I’m a happily married (no kids) 30 year old woman who works in tech support making a decent salary but I still don’t know what I really want to be when I grow up. I’ve thought about going in to Nursing but I think I may be too old. Sometimes I think I want to be a Photo Journalist but I don’t have the mad skillz required to make it in that competitive field. I love travelling and wish that someone would pay me a huge sum of money yearly to travel. Alas, I do not have the mad writing skillz necessary to be a travel writer.
Any advice from the masses? Should I quit my decent paying job and become the oldest living college freshman so that I can get a low-paying third shift nursing job where I will be over worked and under appreciated (but hopefully happy as I will be doing something that matters)? Should I stay in my comfy cozy decent paying tech job just for the paycheck and get my thrills, chills and joys during my time outside of work? Should I stop writing run on sentences? Are there answers to my questions or does only the SHADOW know?
You are never too old to try something new or to follow a dream.
Nursing, I always thought, was a fairly high-paying job; however as I am completely tech-deficient I can’t say in the slightest how the salaries of the two professions match up. However I’m certain it is a psychologically rewarding job (for the most part - helping people is uplifting, changing bedpans not terribly so) and there are never enough male nurses!
My advice though, coming from someone completely unqualified as I’m not doing what I want to do either, is to do what you really enjoy. You seem to like taking photographs and travelling; why not, instead of taking nurse classes, take a photography class or two in your spare time after your tech job? Or take a class on travel writing, and try that out? You could start writing up small things and sending them to travel magazines to see if you actually can make any headway - IMHO most magazine writers don’t need truly mad skillz, they have editors who refine their pieces.
Don’t give up a dream because you don’t think it’s possible for you; make it possible.
Of course if you just want to travel you could always become a truck driver
I knew some nurses that were travel fiends. and nursing fit right in because they could get good work just about anywhere in less than 48 hours, and we’re talking travelling in foreign countries.
That’s a good point. One of the things that made me remember this old dream of mine (I wanted to be a nurse when I was a a wee girlie) was the Sept. 11th World Trade Center horror. I just felt so useless as a tech. I thought that I could have been much more usefull if I had skills that can be used to help people. I’d like to go home at the end of the day thinking I really made a difference or at least some kind of contribution. It’s a little hard to get psyched about helping someone create a snazzy PowerPoint presentation.
My irrational fear of sharks and my inability to go under water without holding my nose probably rule this out as a career option for me. Not that it doesn’t sound great.
That’s what I used to think but unfortunately time and circumstance have conspired against me. I find myself 30 years old with bits of gray hair, a mortgage, and a job where I am forced to care about the real world (not the Real World[sub]tm[/sub]) equivalent of the WEENUS.
If I had only snagged a career as a rock star then eternal childhood would have been within my grasp!
Why, yes. Yes, I am you. And I’ve been meaning to tell you / me that you / I really should start sleeping in a bit later. Also, get a damn pedicure already your / my feet are looking quite nasty what with the calluses and all.
