Your ability to handle the consequences of either making bad choices or being unlucky is dependent in large measure on factors like financial resilience (can yo

Your ability to handle the consequences of either making bad choices or being unlucky is dependent in large measure on factors like financial resilience (can you afford to take a risky project without running the chance of being homeless?) and social support (will your partner be prepared to support a change of direction, do your parents recognise the value of trying and failing at difficult things, will your country help you retrain if things go wrong?). These things are not evenly distributed. I'm now in some senses on my third career (I'm 35). Each of those decisions to change direction, take risks and grow as a person were made a lot easier because I had a good enough salary to put money aside to cover the risks, and a wife who happens to be both adventure-loving and locationally-flexible. Not to mention that the most recent career change (moving into academic research) basically required a self-funded MSc as a preparatory to funded PhD study (I was moving into quite a different field, and there's basically no funding for taught Masters courses in the UK). That's more than half the people who could benefit from it priced out from the start.