I’ve been thinking about this lately. I wanted to be a doctor, but my family broke apart in my teens, which affected my mental health and, subsequently, my studies. I worked in construction and as a driver on the side for a bit before replacing the former with work as a personal trainer. Now I work as a bodyguard for a rich kid, which is de facto more of a surveillance, driving, and companionship role than a security one, since his dad has hardcore professionals for times when security is really needed. I didn’t expect my life to turn out this way, to be honest.
I wanted to design bridges and/or so something with history. So I went to school, took one year of civil engineering and realized that the last on earth I wanted to do was design bridges.
Switched to chemistry, got a PhD, realized the second-to-last thing I wanted to do was academia, followed closely by lab work.
Unfortunately I finished right in the middle of the housing crash, so I did QA for a factory for a bit (which combined a little policy stuff with a lot of labwork). Then went back to civil engineering, aiming for something chemistry ike asphalt or concrete.
That didn’t really work out, but I did end up being vastly overqualified for my job there. Rolled into safety and compliance by virtue of being the least unqualified person there. They paid for another college level degree during office hours, and then fired me after restructuring (thanks for the free degree guys!) so now I’m self-employed in safety and compliance, I do audits and help people and the environment stay safe and clean.
I do historical reenactment as a hobby, because history is cool!