Have you ever completely changed gears in your life?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Dropping a career you invested a lifetime in to do something else?

Completely left the place you'd lived most or all of your life and felt comfortable in?

Dropped your religion?

Completely changed your politics?

Realized your circle of friends was really not good and rid yourself of them?

Cut family ties that were hurting you or holding you back?


Was it scary? Exhilarating? Liberating?

How did it work out for you?

[Misunderestimator]

1. Here are my answers:

Edited to shorten my response to:
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
All of them
It brought me where I am today, which is pretty darn good

:)

[Wickerman]

2. yeah, except the politics

What you find is that life goes on. Its all new challenges. Yeah, its scary. But, as long as you are moving forward and not back exhilarating describes it well.

Don't change the politics. Dems stay Dem, particularly in this day.

[Dastard Stepchild]

3. Yes :)

I am hoping to pursue a PhD. It is a bit scary, because I'll be without good income for at least 5-6 years. And there are no guarantees of an excellent job upon graduation. But I couldn't imagine doing anything else... it's what I've always wanted. It is exhilarating. I try not to focus on the scary so as not to destabilize my enthusiasm. I'm charting a new path, but loving every difficult minute of it so far.

:headbang:

[Lefta Dissenter]

4. After my entire adult life

of raising kids and owning my own businesses, I started a new job - my first time to work for someone else in... let's see... 27 years, I think.

I thought I was applying for a half-time position working for our Town Clerk/Treasurer/Administrator, but now I'm working more than full time, I'm the Chief Election Inspector, I'm going through Municipal Clerk & Treasurer training, and I'm loving absolutely every minute of it. It's hard work, lots of pressure, and I couldn't work for a better boss.

I'm forty-seven years old, and I feel like I'm twenty-five. The one who is suffering the most is my twenty-one year old daughter, who was so used to being able to talk to me any time of day - she has to share me now.

[Left Is Write]

5. Yes.

I did this one:

Completely left the place you'd lived most or all of your life and felt comfortable in?

Yes, it was scary. At the time it was a little exciting too. I waffle about how I feel about the decision. It's something I've been giving a lot of thought to lately.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

6. I've done several of these things

I've even changed my name (not just last name; first too). I changed religion from Baptist to Muslim. I lived in Kansas all my life until age 37 3/4, then moved to Pennsylvania (and now I'm here in Texas five years later). I was a Repug at age 18 (don't kill me) because I was under the sway of an evil political science professor; I soon realized the error of my ways. I stopped being a secretary/transcriptionist and went to law school at age 40 (although I'd wanted to do it since high school). I've rid myself of Repug friends who haven't changed a bit in 20 years. I stopped contact with my brother (although I'd talk to him if he called me, but he never does).

I guess I've done ALL of the things on your list! So far everything has been liberating and worked out very nicely for me - I really can say I have no regrets in life.

[TNDemo]

10. Another former transcriptionist...

I will be a former one soon. I started out as an accountant then did transcription for 20 years to be home with the kids. I am now in nursing school.

I cut off contact with a very toxic stepfather a few years ago when I finally realized that no one on earth could stand him and I was not a minor and he had divorced my mother and I had no obligations to the jerk.

I was raised with religious fundamentalism (not so much at home but was taken to church there), was a minister's wife for a number of years until we neared 30 and he realized he had made the wrong choice for all the right reasons (deathbed promise to mother) and we both changed careers.

I have always leaned left in politics so no change there.

[Doctor_J]

7. It's good for you, IMO

not the politics, yuo'd hate to become a con, but the rest of it's good to do if it feels right. People live too long now to do the same thing forever, live in the same house forever, and so on. My career change was long overdue, as was the serverance of ties with people with whom I have nothing in common. Go for it!

[Initech]

8. I went from nearly joining a fundmentalist nutcase church to...

Seeing the light!

[achtung_circus]

9. It will be 2 years in 5 weeks.

I walked out on my wife of (now) 18 years (in fact today is our anniversary), got on an airplane and left the Western Canada where I had spent the last 25 years and came "home".

I should have done it before, am getting only moderately raped in the separation settlement, have debt I wish I didn't really want and I should have done it before.

I've made several hugh relocations in my life.
-moved west after university with no real plan
-left a good job in Edmonton to go play cowboy for a lot of years
-changed provinces to follow a woman
-sold house and land, left a job I loved to move to a mountain valley in BC.
-the aforementioned marital breakdown.

It's a leap of faith, all the things you mentioned, scary, exhilarating, liberating.

This last time was hardest, however, I'm 49 years old and starting nearly from scratch.

On edit: It made me who I am and I can't imagine NOT having lived this life. I've seen and done things I have a hard time believing.

I see friends? i went to school with and they may have more toys but they haven't lived or grown.

[WCGreen]

11. If anything, I'm more liberal now.....

But, my latest life change event was thrust upon me by a severe illness that I have been able to cope with but my family and friends are having are a hard time with it....

Or so I gather...

Could be perseption.....

But anyway, I am happy, content and feel I have adjusted to my new lifestyle very well, thank you.....

Oh, and I have constantly changed friends. I have no real long term friends, most have been situational.....

[sendero]

12. I tend to be..

... a person who falls into routines - but I've done several of those things. Change is scary, but sometime you just "know" that it is time to make a major change.

Jump off the cliff and don't look back :)

[Kathleen04]

13. I'm from

California and I go to school/live most of the time in New York now. I expect that I will probably live here or somewhere on the east coast after graduation. This has been a very easy transition for me..definately made the right decision.

[Mikimouse]

14. Questions 1-6, all except political philosophy...

scary? Terrifying. I left a 25 year career in health care (various positions, but mostly in Nuclear Medicine) and went back to school to pursue a career in academia. In the past 12 years, I added a extra minor to my original undergraduate degree, earned a Master's and am a hair away from my Ph.D. I wouldn't trade the true love of my profession for all of the money I made in healthcare squared! Yeah, it is frightening to leave the comfort of our established millieu, but one must do that which makes one happiest. For me, it was teaching and research.

[Ladyhawk]

15. I've done your whole list.

I'm still working on figuring out which combination will lead to happiness.

Unfortunately, I had to take back the family after my surgery. :( :( I love my mother, but I don't think she's good for me.

I've changed my religion, politics, etc. I did it because I was following my own conscience. The result was a lot of loneliness. :( :( :( I have yet to replace important relationships in my life. I don't think I know how.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

16. Yes, but are you less happy being lonely in these choices than you

were being something you "weren't"?

[Ladyhawk]

19. I don't feel I made choices. I feel the choices were thrust upon me,

especially the religious and political choices. I had to follow the truth regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, I don't know how to separate my Depression from the loneliness I reaped after leaving fundamentalism and the Republican Party. Regardless, I can't go back. It would like going back to believing in Santa Claus after I saw my parents put the presents under the tree. It just isn't going to happen.

I'm looking to make more major changes, perhaps uprooting from the town where I was born. I don't fit in here anymore and I'm being slowly driven crazy.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

17. Very thought-provoking thread, by the way

Are you and Mrs. MM thinking of making some changes?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. Nothing specific. Just me getting old, contemplating stuff.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Almost all of the above

Dropping a career you invested a lifetime in to do something else?

Yes, left an academic career that I'd spent years preparing for.

Completely left the place you'd lived most or all of your life and felt comfortable in?

More than once. Raised in the Midwest, spent nine years on the East Coast, nineteen years on the West Coast, came back to the Midwest two years ago.

Dropped your religion?

Sort of. I slid over from Lutheran to Episcopalian.

Completely changed your politics?

My parents were Cold War Republicans until the Vietnam War, and I gradually involved into a nearly pacifist, nearly socialist type.

Realized your circle of friends was really not good and rid yourself of them?

Mmm, sort of.

Cut family ties that were hurting you or holding you back?

I went to the East Coast because I knew I could never become an adult as long as my mother was trying to micromanage my life.


Was it scary? Exhilarating? Liberating?

All of the above.

[supernova]

21. I've done 3/4 of those

I've changed careers, dropped people who were hurting me, moved to a different place.

Politics, I don't think I've changed so much as simply become more. I've gotten more liberal as I've gotten older and learned more. And I expect to continue to do so.

It is exhilerating and sometimes scary too, because you don't know where you will wind up. But that's the fun of it afterall. When you start out you just have to have faith that the process will work and you will arrive at some place mentally and emotionally where you will be better off than you are now.

[pitohui]

22. yes

it worked out fine but it was not what i have chosen for myself