I always have thought that by age 25, you will be stuck mainly with what you will be doing. Recently I have met a couple of people who switched careers, and their new careers have nothing to do with what they have been doing for their entire life.
So I am curious about stories of new beginnings. Do you have one? What triggered the desire to change? Did it turn out for the better? Do you feel like you have ‘wasted’ your life?
On Edit: This is not just about careers too. It could be also about adopting a new outlook on life or a new way of living etc. etc. etc.
Career wise, I’ve been trying desperately. I really want to get in to IT work, or if not then something either clerical or working with the public. However, since unemployment is so high, I have to compete with people who have previous experience. Actually, just about everybody trying to change careers does. In this economy it’s not really a good time to change careers.
I may branch out and do some other things in a few years - although right now I’ve been too lazy to apply the discipline needed to learn something new.
I was first officially hired in IT worker when I was about to turn 45.
I did do unofficial IT work before that, but didn’t do anything with computers until I was 30, and that was just technical writing. I switched to computer graphics a few years later, and started actually doing IT-type work when I was 38.
Why did I change? Because I had wanted to go into broadcasting and also writing science fiction. Broadcasting wasn’t working out, so I just took whatever jobs I could get. SF writing did work out, but not enough to go full time. Eventually, I discovered I liked IT.
I graduated college and just worked a crappy retail job for a few years before going to grad school. That wasn’t a new beginning per se. But it did get me to a professional career in an entirely different location. From the Mountains of NC to the gulf coast of s. FLA. It didn’t really change me personally, but my life became financially stable and money is no longer any real concern for me.
I’m constantly evolving. At 49 (Happy Birthday me!), I feel like I’m just getting started. My best years are still ahead of me. When I’m on my death bed, I’m going to ask myself “How can I make this a better experience?”
I changed careers in my late 30s, but it wasn’t a night-and-day switch. I was a business writer and now I’m a PR person. A lot of the skills and knowledge carry over. But it did require a major adjustment to a corporate culture and the concept that I am now “selling” rather than “buying”. I also had to adjust to having nearly twice as much income, although my divorce pretty much solved that problem.
Worked as a marketing copywriter from ~1998 (I was 23) through 2004 (I was 29). New, horrible, management came it at my company which was located in a state with a very bad economy… I had already surivived 7 rounds of layoffs when I…
Quit
Worked on a horse farm from 2004-2006, as live-in barn manager/riding instructor (I had a cottage on the property that came with the job). It was kind of a break-even lifestyle that I wasn’t interested in long-term, so I…
Went to law school, graduated cum laude in 2009 (I was 34)
Now I’m an attorney, and I work for municipal government.
I loved all my jobs, each in their own way. Someday I’d like to teach again, maybe law at the high school level, we’ll have to see. So basically I’m thinking about my future FOURTH career :).
Good heavens, I’ve changed careers every four or five years. I can’t begin to imagine how boring my life would have been had I stuck with what I was doing when I was 25 (civil servant).
At 30 I was an office clerk. At 35 I was working for a winery and at 40 I was running an Internet Service Provider. Now I’m just past 45 and considering what to do next after a several-year artistic sabbatical…
25? I graduated law school and got my first real job at 25. I think 30 is more like the point where any new thing you do is a “life change” situation as opposed to just, you know, starting something.
In 2000-2001 I basically started over. Because of illness and being out of work I lost my house, had gone through a major breakup and basically had nothing. I completely rebuilt my life from scratch. I have restored my credit, moved across the country, own a home, have a long term relationship, a career and am living comfortably. Most of the new start wasn’t by choice, but my life now is far better for it.
I’ve started over several times, not counting high school and college. I taught English for 5 years, was a SAHM for 9. At that point the teaching jobs had all gone away, and I started over.
I did data entry, advanced to programming, and then to systems analysis. I went back to a community college and added an Associates degree to my B.A.
About 4 years ago I got laid off and found that nobody wants to hire a 60-year-old in IT. The potential employers all loved my resume and technical qualifications until they figured out my age.
I’m now working for a freight forwarder doing traffic control, customer service and other related tasks. I’m looking forward to retiring in a couple of years and becoming a full-time grandmother.
I am in my 50s. I’ve been married twice, and the second time I had to get out. My husband was controlling and critical, and judgmental of any friends I attempted to make outside of the marriage.
After I left, I worked to develop a new outlook on life. I knew life was too short to be so closed and judgmental. At first I was just thrilled to be free and was happy and carefree. After about two years, reality set in, and I sometimes sank back into lowness. Through therapy, meditation, studying Buddhism, and basically realizing life could be different, I’ve managed to change a great deal about my outlook on life. Age has also helped–as I said before, life is just too short to be miserable. I now have a full, rich life with great friends and lots of interesting experiences.
As for my job–I’ve always had jobs in similar fields, but I’ve milked what you can do with an English degree. I’ve been a proofreader, legal assistant, copy editor, book editor, magazine editor, managing editor, children’s book author many times over, and now I teach English Composition in a university.
The only thing I’m missing is a relationship other than friendship with someone of the opposite sex, but even if I never get that again, life is good.
I quit teaching earlier this year and work from home creating subtitles. Coming out as gay a few years back did change my life in quite a few ways too.
If you “go straight through,” you do college at 18 and law school (which is 3 years) at 22. But lots of people take a year or more off somewhere in there (my class had a couple of 50-somethings).