Have You Improved the Adventure/Excitement in Your Life? Advice Please!

Hey, I'll do my best to be brief.

I graduated 18 months ago with a BA in International Relations/Politics from Plymouth - and since got an NCTJ (journalism qualification). Whilst at uni, I worked on/edited two student papers and got a lot of work experience - but have since decided against a career in journalism.

I am currently going through Army Officer selection, but need a good contingency plan. I failed the final test first time due to poor agility, but got a generally decent report and have my second (and final) attempt next year).

I am working at John Lewis and (allegedly) have been talent-scouted for management. However, as it stands I am about to turn 25 and am working on the delivery vans. I have nearly been in tears at how much I want to be somewhere more exciting and inspiring.

I basically have a mantra of 'I can do better; I will do better - and my life will be exciting, with great adventure' throughout each day I am there.

Things must change for me. Several friends just got to France for a ski season and have a view of Mont-Blanc; a bar and two ski-lifts "a snowballs-throw" away. There is no question this is a better place to be - I am just not sure if it is a sensible long-term option. I'd rather work now and play later, than play now and work later.

I am aiming for my Army test next year and spending time in the gym. I also need to help my mum finalise her divorce and move house. Once she's settled down and I have an answer from the Army I'll know where I stand. If I'm in, then great - if I'm not, then I need to get a job outside the UK fast!

How many of you have been in what feels like a dead-end position, perhaps in their 20s - and managed to actualise a good change to a life with more excitement, travel and variation?

How many of you have been in what feels like a dead-end position, perhaps in their 20s - and managed to actualise a good change to a life with more excitement, travel and variation?

I don't think you need to be in a dead-end position or even in your 20s to make a change in your life for a more interesting alternative.

I had a good management job, was moving forward in my occupation, was making good money and was in my mid/late thirties when I first headed abroad. No need to run away from anything, but rather to move towards seeing and learning more about the world.

It was a great move, I've rarely regretted it or had second thoughts and it was just something I had always wanted to do, but couldn't due to college, graduate school, the complications of marriage and other things. When the time came - I jumped. And what a good jump it was . . .

"I'd rather work now and play later, than play now and work later."

I think you said your decision yourself.

If you are holding out for the army, then your life will change in the way that you want it to change.
But, that is a career too, a long term career, with risks, so you seriously have to think about if you really, really, want that.

Whatever you do, your career choice can lead to good and exciting things...wether that be just having the money to be able to go on adventures during the holidays, or wether you choose another career path, perhaps in travel etc.

It seems you are at a crossroads in your life right now.

Hang on to your dreams, but also make sure that you make the right choices to make those dreams come true.

You are at the perfect age & in the situation. Have you every looked into working holiday visas? This is an option where UK citizens can work and travel in different countrys abroud. Check out BUNAC. They sort out the visas. You can visit Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA. You are given 1 year to live & work in any of these countries. You could spend the next 5 years travelling to each different country. Nothing more exciting than that!

To succeed in becoming an Army officer you need a lot of ingenuity, initiative and damned stubbornness - you don't seem to be showing much of any, as yet.

Maybe a second career option is an important one?

Dave

Hi chaps, thanks for the advice!

WanderinWilco, I would say I have been pretty stubborn and hardworking on my Officer app. I put a lot of work into journalism too - but that turned out to be a much poorer option than anticipated. I am a little tied down helping my mum finalise her divorce and move house (early next year) but look forward to making a change, one way or the other, by the end of 2011.

PSGeorge79 - Many thanks for the tip! That sounds like a great idea! I'll look into it right away. Working hard is more than fine with me, combining it with travel would be great! Definitely going to research this.

I think I want to stick at John Lewis a little while to clear some uni debts and get something decent on my CV, but will be there certainly less than two years (much less if I get into Sandhurst). As well as saving, I plan to get my fitness/conditioning tip-top too!

I'm 60 now, but didn't have a "real" job till I was in my 40s. In my life I've been a forest ranger for the US government, union construction worker, owner of a contracting business, a hazardous waste inspector, and now an environmental advisor to a large laboratory complex.

Some of those "career" changes were scary. to make some of those changes I re-educated myself in my forties by going to college at night while holding down a daytime job. I succeeded at all of them, but also took time to hitchike across Alaska one summer, trek into the Copper Canyons of Mexico, and explore the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains of the American west for weeks at a time.

I don't regert any of it, even the re-education for new carreers, except . . . for the things I DIDN'T do (as Mark Twain said, twenty years from now you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things that you did). Fortunately, I didn't pass up too many extraordinary opportunies.

The worst one was; I was offerred an opportunity to crew on a tall ship from Port Angeles, Washington State to San Francisco and then on around the horn of South America. I didn't do it 'cause friends and family said I needed to settle down and work. That opportunity will never come again, but all those jobs came and went.

You want a life for YOU rather than corporate Hell same everyday for ever? Then why go military to go only where THEY want you?

Shun long contracts. Doing it someday your way sucks. Its your life now.

Go overseas on your own terms. Get working holiday visa or such.
Bartend or whatever.

*see profile

You could start off working in butiques or some clerk job on cruise liners.

Maybe one way. Keep your ears and mind open.

I quit my sensible job to run away to sea, it was the best thing I ever did.

Back home again now, but I feel like I have a lot more options in life, away from the rat race. I've met a lot of inspiring people who have done things differently. Good luck with the Army test, but if it doesn't work out then remember the world is your oyster. It seems as though you'd be happier doing something with a bit more to it than a ski season, though I understand the jealousy as other people are jetting off whilst you are stuck at John Lewis! Your time will come.

Why would you want to be told what to do and how to think, every twenty minutes.

Shun military. Go be your own guide.
Would you go to Falugia by choice?