Resetting your life

Option 4: Pursue a career path that doesn't make you wonder what a bullet tastes like when you wake up every day. Seriously, BL1Y and VI are not blowing smoke up everyone's ass, being a lawyer fucking sucks, it's no mystery that they have extremely low job satisfaction. The worst part is because of the debt most people can't afford to reset their life after law school if they don't like it, you can't just work a 'fun job' making around 35k and expect a comfortable life while paying off those ridiculous loans, this is why you have those bitter old lawyers, they get caught in the trap because they can't support their lifestyle and pay off their debt with a lower paying/higher satisfaction job. Have you ever met someone over the age of 30 that was happy they went to law school?

On the other hand if your dad doesn't hate doing it and is guaranteeing you a job it may not be all bad.

Focus: This is totally pussy compared to most of the stuff on here, but I reset my career a year ago right after being promoted at my old company in Boston. I had been studying for and taking the actuarial exams while working 60-80 hour weeks at a job I hated. Right after the promotion I got an offer to work at a small actuarial firm in CT. My GF had just started her teaching degree so we've been apart for the whole year. It fucking sucks right now, but the job I'm in is great and she'll be down here in December. Overall it's been an awesome decision.

 

Good timing on the topic. I am about to start my reset next week. After 15 years, I am leaving the IT industry next Friday and starting Veterinary School the following Monday. Took a lot of hard work and sacrifice to get here but I feel it's worth it.

 

I'm in a bit of a reset myself. I got sober 18 months ago and have lost 40 lbs since December. I'm also thinking about getting out of my current career to do something more rewarding. Sure, I'd love to own vacation properties and late model vehicles but my mental & physical health means much more to me now.

 

I'm doing a reset for myself right now. I graduated in June, and although I was considering going to grad school halfway across the country, I decided to move to a town in the state that has a great MMA/Jiujitsu gym, and start training 5 days a week rather than only a couple, find a job that can accommodate this, and see how far that takes me.

Is it the best thing I can really do with my life? Probably not, but I really don't want to be 50, thinking how awesome training 'could have been' had I actually gone through with it.

 

I'm in a position where I'm the primary breadwinner in the house, but I loathe what I do and what I've become because of my job. My boyfriend might make less, but goddamn if he doesn't love what he does for a living. I am so envious of that.

I *think* product development would give me that sense of satisfaction, that what I thought up in my head would somehow make it onto store shelves for you all to spend your hard-earned pennies on. Or maybe I'd bone up my skills and audition for a little out-of-the-way orchestra somewhere, where I could maybe, just maybe, feel passionate about my career.

 

I hit the reset button on my life on June 28th of this year. Back in '99 I started my own small engineering firm, doing work for telecommunications firms. At first, it was exciting. I got to work on different projects. I was making big bucks and I was able to buy the house and the cars well ahead of schedule. But as the years went on, I started hating my job more and more. The day in and day out grind of sitting in front of a computer for 8 to 10 hours a day driving the mouse got to be too much. As well, the industry changed such that in the last two years I barely broke $100K in salary, and much of those last two years was working for a total douchebag customer. I couldn't do it anymore.

So, the wife and I decided to pull the trigger. Being a teacher, she was able to take a sabbatical year which she can extend for up to 4 years. We got rid of most of our possessions, sold the house, the Z, the STi and moved to the cottage. I cut my client list down to only the best clients, and plan to continue doing work for them from the cottage. The ironic thing is that I probably cut my salary in half by doing so (and down to 25% if I consider the wife's income) yet we can manage to save more now. The official plan is that in a year or two we go back to the city, but really if we can make this current arrangement stick we're not going back. We'll just keep doing this until I'm confident we have enough money put aside and pull the trigger again on early retirement.

So far, its been great. Wake up in the morning, go trout fishing for an hour. Have breakfast, do some work till noon, go for a swim, work a bit more than knock off around 4 and sit on the dock. The winter might be more challenging but time will tell.

 

It seems to really "reset your life" you have to be ahead financially, at least a little bit. I don't think you could do it if you were upside down on your mortgage, a problem plaguing many, many Americans. If you didn't have at least a little in the bank you really can't whittle down, also if you have wife and kids a reset isn't an option really.

That being said I have always wanted to be a teacher. It was my original major in college and I knew I would be good at it, they just didn't earn the income that I was interested in earning. Besides travel which is an obvious one I always wanted to really work at being a scratch golfer. I'm about a 12 handicap now so it would be a ton of work but I think I would enjoy it.

I always regretted not living in another city, just soaking in a brand new culture for a couple years would be amazing.

Wishful thinking sadly.

 

I have been in an extended reset for some time now. Six years ago, I was a pretty successful horsetrainer. I was set, until I got knocked up by a drug addict. I tried to make it work for far too long, I had an abrupt change in income and career. As in, I didn't have a career. I ended up waiting tables again, which I can make work.

I am back in school now, dumped the druggie, and am so much happier. Except one thing. I need to move. I need to downsize to a two bedroom. My credit is thrashed, which is something I have to work on. I have been cutting lots of fat out of my life (except for pot, that's just been reduced) and it feels great. I may drive a decade old car and not spend alot of time at the bar, but I am not the ball of stress I used to be.

Back in February, when I had that fantastic wreck, I cancelled my ridiculous cable package. I have not had tv since. I don't miss it a bit. It is interesting to me how many people don't have much to talk about when you haven't seen the latest commercial or reality show. I've used my free time to start lifting weights and running (5 miles a day) and love every minute of it. I don't think it is natural for humans to spend so much time parked on their asses and trying to accumulate shit. That is all most possessions are, after all...

We don't really need all the things we have been conditioned to desire.

 

I'm resetting my life within the next three months. I'm moving to the UK. I don't really feel nervous about it, I feel excited. To be that close to all of Europe and Africa, cheap flights and 4 weeks paid vacation makes it feel like an extended vacation.

Beyond that I'm working on getting out of doing IT. I don't love it anymore. I feel no passion for it. The only thing that keeps me doing it is a paycheck. I have some ideas and I'm working towards them as quickly as I can. Lets see if I can pull the trigger when its time.

 

This is what I don't understand about this thread. Everyone says that they hate their job, felt no passion, etc. I've come to learn that I would rather work to live than live to work. I know this sounds really stupid, but look at it this way-

Cons:
-I hate what I do.
-Sometimes I hate it for 60-80hrs a week.

Pros:
-It provides me with free flights anywhere in the country I want to go every weekend.
-It provides me with luxury hotel rooms when I get there.
-It pays pretty well.

I try to do something fun everyday, and strive to do something awesome every weekend. That way it makes the job worth it. Sure if you have a job you hate, and you mope around in your free time at home, remembering how much you hate it, your life is going to suck. I also recomend getting out of your routine. Routines suck the fun out of life.

The only job I've ever had that I enjoyed was working at the golf course when I was in high school. However, it only paid $6 an hour. Was I happy at work? Yes! But back then I lived with my parents, and didn't need money.

If I could get that job back I would be making the same ammount of money. While I would be really happy for the 40 hours per week I was at work, I would be immensly sad during the 128 hours per week I was not at work. I would much rather have it the other way around 128 > 40.

A lesson that you all will learn one day in life- 98% of jobs suck the life out of you. It is a fact of life. Sure, there are the 2% that don't suck, but they are ahrd to come by, and when you start a new job it shouldn't be expected not to suck.

If I was going to reset my life- I want to live in the Rockies and work at a ski resort. I still plan on moving to Colorado within the next 18 months. It just sucks I have to get a real job.

 

I'm only 20, so I can't really talk about resetting my life. However I dropped out of Uni and moved to Greece for the summer.

I'm working in a hotel on the Island of Kos which caters to young British people, it's great fun.

Been here for two months now, I get paid 25euro a night and pay 55euro accommodation a week. I get free drink at work and work 10pm-7am. It is utterly awesome. If the season didn't end in September I think I'd stay here for years. Such an easy lifestyle. Drinking every day however makes me a bit scared of alcoholism, but fuck it.

 

I'm in the process of trying to minimalize. All the useless crap I've accumulated over the years (DVDs, videogames, clothes) are being sold off or donated. I'm hoping this will at least build my savings back up after moving drained it. The next step is canceling all the premium BS cable packages that do nothing but suck up my time. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how working out, eating well and playing golf can bring me any income, though, as I'm nowhere near skilled enough to do any of those for a living.

 

I'd really like to move out to LA and try to get some menial job in the entertainment industry (assistant's assistant, mail room, where ever people start out), while pursuing writing on the side. But, like an idiot I did the safe responsible thing and took my local state bar, which ended up costing about $2500 in registration fees, travel expenses, study aids, etc.

That's still the plan, I just have to figure out how to build back up enough money to move and live off of for a month or two while I'm getting settled down.

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://philalawyer.net/2010/06/the-great-sucking-sound-why-the-fattened-middle-deserves-no-quarter/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://philalawyer.net/2010/06/the-grea ... o-quarter/</a>

I find it shocking how many people really want to attack anyone who would like a better quality of life and a meaningful job. With rare exception, we don't want to force anyone else to go along with us, and we're not asking for a government handout. But, I think talking about how drafting TPS report cover letter policies is a sad way to spend your life reminds people that what they're doing is probably just bullshit. No one wants to think of their existence as just a bullshit paper pusher, and it's easier to chug more koolaid than to press the reset button.

 

I think there's a big disparity between what people think they deserve, and what they've actually worked to get. How many people went to college and drank there way to a business degree? Are those people trained to be anything more than paper pushers? I think the same goes for many lawyers. A lot of them got degrees in Poli Sci, Philosophy etc. and then went on to law school, because what else can you do with those degrees. If you don't put yourself in a position to do something you enjoy why would you deserve to have it? I read quite a bit of lawyers complaining about the job, but many of them chose that career for the money or status. If you're one of those people, no I don't pity you.

Another factor is that not everybody can do something they love. If everyone were ski bums and writers our economy would blow donkey dick. If your job makes the rest of your life miserable you should find a new one, but you don't need to love your job to lead an enjoyable life.

I know that I made some generalizations, and I know that it doesn't apply to everyone's situation. I just thought there should be a counter point to the "if you don't love your job your an idiot" philosophy that gets a lot of hype around here.

 

I think a lot of lawyers didn't go it to it for the money or the prestige (though that certainly didn't hurt), but because it's sold to undergrads as a meaningful, fulfilling career, where you get to be actively involved in lots of important things, make a difference in people's lives, and engage in intellectually stimulating work. Then, they graduate and if they're able to get a job, they most likely find that it's bottom feeding or just being a fungible cog in a giant corporate machine servicing yet another, bigger corporate machine.

And, most of those lawyers probably believed all the hype about how desirable a law degree is to careers outside of law. So, they thought, if law isn't for them, they've put themselves in a position to do something else that they will enjoy, as you suggested they should. Problem isn't that they didn't try to put themselves in a good position to have an enjoyable career, it's that they were just wrong about what position a law degree leaves you in.

While of course not everyone can be a writer or a ski instructor, the rise of long tail economics does mean that more people can pursue their dreams. Technological advances like iTunes or print on demand books mean that the blockbusters might make a little bit less, but now a lot more can make an okay living at it. There are enough dollars spent on entertainment that as production and distribution gets cheaper, our economy could easily support tens of thousands more musicians, filmmakers, actors, writers, etc by reducing super stars to mere stars and then pushing the rest of the money down the long tail.

 

You said it yourself. You call what you want to do "getting a real job," different than what you do now. And what you're doing now with the 40-80 hour work weeks is unsustainable for you. So right now, you're building a fund and gaining experience. But you're probably looking for a reset, too.

Focus: I used to work as a reporter and an online writer, as I talked about elsewhere here. I decided to go freelance and start road trips around the country. It's not easy, and I'm not rich, but I'm free and that's pretty perfect.