Quote:And there are problems for every stage of your life, no matter what choices you make and at what point you settle down, have a family, buy a house or anything else. But the choice of job shouldn't prevent you doing this. I love what I do but I hate the choices I have made because of it - I am not yet there but i'm also not a mile away from the 35 cut off and I don't know how much longer I can stay. I have ten years in the field and no kids, no morgage, no stability............. and is it worth it?I can empathise trowelfodder, but am in kind of the opposite situation. I had to do jobs I loathed for 20+ years in order to pay off the mortgage, so that I could afford to spend a few years (probably a finite amount of time) involved with the archaeology that I love. The result of this decision process is that I'm entry-level at an age when I'm too old to be useful as a field archaeologist, limiting my already meagre opportunities for employment. Also, I've emerged into a world where both commercial and academic opportunities are shrinking. If I'd gone into archaeology in my early-20s, I could never have afforded my own home. That was the trade-off I made. Was a mouldy 2 bed flat in a crappy area worth 20+ years of my life? Under the circumstances, probably, yes. But ask me again in five years and I'll probably tell you different. However, I'd be hard-pressed to cry foul. Where I am and where I'll end up are the result of what I alone have decided.
Ultimately, your life choices are just that - yours. All of our decisions have consequences and we all get to live with them. Sometimes they turn out to be worth it, sometimes not (I know plenty of people who have admitted that they wouldn't have had children if they'd understood what this would actually entail). But often we won't know for a few years or until it's too late to change our minds, so it's best to just enjoy the journey as best we can.