…not anything I wanted to be, because that’s not true. Like everyone else, I have my limitations. Plenty of them. I’m sure we all play this game sometimes, even if it’s only in the form of ‘I wish I’d done so-and-so instead of the boring / hateful / planet-destroying job I’m doing now’, but it’s rather pointless wishing one had trained as an astrophysicist when one is aware one left school at sixteen after barely scraping through their GCSE’s. Or wishing one had become a Premier League footballer when one knows perfectly well they have no real aptitude for the game and aren’t particularly agile. I’m not sure whether I’m guilty of over-thinking this, but I get annoyed by the plethora of adverts nowadays aimed at both children and adults proclaiming ‘You can be whatever you want to be!’ or ‘There are no limits to your ambition!’ or the like, and I think a lot of people are just being set up for failure, or to think they are failures, which is frequently worse.
Yeah, I guess I might have been a bicycle rickshaw driver. Who can say?
But let’s change tack a little, here. While a tiny part of me does wish I’d knuckled down and made an attempt to become an established folk musician (post 1), I’m not sure I’d ever have really wanted to be a tramp or a monk in this lifetime. Although I can certainly see the attraction of being a hermit! But I am relatively happy with the various jobs I’ve ended up doing, and looking back if I could have picked another career path, I’m not sure what would have been my chosen one (from my perspective of now). I reckon I’d have been happy as an archaeologist, a stone- or wood-carver, or some other sort of artist. But these choices obviously reflect my current interests. Ask me again in ten years time, and I might well give a different answer.
And you knew it was coming, didn’t you? What would be your ideal career if you could go back and do it all again?
Mick Canning 
I would do what i do now, work as an independent writer but hopefully, in a more organised and focused manner! Be more prolific too, perhaps!
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It sounds as though you’ve been fortunate in your choices, Diti. Did it cause any problems along the way?
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Yes, agree, I have been lucky. 😊 No problems as such except that working fultime with any house, brings benefits such as a bigger network of contacts and an easily recognisable identity and visibility. Freelance gives huge freedom but one has to work harder to gain entry into established fiefdoms and also get ones dues on time! Have got taken for a ride many times.😊
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Ah, yes. Freelance has its good and bad points. I worked as a freelance outdoor activity instructor for many years. I loved the freedom and flexibility it gave me – work when I chose to, time off when I chose, and the freedom to take jobs with different employers. The downside was the lack of security, lack of guaranteed work.
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Hi Mick an interesting question. Would like to have enjoyed a more artistic career but those rarely pay enough to live on so I would have ended up in soul destroying corporate anyway. At least I earn enough to live well and enjoy lovely holidays.
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I would imagine that’s the reason many people don’t risk the artistic careers. I did toy with the idea of going down that path, but in the end decided against it. I rather wish I’d taken the risk, now.
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Me too ❤️🔥
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Thanks for your thoughtful post. I am very lucky to have had great mentors early in my graduate education and have loved my work which BTW has subsidized my hobby. Cheers, B
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Thanks, Bruce. That sounds perfect.
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You are welcome.
Bruce
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Yes, I too ponder a few things I might’ve done differently as a youth, especially in the job department, but that’s pretty common for folks when they get to their mature years and start looking back. At this point I’m glad I made it this far and feel lucky to have known so many awesome people and fun experiences along the way. Cheers, Mick and thanks for the great post.
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Yes, my feelings, really. Glad to have got where I am. And, naturally, had I done different jobs, my whole life would have turned out completely different.
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I’ve done so many things in my life, and taken so many turns along the way, that I’m more likely to think back in amazement — “I did that?!” — than to wish I’d done otherwise. There always are tradeoffs, and taking the plunge into running my own business has been largely positive. Even through Covid, I was able to work and recreate as usual: partly because my ‘usual’ is quite different from most peoples’. There was no bureaucracy dictating to me how I should live: one of the greatest benefits of all.
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I think I’m also quite surprised at some of the journeys I’ve ended up taking. That’s not to say there aren’t routes that might have been better, but I’m mostly pleased with how they turned out. The thing about the ‘What if?’ game, of course, is that we can’t ever know the answer.
And I think the working for yourself part of it all is particularly satisfying.
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Given the chance to start again I would probably still make the same mistakes and THE few wise choices but with THE HOPE THAT MAYBE I’D CAUSE A LITTLE LESS HURT IN PRIVATE THAN I PROBABLY DID. HUGS MY FRIEND.
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Ah, we can all think that, David. We’ve all made those bad choices, but who’s to say the alternatives would have turned out better? Many hugs back!
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I always wanted to be a foreign news correspondent but I chose other things (marriage, children, home). I did end up working as a reporter for many weekly newspapers, which for the most part I loved, and then worked in a settlement agency with people from around the world so I suppose in some way I did fulfill some of my dreams. I wouldn’t change anything. Great post!
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It does sound as though you managed to live some of those dreams, and presumably your other choices justified modifying those dreams. And if you wouldn’t change anything, that’s clearly a result. I don’t think I’d change anything, really, either. Who knows how things would have panned out otherwise? Thanks, Julie.
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A thoughtful post Mick. I always think this sentence is not true ‘You can be whatever you want to be’. We all have our advantages and disadvantages but there are things we can’t change no matter what we do. It doesn’t mean the world ends here 😊 Plan B, C,D waits for us along the journey.
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Exactly that, Rupali. We all have our limitations, but equally we also have our strengths. As the saying goes, wisdom is knowing what you can change and what you cannot.
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FBI profiler, which really didn’t exist when I was in college
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That would be an interesting one. A friend of ours said not too long ago they really liked the idea of becoming a forensic scientist, although I think nowadays even that has become more specialised and you’d probably end up focussing on something like plant fibres or organic and non-organic oils. But police work has certainly moved on from when we were at school!
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I know!! Crazy advances!! I just read an interesting article about its becoming harder and harder to be a good serial killer…(if you get what I mean)
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Tch! Another career off the list, then.
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😉
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I would have simply believed in myself enough to devote time to writing and creating decades earlier. I remember the nearly heart-stopping surprise of reading Louise Erdrich’s memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance when I was a young mother. Erdrich paid for childcare and a space apart from home in order to write. I didn’t have the money or time (same thing, really) to consider this option but it was revolutionary to read another young mother’s account.
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I’ve not read that, but I suspect most writers face some variation of that dilemma. I largely certainly stopped writing for several years through personal circumstances, although I agree that enough money to pay for time and space would have made a big difference!
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I could have been … a cute puppy, loved by a nice family. A wolf … part of a species that knows no prejudice or hatred. A … well, almost anything other than a human.
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You’ve mentioned the wolf before, Jill. It definitely must be your Spirit Animal.
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I don’t know why, but for many years I’ve felt an affinity for the wolf and have thought of it as my Spirit Animal. 🐺
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