Is this common? Does this happen to other people? Is it even possible? Boy, I sure hope so. I kind of feel alone with this one. I like to tell myself that this switching careers right now has nothing to do with a “midlife crisis” but maybe I’m wrong. It just feels like suddenly what I thought I wanted to do, I no longer have an interest in it. Looking back on the effort I made by going to school, getting my degrees, yet I’m doing nothing with them. It’s a common thing but when you have a mountain of student loans piled up on your shoulders, it can feel kind of hard to breathe sometimes.

Over the years, I have worked in many different types of jobs. I have worked in customer service, retail, fast food, clerical/office work, legal work, and now education. I have also tried to teach myself different skills to see where that would take me with not much success. Part of my problem is that I don’t give things a chance. When I’m learning something new and it starts to get difficult, I give up. The last experience of that was trying to learn how to program. I found it interesting, or at least watching the YouTube videos made it seem interesting. But, after a few months when things started to get hard, I lost interest. Maybe it was the negative voice in my head telling me that it was hard and there was no way I could do it.

I feel like I am at the point in my life where I want to work from home either for someone or for myself. I just know that I’m done with all of the rat race of getting up, rushing around to get things done before having to rush out the door. Then, spend 8+ hours away only to come back home, have a short evening, go to bed, and repeat the next day.

I have been looking on and off for a remote position for probably well over a year now. Not seriously, but just keeping my eyes open and dreaming about it. Since this pandemic started, however, I have decided that now is the time. For the past four months, I have been applying daily. There are a lot of seasonal/contract positions out there, but I would prefer something permanent. I’m not giving up, though. No way! I know that there is something out there for me and when the right time comes along, we will find each other.

Have any of you switched careers later in life and been successful?