Title: Hey HN. I&#x27;m in a little pickle regarding my career and life choices and I&#x27;m not too sure what to do. I&#x27;d like to get some advice or perspective from others here. During my teenage years I worked fast-food&#x2F;retail, with a bit of odd manual labor mixed in here and there. Then I joined the military and worked a physically demanding job while active duty. I did that for 4 years, all the while teaching myself to code with the primary motivation of being able to attain a lucrative job and build a respectable career for myself down the road. Upon separating from the military, I attained said job.<p>At first, I was thrilled. I do enjoy coding to an extent, and thought that this was my &quot;big break&quot;. But after doing it for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, I&#x27;ve come to realize that I don&#x27;t enjoy it all that much after all. It was an escape after a hard days work. It was a way for me to relax. But sitting down, alone, in front of a computer screen all day every day is slowly driving me mad. My mental health is slowly getting worse and I&#x27;ve come to realize that I need some amount of human interaction and, more importantly, some amount of movement and physical activity. I don&#x27;t believe it&#x27;s my company, coworkers, or manager that makes me dislike my work. The problems I solve are interesting, my manager is truly incredible, and my coworker are all kind, encouraging, and helpful. It&#x27;s simply the nature of the job, I&#x27;m certain I&#x27;d feel similar with almost any desk job where I toil in front of a screen day in and day out. I just didn&#x27;t realize it as I&#x27;d never really had a truly white collar job prior. I also should note that I don&#x27;t try to derive meaning or fulfillment solely from my employment. I go to the gym, I train MMA, I even dabble in stand-up comedy (though public speaking certainly is not my forte). All that to say, I don&#x27;t expect to be 100% fulfilled from any job, but I just can&#x27;t handle the 40+ hours a week of complete inactivity and nearly complete isolation.<p>I have the GI Bill, which grants me 4 free years of tuition at any public university in the country. I&#x27;m strongly considering quitting and using it. The only thing holding me back is that I have no idea whatsoever what I could do that I actually would enjoy and would meet my physical and social needs without overloading them. Too much socialization or physical activity for me is almost as bad as none whatsoever. I&#x27;ve come to terms with the fact that I&#x27;ll almost certainly have to take a pay cut, and that&#x27;s okay. I&#x27;m willing to earn less in exchange for my mental health, but only to a point. The ratio of income lost to happiness gained should be at least roughly equal.<p>I&#x27;m blessed to have the opportunity, time, and means to drastically alter my career path in my early-mid 20&#x27;s but at the same time I&#x27;m overwhelmed with options. And I fear choosing the wrong one as I don&#x27;t want to be in this same position 4 years from now.<p>I&#x27;ve tried introspecting and narrowing down my options based on my interests, but I can&#x27;t think of a single career I&#x27;d like to actually make out of my interests. Working out and MMA isn&#x27;t something I would want to make a career out of as it&#x27;s just a way to blow off steam, and I don&#x27;t have the desire to do stand-up comedy professionally. The only other interest I&#x27;ve had over the past ~5 years has been programming. Which I do enjoy, just not enough. Aptitude isn&#x27;t a concern. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I&#x27;m certain that I could perform well doing whatever I decide, so long as the interest is there. I&#x27;m hoping that just maybe there&#x27;s some perfect career path out there that I just haven&#x27;t heard of or thought about yet.<p>After that novella, I open the floor to you. What are some good options for me to consider? What would you do if you were in my situation? Is there anything else I haven&#x27;t thought of?<p>Thanks if you&#x27;ve taken the time to read this, doubly so if you then take the time to write a response. I look forward to hearing from all of you.
Upvote: