UKtramp:
That indeed is Impressive Winseer, I love hearing other peoples life experiences, just shows how fate or a wrong decision in retrospect can alter a persons dilemma. Sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. I too wanted to be an Egyptologist to which this day I am still completely fascinated by. I agree with your philosophy of always learning and not standing still. Once you do stop wanting to learn, then my opinion is that you have lost all hope and life has got the better of you. Like many drivers, I am sure there are those that are happy with their lot and others who are silently bitter at their lost opportunity. For me my only regret was not going to Bristol University where I secured a place at the veterinary school. Reason being, I got married young and had to find work local as I got a mortgage and it seemed the right thing to do. How wrong a decision I made. Although now I am now a consultant in a very different field.
Some of my old schoolmates ended up working in the city, which I did only briefly before being fired for arguing the toss with the chief trader @ Kleinwort Benson at their Fenchurch St office tower late in 1986… (I worked on the office computer kit, rather than the banking stuff) Funny thing was, I argued that the firm should “hedge more” in the markets, rather than just run ragged this (so far) “Big Bang” bull market that was in full swing at the time… This was not long after the Challenger disaster, where I suggested that less emphasis should be put on “Hardware Manufacturing Firms”, and more on the domestic fronts… I had the last laugh the following year of course, when Mr Chief Trader got fired himself for losing tens of millions on the dollar book, thanks to not even bothering to have any short positions at that time in even the most weak companies… There were many similarities between the Dot-com bubble of 2000 and the aftermath of the crash in 1987… People were being forced into selling decent stocks that turned a healthy profit - to meet their margin calls… Those who had “hedged” had some extra money to buy up some of these bargain basement, but otherwise sound firms at the bottom of the market - but not those idiots who thought the bull market would last forever, with “money spent on hedge positions” such as having a few Put Options in one’s portfolio - considered to be “wasted money” following the conventional wisdom of the time. I was considered an upstart, since “Banking” wasn’t my job here, I was supposed to keep the VDU’s in working order, service the modems, re-wire moved about kit, etc… Most of the staff I was operating on behalf of - were Japanese, but the guy who fired me was of the Golders Green set, who wasn’t having any of my “backseat driving” - even though I’d not passed my car test as of yet at that point!
Some of those mates actually in my class got kept on at these banks doing jobs ranging from “settlements” to “corporate law”, ending up working for outfits like Merril Lynch, Lehmans, and Bear Stearns - all now gone of course, where these “Masters of the Universe” were out on their collective arses back in 2008 during the credit crunch… What does one to to follow up a job with a massive salary like working in the city?
People needed to put money by whilst earning the big bucks, but a lot of people just ended up hopelessly in debt, with their houses ending up being re-mortgaged that had almost been paid off, had they not lost their job and original mortgage first obtained in 1985-6 all the way back when we all started out as “Equals”, before taking seperate paths as we did…
The biggest thing I liked about driving a Truck when I first started to do it - was that you get a better view of the world from “high up in the cab”, and I actually found driving to be quite relaxing (out-of-town at least) whereas others tell me it is a total chore… 
I’ve had a couple of transport managers that I got on with (rare!) tell me that I’m wasted in this job, but what else is there for someone like me to pay the bills? Recession after Recssion, always “years of austerity”, always “Times are 'ard”… What better thing to do than “take a recession-proof job”, where just the hourly rate is in contention not getting another job in itself.
I’d recommend 2 books on “how to deal with a severe downturn”, that being Bob Beckman’s effort “The Downwave” and sequal “Into the Upwave” written 1988 shortly after the crash… Special attention needs to be paid to the last chapter titled “2020 Vision” where he makes some surprisingly accurate predictions, - and a big wrong one, that otherwise got this guy laughed off the stage in his own day… His only “wrong” prediction was that there would be a second, and more severe housing crash that, to date - has never come. He rented during his late life, so convinced he was that the market would collapse any minute… Renting in England during 1992 though - wasn’t as daft as it sounds, when you bear in mind that many of my own generation got re-possessed following “Black Wednesday”, never to get another mortgage again because of the “default” thus pushed upon them by 15% interest rates…
If one misses out on gaining £50,000 from a better-paid job, but then fails to lose £150,000 a year later from being re-possessed - in fact, you are £100,000 better off, not £50,000 down… This was a concept I was mentored on:"
“What you don’t lose - is as good as what you WIN”.
It needs a risk-taking gambler viewpoint to fully understand this, but no one ever got rich by “making no decision on future events”, rather than making some wrong guesses among the correct ones. It is where you end up that counts. Don’t prepare for “being dead” of course, - assume that you WILL live beyond “threescore and ten”, and plan some good things to look forward in your life at that age. “Comfortable Retirement” - cannot be beat for “Good ongoing mental health”… 
It isn’t all about “Massive pension income” neither. “Lifestyle Balance” is at least as important, because there’s no point being the guy that got cremated age 66 with a massive pension pot, compared to someone living more modestly and within their means - who’ll live in good health into their 90’s, simply because they’ve left the bulls hit that ages one prematurely, ailes one’s health, and chips away at one’s morale - far behind. 
