There have been two major fork-in-road decisions that I have taken and I do not know whether they were ghastly mistakes or the correct decision: (1) Switch from

There have been two major fork-in-road decisions that I have taken and I do not know whether they were ghastly mistakes or the correct decision: (1) Switch from development into technical marketing. (2) Switch from scientific software to general software development. I didn't take either fork and while I like the result, "the grass is always greener". On a larger scale, the choice of a scientific PhD vs. a CS masters was an earlier/larger decision. Again, I went with the former and remained in the smaller pond. Others might view this as a mistake and it was from a $$ perspective. Finally, after some time as a project leader, I returned to the bench as it were. I prefer doing rather than talking about doing, but that's also a power and $$ loss if that's what you're into. But I managed, for the most part, to do what I wanted to do. Yeah, I had to move more than we wanted, but that turned out ok. Work is what you do to have the resources to do what you want. If you fully identify with work, then how can you retire or exit the game - you would have no identity? When grazing youtube, look for Lennon's quote in Yesterday about living.