When did you realize your (semi) major life decision had gone bad?

[neuroman]

Think back in your life upon major and semi-major decisions you've made, choices that heavily impacted your life for at least 3-4 months or more. Cities you've chosen to live in, colleges you chose to attend, jobs you've taken, etc. Something like "I bought a crappy car and regret it" isn't what I'd qualify as a major life choice, unless for example, you paid way too much for the car and the consequences of your purchase impacted your life in other ways.

Now think back to decisions of yours that resulted in bad outcomes. Did you anticipate or at least appreciate the risk of a bad outcome at the start, and to what extent? (Let's except romantic relationships for this point, obviously those ALWAYS have the possibility of ending badly.)

When did you realize or begin to realize that your decision was causing adverse consequences in your life, and you should do something else instead? (Leave cities, change jobs, etc.)

At what point did you decide to "cut bait" and acknowledge that despite any sunken costs, what you were doing was not the right thing for you? What did you do to fix the problem, if anything? Did your fix work?

I realize the questions I'm asking require much more introspection than the average OOT thread but I would love to hear your responses. There is a personal context here but I'll wait because I don't want to make this thread all about me.

[edfurlong]

I spent six billion dollars on culinary school and realized there was no way I was going to finish about three months in. I also lived in Poughkeepsie for that year, huge beat right there. All in all I spent the down payment for a condo on nothing. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[mbillie1]

I picked a college on a whim and have never since left Binghamton, NY. Worst decision of my life.

[guids]

Ive been fortunate enough never to have made any really bad life choices, but Ive been unfortunate enough to never had the chance to epically [censored] something up.

[fraserbrown]

1) Stayed at crappy job for too long, ended up hating job and no caring about the qualitry of work I was doing

2) Dicked around first year of school, got marginal hands and have to take a few cources over, pissed of parents who were paying

3) Last two relationships ended because I wasnt willing to put any real time or effort into them, no gf in 2 yrs

Those are the ones that come to mind now, there are probably many, many more. Although I did learn valuable lessons from all of them.

[guids]

I have about a million dollars that 90% of these posts are going to be about passively rather than actively messing your life up.

[neuroman]

[ QUOTE ]
I have about a million dollars that 90% of these posts are going to be about passively rather than actively messing your life up.

[/ QUOTE ]
True... but if "stayed at a crappy job for too long" was the bad, passive [censored] up, then what made you take the bad job in the first place? Was there any thought at all?

Or--if you are in a [censored] job, when did you become cognizant of that, and is it messing up your life bad enough that you should or are doing something about it?

[Klompy]

I started realizing that dropping out of college after 2 1/2 years was a mistake about a year and a half later when friends started graduating and I felt like a bum. I'm actively trying to change this right now though.

[mbillie1]

[ QUOTE ]
I started realizing that dropping out of college after 2 1/2 years was a mistake about a year and a half later when friends started graduating and I felt like a bum. I'm actively trying to change this right now though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I'll add this to my list of mistakes as well.

[guids]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have about a million dollars that 90% of these posts are going to be about passively rather than actively messing your life up.

[/ QUOTE ]
True... but if "stayed at a crappy job for too long" was the bad, passive [censored] up, then what made you take the bad job in the first place? Was there any thought at all?

Or--if you are in a [censored] job, when did you become cognizant of that, and is it messing up your life bad enough that you should or are doing something about it?

[/ QUOTE ]


I think in general people are just attracted to change if they arent happy in their current situation, some are just out of college, and dont know what they want, some just want to put some cash in their pocket. Once some stability sets in, and once they get in the groove, its really not "that bad", until 10 years go by and they realize...WTF HAVE I BEEN DOING, I COULD BE DOING SOMETHING WAY BETTER.