Geez, who the heck knows what they want to do for the rest of their life, by the age of 20? Not many.
I agree that when you are in your thirties, you have to make the right choice if you're going to change careers and make it work. You don't have three or four chances left - you probably have one or two.
But if you're unhappy in your current career - or, looking ahead, you anticipate being unhappy - then it'd be a shame not to take those one or two chances.
A lot depends on your personality. I like learning new things and being challenged and interested. I can't stand being bored. I liked being a lawyer for the first 8 or so years. But the next 5 years got worse and worse. So I took the chance, and it has paid off. My goal is to have three interesting careers by the time my life is over. Hopefully the next one can be something really different and the income won't be as critical. We'll see.
Also, don't forget there's a lot of things you can do with that CPA. A good friend from B-school was a CPA, when he graduated he was extremely employable - in all sorts of fields, people want an MBA who is also a CPA. He was controller for a dot-com for a while, then treasurer for another company, now he is doing forensic accounting and litigation support, manages teams of accountants who investigate financial fraud, gets involved with securities lawsuits and so forth. A long way from the audit drudgery that he was doing before we went to school together.
I'm sorry I was so negative on the legal profession. Some people like it. Talk to more lawyers and get a balanced view.
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Originally posted by snowman
I feel very sorry for people who do not know what they want to do by age 20. At this point you have spent 1/3 or your entire life and only have 2/3 left. as it takes almost 10 years to become sucessful, how many choices can you make and still succeed? Not many.
Push any children in the direction of whatever talent they may have and push them to choose by age 12. Even if they do not know what they like, at least they will be doing what they are most talented at.
For some of us, we have ALWAYS know what we wanted to do. That is a true blessing when you look at people who are past the middle of their entire life and still do not know what they want. My personal opinion is that at that point, its to late to be sucessful, and nearly impossible to ever be happy. Why, well because, if by half of your entire life, you haven't found what you like, you never will.
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