a bucket of symphonies

Being as old as I am, around 19500 days, I wonder sometimes how my life would be different had I

joined the CAF as part of the navy, this would have had me travel more, take my basic training away from home, perhaps be retired already from the forces, be out at sea at various times for perhaps long durations, but with the crew. I don't know if this existed back then, but what exists now is a one year program that begins with basic training in either the east or west coast of Canada, and then over the next year I get placed into a large variety of different positions to learn which ones are available or are in need, then I suppose I would pick one or two and then get the training for whichever one I would then be assigned to do. There would be X number of years subsequent to receiving training that I would have to commit to remaining in the forces, but I would have committed to stick it out until I retire, perhaps moving up some ranks.

even in the career path I followed (doing mostly software support for various enterprise level software packages) I could have join the reserves at a young age which would have put me into a group of people annually with whom I train, but this never occurred to me until much later in my life

trained to be an STM bus driver - earn a pretty good salary, but have shift work that would make having a family more challenging, maybe also retire by now, or within the next few years. I would be unionized and after a certain number of years I would reach the max salary which as I understand it is double what I am earning now (though my job now is an easy 9 to 5 weekdays). I could have applied for this job soon after high school, though, my french language skills would have to have been perhaps better than I had at the time.

trained to be a nurse - with this being a very female dominated domain, I would have more quickly overcome my discomfort in interacting with the girls in the training program with me. I would work in hospital settings until perhaps my mid-40s and then get a job at Hema-Quebec where I simply take blood donations from people, an easy and stable job, though also an occasional Saturday and evening I would have to work. This might have been the easiest thing to have done, since the CEGEP I went to in Sciences, had and continues to have a nursing preparation program.

trained to be a teacher - my middle child C-Ling is doing this now, to become a primary school teacher. This has also become a very female dominated role where having a man do it would be welcome. I would aim to be an early year secondary school teacher and see if I could teach at the school I went to. I know that in various jobs throughout the last thirty years I was placed in a position to provide a five day training to customers to use our software, and I quite enjoyed that aspect of my job at that time. I would have enjoyed having summers off, perhaps to see about having a small cottage to spend summers in.

trained to become a psychotherapist, I knew even at that young age that I was a good listener and as this comes naturally to me it would have helped in this role. Being an English speaker in Quebec, a province with a large minority of English language speakers, I think I could have found a place to work in a location where there are many English speakers, or, I could have moved anywhere else in Canada. I believe there has always been a shortage of people in this role; I just hope that I could have succeeded in the training.

become a Jesuit Priest - the high school I went to was a Jesuit Catholic school so this possibility was front and center, but I didn't have it in me to make that committment at that young age. If I did, my housing and meals for the rest of my life would be managed by the parishioners for whatever church I am pastor. Being a part of the Jesuits, I could be placed anywhere in the world that the Jesuits decide to place me. Also, there isn't really a retirement age as many of the priests that I have encountered have practiced well into their octagenarian years. 

If you happen to read this, do you ever think about what alternative careers you might have considered at the start of one's life given the knowledge you've learned since then?