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If you could go back..

Falcon112

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1. I would have chosen another high school, which would let me get prepared for the university. Maybe I would have changed the secondary school as well.
2. I wouldn't have been so lazy as a teenager and looked at my abilities objectively instead of thinking "I'm smart so I don't have to study".
 

Frosty

Poking the poodle
Joined
Apr 6, 2015
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There are many things I would have done differently. I still get hung up on this, but I cant change it or redo it, so I have to stop thinking about that so much.
 

Mind Maverick

ENTP 8w7 845 Sp/Sx
Joined
Jan 17, 2018
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4,785
I shouldn't have listened to my parents when they doubted my decision in my teens for wanting to go to art school. Of course they had that whole starving artist image in mind when I told them that the first time, but times have really changed for such an industry, and now there's a merge in technology that things like graphic/web design, gaming development, computer animation, online editing for film and advertisement, and so forth, that it is only really now this year that I was able to get into it. I know I'm still relatively young in hindsight, but.. fuck, I spent the majority of my 20s flopping around and going through one dead-end job to the next, trying to seek that deep happiness through them and never finding it, and for what? To make people comfortable or feel like they don't have to worry about me? I ended up getting an AA in something business related and office technology crap, but I have exactly zero passion in it.

But, I'm changing career paths now, so the past should be left there and I should do what I've always done best, and just look into the future with excitement.
It's still rather difficult, FWIW.
 

Mind Maverick

ENTP 8w7 845 Sp/Sx
Joined
Jan 17, 2018
Messages
4,785
Well, I'm not saying this with any sort of painful longing or regret or whatever, but I can admit that you can always look back on pretty much anything in your life and notice some things you could've done better (if you had more knowledge, or more wisdom, or more experience, or whatever) if you're honest with yourself.

Looking back, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have gotten a degree in 3D Modeling instead of trying to go the freelancing route. That way, I'd be able to be paid 60k - 100k / yr and get health benefits for doing something I've been doing on my own since age 15.

One thing I can say I still struggle with regrets about though...even though I did do the best I could at the time, and even though I don't think it was my fault, I'd have never shutdown my successful freelance work. I was really making more than I ever had in my life back then, I was stable, I was doing well, and I was enjoying it. I was making more than I am now as a full time employee earning on the high end of what undergrads are able to earn. That was when everything went wrong for me.

Then again, I wouldn't have some of the relationships I have today, as my struggles throughout the years brought us closer. I might've gone undiagnosed and still going through episodes without knowing it. I wouldn't have developed some of the character I developed because of those difficult times. So...I don't know.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,981
I don't know if people going forward will have only one career.

I think a lot of people are stuck with notions that came from a time when most people only lived to be 40 something. Now most people will live to be almost 80. There are people doing research to try and push another jump of 40 years. Imagine if you lived to 120? Would you really only have one career? What about if you lived to be 300?

I am generally happy with my career.

My main regret, and the one that I keep having over and over again: lacking the imagination to think of making a higher impact earlier in my life...or perhaps lacking the courage to imagine more earlier in my life.

I have big, but very vague, dreams of 'saving the world', but when I make the dreams real or more concrete they become 'smaller' and more selfish in some emotional sense that I cannot quite put my finger on.

But I will keep trying.

I like working in medical technology as a technologist. The startups I've been a part of do give me much of that sense of 'saving the world', than when I worked in computation and semiconductors as a technologist. However, I feel something bigger calling me, but I am not sure what.
 

Merced

Talk to me.
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Just said it on Discord but I would've also got into coding
 

Firebird 8118

DJ Phoenix
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Just said it on Discord but I would've also got into coding

I say it’s never too late, if you have the passion for it :) only thing college does is set the theoretical foundation, but I’ve known plenty of people who were mostly self-taught (even I ended up training myself in JavaScript and HTML/CSS among other programming languages, post-college years).
 

Merced

Talk to me.
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XFmBD6E.gif


Is that so? I am interested.
 

Red Memories

Haunted Echoes
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Yep haha :D I went to sites like Coursera and Codecademy in the past for self-learning, those are pretty good ones. :heart:

these sites are amazing and often free or low cost if you don't mind maybe not having a piece of paper. XD
 

Jaq

Remember, Humanity.
Joined
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these sites are amazing and often free or low cost if you don't mind maybe not having a piece of paper. XD

Ditto on this, Codecademy is where I first learned how to code, that and following youtube tutorials using an IDE (Eclipse for Java, PyCharm for Python.) Last time I was on Codecademy was years ago, but they were starting to add Java content.
 
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