Career paths you could've taken, but didn't due to stupid reasons?

Any reason really works, whether it was due to medical conditions, family problems, lack of confidence, etc.


For instance, when I was in high school, I absolutely adored playing my trumpet. I was the best in my class and I would love nothing more than to be able to play music the way I did when I was in high school. I absolutely loved band class and it was only second to my Japanese classes. I went to every band event (except marching band... I hated that crap) and enjoyed the hell out of it. Playing music was an absolute joy. However, due to my canker sores that I kept getting (and still keep getting), I couldn't play half the time... It hurt so badly to play trumpet when I had canker sores, because the vibration would enhance the pain I was already feeling by many magnitudes.

Oh, God... I would love nothing more than being in the music industry, still playing away on my trumpet. If there was a way to get rid of canker sores instantly or to completely make myself immune to these f'uckers, I'd pick my trumpet back up and start playing again.


What about you? What was your desired career path that you didn't go down because of some dumb reason?

I wanted to become an art teacher at one point in time, but then I came to realize that meant setting kids up to be disappointed by the world.

^ ;_________; plz don't remind me.

I wanted be a paleontologist when I was in grade 2 or so, but my mother said people don't care about those things in the past and the same thing kind of happened. Robot Wars was a show I enjoyed lot when I was younger and thought it'd be cool to go into robotics.... I ended up dropping out of high school because of stuff.

Now I'm wondering whether I'd like to do animation for video games or concept art for hopefully video games as well.

I grew up playing Piano. Hated the s'hit out of it because it was always super generic songs. Never anything more than "Mary Had A Little Lamp".

Now, I'm in love with it (due to seeing what people can do with finger skills, along with piano covers on YouTube), but my fingers are too stupid to get back to playing.

Sometimes, I blame myself for not asking if there are better songs, and sometimes I blame the woman who taught me that I could learn to get better and play MUCH more interesting songs.

I don't want to put any specifics other than it dealt with art but along my previous career path I got one of those teachers that's like "if your projects are not better than something I could make you're not getting an A, and if there are any flaws its not a B." So my first project I kinda goofed and I received 0 points (there were like only 4 equally valued projects for this class).

Mind you, this was an introduction class and I had no experience on the subject. I'll even admit my project was far from perfect but this is an introduction class...we're supposed to learn from our mistakes on at least the first project I thought. There was no homework or book either, the projects were the learning experience.

Anyway at that point my teacher didn't offer any help on how to improve, technique wise, and we immediately started project 2. Around this point I told my teacher I didn't care if I got an F in the class, since I pineappleed up the first project, I just wanted to learn. I was told to just not even come to class. I suspect my teacher just didn't feel like helping me.

Frustrated, I looked up to see if there were any other teachers teaching this course but found out that this was the only person for this class and I would also have this person again for 3 more classes following this...

I ended up changing careers and schools as a result of this pomegranate. I'm doing something else now and am happy with my current career

I grew up playing Piano. I originally wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. Then a game designer.

But now I'm fighting a war in Afghanistan. Current profession: US Army Soldier, SPC. So far, I like it.

I grew up playing Piano. I originally wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. Then a game designer.

But now I'm fighting a war in Afghanistan. Current profession: US Army Soldier, SPC. So far, I like it.

Not really a career path, but I wanted to take Japanese in high school but thought the characters would be hard to draw so I took Spanish instead.

I was offered a job at a company in guest relations while working at Target after assisting a customer. I probably should of taken it. As far as I know it's doing pretty well now.

Professor of composition and literature. I didn't because I wouldn't enjoy forcing interpretations on my students. I enjoy reading because it allows me to process the story to form an entirety that may be different than what another reader got out of it. I know it's far more efficient to do this, but grading someone based on one reader's idea of what the story devalues the medium, to me.

At some point I wanted to be a mechanical engineer because I had this really neat plaything where you had bolts and steel rods with holes and you could build cool stuff. Ended up not that far away from it, I'm doing chemical engineering now and I pretty happy with it.

Guess it doesn't really count here...

Was heading for an architecture major when I realized that my motivations were purely insane. I was inspired by The House on the Rock's infinity room, and other aspects of relativity in art that are "physically impossible", and wanted to recreate their illusions in real life, ultimately constructing a themed castle similar in size to hearst castle, and call it the Final Boss Castle. Calculating the winnings from the lottery (seeing as I couldn't fund it any other way), I would first invest into the development of a nearby college that specialized in various scientific fields; perhaps some into further research of the concepts put forward by Tesla, and ride on that and other investments for 30 years. Then when well established, I would propose the castle concept as a museum to be raised that would also act as a research facility for easy employment to new graduates. Yes, that's all IRL. Imagining the possibilities of winning the lotto can do funny things to a person. But asides from that, I really did want to get into the arts and design of some sort, and everything that required a talented hand had failed me before it, so I went with it. But then I realized I had no desire in practical design, and through difficulties with college management, eventually gave up on the idea.


... I suppose that's more of a "I pursued it for a stupid reason" though, isn't it? Still looking for something though, although "creation" seems to be a falling point for me in the arts, "alterations" and going with a theme work well for me. I also have no sense of scale.

I wanted to be a doctor, only to realise im not good enough to get through the education to be a competent one.

Wanted to be a concept artist or a comic writer, something where I could draw a lot, where I could get any idea I had out of my head and into the form of some drawn medium that others could acknowledge and appreciate (if it was actually good).

The environment I was in stated (and still states) that a job in art was a dead end career path that wouldn't lead to anything worthwhile, they stated the pay of your average artist was similar in quality to someone that worked in fast food/the local super market/whatever other low-qualified entry-level job you can think of. This was practically an axiom of the job market according to my family and I believed it so instead I pursued mathematics/computers, something I thought I'd enjoy just as much, had shown similar promise in, and was a better foundation for a well-paying job off which I could then pursue further, lesser-paying interests (or so I was told). My art and the practice of it got mostly neglected in favour of this, and 5 years down the line I am left with a half-baked talent that sometimes makes me wonder if closing off art as a potential career choice completely (as anything more than a passive hobby) was really the right thing to do. I still like drawing, I can still do it to some degree when I'm not busy having no confidence in my ability to do anything at all since I'm behind on my maths/CS course or something, but it's most likely not going to pay the bills in the near or far future.

I really really REALLY wanted to be a Doctor or a Teacher, but I screwed that up for myself by skipping my SATs and ACTs. Now I'm just too damn old to do any of those.

Not really a career path, but I wanted to take Japanese in high school but thought the characters would be hard to draw so I took Spanish instead.

Similar thing with me. I took French instead of Japanese. I regret it now. French is useless crap I'm never going to use (I probably already forgot half the french I learned last year), but there are so many times knowing Japanese would be helpful for my hobbies.

I grew up playing Piano. Hated the s'hit out of it because it was always super generic songs. Never anything more than "Mary Had A Little Lamp".

Now, I'm in love with it (due to seeing what people can do with finger skills, along with piano covers on YouTube), but my fingers are too stupid to get back to playing.

Sometimes, I blame myself for not asking if there are better songs, and sometimes I blame the woman who taught me that I could learn to get better and play MUCH more interesting songs.

If mary had a little lamb was all you got up to, why did you only stick with it for a week? Seriously?

On topic: My highest aspirations are still perfectly within my grasp and I am currently pursuing them. I do wish I could still do improv/more acting. Not really as a career though people do that.

I do wish I could still do improv/more acting. Not really as a career though people do that.

Just be careful not to bite at one of the tempting offers for lifetime memberships of training certain agencies could possibly throw at you like they did me. pomegranate's all scams.