starting at x and you know you want to get to z so the missing bit is y so you know need to work out if y is possible. It might not be but you need to concentrate on what that now as you know the start and what the end would ideally be.

I know that doesn't help much, but with my accountant hat on, it's all about the figures at this point, so you need to work out how many £ks it will cost, what you'll lose(i know it's alot but can you possibly cope at all) and then you'll know once and for all if it's a pipe dream of if you could make it work, even if you had to save for a while, or take out a loan/remortgage. Until you work out the figures it'll be in your head forever driving you mad. It might not be possible but then again it might be.....

x-posted with all my waffling, you have worked it out then. I'll stop babbling and hope someone else can suggest something else. I really hope you do manage it

fanjolina i will get him! i got the independent report i wanted. And DS was poorly so DH stayed outside with him (did not want him with a babysitter) and I went in to the hearing. Now the judge has ordered an independent surveyor to come and inspect our property, we are laughing. We are claiming small claims, and the figure it will cost to fix the outstanding work (to fix according to plans) is more than our figure, without our initial extra costs to make it safe!! The judge wants that figure from the surveyor. It is ours. He will regret ever clapping eyes on me. Apparantly he has done this before 4 times, he is intimidating someone else to testify against us (scared) who is refusing to do so. He said to them 'just testify and let me walk out with my money, i know what i am doing, i have done this 4 times already' .

Hijack forgiven!!! Dreams are harder to make real than i ever thought.

I've got a non-career really. DH has got a 110% full on career, so I'm the supportive spouse to that right now. I'm a bit sad about that, mainly because I did v.well at uni, and know I could have had a fulfilling career. However, DH's job has enabled me to have 6 years off work with my gorgeous boys, and I can never regret that! I did go back to work briefly last year, but DS2 got ill, and DH was away for a few months so it was a bit of a nightmare.

I'm not sure what the future holds... I'm sure there will be some further training in there somewhere. Good luck with your aspirations Pavlov!

evenginggerbil wow! it is so good to read that! No, i had not considered open university, i sort of thought that law would not really be something to do long-distance. But if i could, that would be good, i will look into that. And good that the training is a wage, that would be helpful, as I would not have to consider a loss of an entire salary for the whole however many years...well done you for doing it, and i am sure you will get ajob at the end, the person i spoke to said she would rather employ an older person who is ready to commit than a 21 year old who will try to get that bigger fish, and fame and money. She said she works with local university to make sure her employees are local and loyal to her, it saves her fortunes apparantly!

pavlov, I realised, way too late, that I should have been a lawyer. why no-one told me I'll never know.

I'm in a line of work where I get to play with and write about law a bit, well, quie a lot actually, and in 2005 I did an LLM in international law. It was an exceptional - but extremely stressful - year. I love love loved it. I had thought about conversion, LPC, training but decided 3 years, plus stupid hours, was not for me. I could get a sabbatical to do the LLM so didn;t even need to resign. I still look wistfully at some lawyers but I think I made the right choice. helped by the fact that dh earns enough money for us so I can continue in my poorly paid industry, using my law, but not being able to call myself a lawyer. If I was French I could, I believe call myself a juriste. so maybe I should just move to Paris...

hatwoman - i wish that too. why did i not know this before? all these people, kids at uni doing law? How did they know? my sister thought i was stupid even going to uni. She thought i should have worked my way up to manager of fruit and veg at morrisons(safeway at the time). I wanted to do law a'gcse, but only because i thought i would be good at it, the subject made sense not because i wanted to be a lawyer, but it clashed with PE and at the time i was into my dinghy sailing (paid for by local council) and i wanted to become an outdoor pursuits instructor. The lessons clashed and i had to make a choice, and it was suggested i did politics instead 'similar' i was told by the lecturer interviewing me for the course places! Er, yeah? how?

Pavlov and others, if the time it takes to do what you want to do is a barrier, please consider this.

If your dream would take, say, seven years to acomplish, THOSE SEVEN YEARS WILL PASS ANYWAY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO WITH THEM.

I have been on mumsnet for ten and they have flown by!

vicarinatutu (love the name btw) how great is that! Remember, fear is only adrenaline, it is just a pile of chemicals running around your body. Channel it into positivity and you will be fantastic! That is the other career i had wanted, as a police officer, but i would prefer to bypass the training and go straight into forensics or CID

fourarms but you are starting that training now though aren't you? You have taken steps towards that already? BTW, are we going to meet soon? There are some more locals wanting to catch up with us!

I am off to bed now, but please keep the stories of inspiration coming, i am going to spend some time thinking about my future. I might not be able to be a lawyer, at least right now, but i think i need to work towards something close to it. I at least need to wear a nice crisp suit to work...

Custardo have you considered Housing Support? With your experience in housing you could get a job as a Housing Support Worker/Tenancy Support Worker. Then you could work directly with older people - it's not the same as "pure" Social Work but for me, I found that working in the stat sector didn't suit me and much prefered voluntary sector.

vicar, congratulations. That is wonderful.I hope you love it

supersal keep going!
Would you consider becoming a doctor?

I don't think the age matters because you will age at exactly the same rate whether you pursue your dreams or not

jasper, very true, and likely we will be working into our late 60's/early 70's by our retirement age, so there will be plenty of time to work yet!

Slight hijack - really what would you have done differently? I have a fairly specific degree in an academic subject and was at the start of a career that's incompatible with being married (governessing) when I married DH, we've now moved to the middle of nowhere for his work and I'm doing the supportive spouse bit which leaves me teaching EFL but that's not what I want to do. I don't want to look back and regret this so, ladies, what would you have done different?

I'm studying through the OU but I want to be able to have a career and maybe if I have something to focus on it'll help me come to terms with the decision to TTC being put on hold. Otherwise I can see myself asking the same question in 10 years time!

The trouble is that there are myriad life paths each one of us could have chosen, and it is very, very easy to become bored with the one you are on and to be full of regret and to wish you had taken another. Only, if you had taken another, you would have probably become bored with that one and wished for something different.

This is the problem that arises when life holds as many possibilities as it does nowadays!

If you want to move sideways (which is a much easier way to change directions than going back and starting again) you need to apply yourself to the possibilities.

frakkin - why don't you want to teach music?

I would have not walked away from opportunities. I would have for example done more specific training in my current job which would have elevated me instead of reaching the glass ceiling. It would have meant a significant pay cut for 3 years, but would be worth it now. But then, i still not think i would be happy and would still want to be a lawyer.

I wish i had known earlier that i wanted, or more to the point, could have become a lawyer, i considered it, and dismissed it out of hand as a younger person as I never thought in a million years i was intelligent enough, confident enough, rich enough to finance the study involved. I thought that only those with wealthy parents would be lawyers, or those who were ultra clever, and i fell into neither of those categories, so it was a fleeting thought that was as close to being real as being an astronaut. In another life, i thought. NOW, i know differently, but not sure how i would change that if i was younger, as i was just not old enough to know this about myself.

I know myself much better now. Which is why i know now that i can do it. Maybe even then, back then, i would not have been so good at it, as i lacked the confidence in myself that i have now. Not sure if i could change that.

Pavlov - in the light of your feelings, what will you ensure your own children do in order to have the self-confidence to pursue ambitious life paths?

When dd was 3 months old, I moved 150 miles away from all my family and friends in an attempt to make my failing relationship with xp work.

By the time dd was 6 months old xp had left to be with another woman.

It would have been so easy to have run back home but at that stage I felt I had very little to lose and decided to pursue my dreams of teaching.

I left school at 16 so had to complete an access course to get into university. I?m now in my third year of my degree and have been accepted onto the PGCE which starts in September.

Once I?ve completed my PGCE and have had several years teaching experience, I plan to study for my masters and phd in the hopes of becoming an educational psychologist. I?ve already studied for 4 years and have a minimum of another 5 years studying , plus work experience, before I reach my final goal. I?m amazed that I?ve got so far already but I just keep taking it a year at a time and hopefully will get there in the end.

Good luck to all of you looking to pursue your dreams

bonsr will encourage them to take chances and risks in safe environments from a young age, not to fear making mistakes. Funnily, DD is an ultra confident person who does not worry about doing things wrong, even at 3.5, she is fearless. At nursery, her teachers say she throws herself 100% into everything she does and not afraid of doing something new. She is going to start ballet soon, to give her discipline, and swimming lessons so she can swim properly, which she can almost do, i want her to be confident in social situations, and will continue to socialise her with friend's children, social groups and clubs as she grows. This will apply to DS as he grows, find the things he enjoys and is good at and harness those things, give them both the chances to grow which perhaps i did not have due to my mum having to work just to survive (single mum 4 children).

DH and provide the children with as broad a range of experiences as we can, and we are fortunate enough to have family in america so they will likely stay there in holidays as they grow older as they have cousins the same age as them there. We go to america (although not likely now for a while!), we go camping in a bell tent, we have stayed in a yurt a few time we walk in woods and play games outside, we have maps of the world on the wall, want them to be as open minded to new experiences as we possibly can be. And more importantly, tell them all the time that what they want to do, they can do. Support them financially if we are able to, so they can do those things they want to do.

bonsoir not sure what happened to your name there! But, i think i do need to show them both that not only will we support them, but need to show them how it is done. I want them to look up to me, i want to inspire them.