My envy of Foster, Kevin, Zombie, and others -- who seem to have clearly found themselves in careers they (most of the time anyway) were designed for -- leads me to this question for anyone who wants to respond.

Namely, how did you decide on doing what you were doing? And how did you know it was what you wanted to do?

I consider myself to be a poster child for the follies of choosing the path of least resistance when I was younger. I went to law school because, well, I was good at school and because I didn't want to work in the midwest (rofl) and was too wimpy to take the risk of moving. Law sucked, so I tried economics. Economic graduate school sucked, so I moved into history. Grad school told me I didnt want to do the "top school publish or perish" stuff, ao I got a lib arts job teaching.

But even now the suckitude ratio is far too high for what it should be -- I like some parts of teaching, but I don't think its 100% of my call. Though "teacher" is a heckuva lot closer to it than "lawyer" ever was. I hated virtually all of the adversarial world that lawyers have to work in, but I only hate about 50 percent of my current world. ) If I could figure out how to get a decent salary "teaching one on one"...but if wishes were fishes, I'd have gills, nevermind).

So, anyway, I'm being nosy again. Have you figured out what you want to do, and how did you figure it out? And do you do what you want to do, or do you do what you have to do to pay the bills and buy the leisure where you do you want?

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I work at a supermarket, stocking the shelves, bringing in carts, oftenly 2nd in charge of the 'shelfstockers'.

It pays horribly, it's hard work, but for some reason, I'm having the time of my life. It's all about the people I work with, I guess.

Anyway, I'm studdying accountancy now. High-level nursing was a step too far after being just a couple of weeks away from a social anxiety disorder diagnosis.

Psychology is still my dream job, but with the rigid education system and aforementioned disorder, that won't happen either.

But I'm good with numbers, like the law classes and all, and I'll help people in my own way as an accountant. Not the worst pay, either.

Honestly?

I did some introspection this year and realized why I chose what I chose. There was some confusion in the other thread. I'm not a photographer. Just a hobbyist. I really work as a Software Engineer, so that unfortunately is my true career.

I'm burned out of it. It was fun in the dot com days when we worked hard but played harder. Not any more. The thrill is gone.

Anyways, I chose it because you might laugh. I'm insecure about my brains. I've always been a good athlete, a funny guy, a likable guy, etc., but I was seen as my older brother's stupid brother. He was the Valedictorian runner up (I forgot the term) and has a PhD now and is a paper multi-millionaire.

I'm proud of him, don't get me wrong. The thing is, we were only one school year apart so I was always compared to him by teachers and by other students.

I heard what they said about me and it stuck with me my whole life. So I think on a subconscious level, I got into Software to prove to the world that I'm not stupid.

At first I loved it. I loved the money. I loved the partying. Now I'm trying to get out of it. Thus is yet another reason for all the extracurricular activities.

So don't feel bad, Wade. Given the choice of Software or seeing a new crop of young, nubile ladies every semester, I'd take the latter.

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I started out way back in 1961 At Montana in Forestry. Then I found out I need all that math and crap..........what?? to fight fires? So I switched to Physical Education. I was good at sports and liked working with kids, so it all kind of fell into place.

I ended up with a double major, in PE and Physical Geography (landforms and aerial cartography) and found out when I graduated that I only needed 15 more credits to get my Pre-Med degree. I thought long and hard about that...(15 seconds) and decided against Medicine.

So, I spent the next 42 years in school teaching kids Dodgeball and such, and still managed to get out on forest fires as a fireline medic for about 10 summers. Didn't need math or soil analysis classes for that.

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I fell into my job as a "Packaging design Engineer" . I worked my way through college in a box plant. I finished college with a Bachelors degree in computer science and and associates in accounting.

The place I worked for brought me in as their IT specialist. I styed in that position till they brought in a pre-packaged software bundle that was run by the company that sold it. From there I went back on the floor to be a supervisor untill the company went belly up. By that time I had done just about every job in the palce and knew the packaging industry inside and out. I interviewed for a design job and landed it. 15 years later I got booted due to down sizing. I loved doing that job and the people I worked with.

Now I am still a Pagkaging designer but I work for a company I don't like to work for and am driving 700 miles a week to get there and home again.

I just hope the economy turns around again soon before I get too old to land a job closer to home. I just hate driving that far to get somewhere I don't want to be.

I work network tech support right now, I was unemployed (apart from a couple temp jobs that didn't last that long) for over a year and needed money, was looking to move closer to my girlfriend. I was also battling with depression pretty badly, on a particularly bad day I didn't even bother getting out of bed... My phone rang, initially wasn't going to grab it but picked up the call. They wanted an interview, and didn't know until I got there that it was a three hour drive. I think that helped impress them, and I've been working there ever since. Not a complete career, but a stepping stone.

I'm 22 and in my last year of college so I hate to think I've picked a career yet. The funny thing is that I have over a decade of experience building websites. That's right, I learned html when I was 10 years old.

In high school I started picking up freelance projects and getting paid via paypal to get some extra cash. I completely undersold my services but didn't really know it at the time which meant I got a lot of offers.

Now that I'm in college I've started to ask for more cash and, after a year doing an internship, have a solid job working for a web developer as an independent contractor. I take on projects he doesn't have time for and he pays me. The best part about this is that I get to work from home and my hours are pretty flexible--I just have to meet deadlines. It's a great job for being a college student. However, the one downside is that I feel I'm still underselling my services.

My major and goal is to be the ultimate multimedia man. Right now my skills include recording, editing, and mixing audio. Web languages like PHP, CSS, XHTML, MYSQL, Javascript and AJAX. Recording and editing high quality video. Designing with Photoshop or Illustrator. 3D Modeling and texturing. Animation. Basically I have experience doing anything digitally media based.

As far as how I chose it? It fell into my lap. My dad was a web designer for a decade starting in '94 and now currently does a lot of media based projects. He records and edits training videos, sets up global web conferences and works with second life as a means of connecting people within his company (they are all around the world). His current position was actually created specifically for him and catered around his abilities.

being a top grade (i don't think I am that great, but thats what i've been told from customers) mechanic at 24, I am pretty happy with my job, considering i've been taking apart engines since I was around 12, my 1999 Honda TRX 400 ex was in pieces when my dad came home one day, he was speechless when i put it back together perfect.

The whole truck driver job did not work out, family business came up, and I couldn't be away, also, I decided to bring one of my dogs to keep me company, he became miserable, and we just got him out of his shyness from that. Guess my Mack Titan will have to wait until I need to tow something!

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