[Porsche-O-Phile]

How to waste 15 years of your life? Pursue architecture as a career. You'll get to waste about $100,000 as well as a bonus.

I'm doing what I should've done years ago and saying "hell with it", flying airplanes for a living and wherever it takes me, it takes me. Whether I end up in the left seat of a 777 or I end up flying traffic patterns in Cessna 172s for the rest of my days, I don't care - at least I'll truly enjoy doing what I do instead of what everyone else TELLS ME I enjoy doing (making money, etc.)

The fact that the construction field is completely dead right now (and not likely to come back anytime soon) makes this an easy decision, at least for now. I suppose if things turn around in a few years I'll be tempted to "chase the money" again (I did that once, walking away from a cargo pilot gig to do architectural work for about 3X the pay) but I made that mistake once. Never again. Screw the ratrace.

As they say, "do what you love". That's more important to me at this point. And FWIW architecture has laid me off twice. When I was flying, the industry was tough, but never left me without a job or income - not even once. Kinda' tells me where my loyalties should be.