Every wrong turn I took became part of my experience, had I not made those mistakes, I'd probably make them in the future or forever wonder why I didn't do what I did. Some of those choices were brutal and nearly left me on the street with nothing whereas other decisions ended up being awesome decisions that made life so much better.

Even in those dire situations, which could have been avoided had I made different choices, I learned new skills which opened many doors for me years later.

As they say in the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield in front of you - the same goes for careers, looking back, I could have done a lot of things differently, but then I would not have gained all the experience that I did.

I'm technically in the start of my career (26 years old) but if I could go back to my first year in the university what I would do is investing heavily only in the things I know I like. For me this is backend development (Java+Scala) and a certain OS (Arch Linux). If I've done this I would be an expert right now. What I did instead was trying a different thing (languages, OSs, technology fields etc) every single month until I was sure on what I want. It's the natural process though so I'm not disappointed.

I would have picked something that involved more light exercise because when you work in an intellectually stimulating field requiring sustained quick thinking and persistent concentration and attention to detail it becomes very hard to get yourself to zone out and exercise in your free time, and you have to sit most of the time at work. And no, sorry, standing desks do not cut it. These days once my heart starts pumping too much blood into my body rather than my brain, the reflexes learned to keep attention on code/configs kick in and start making me extremely uncomfortable and bored. I've put a lot of hard work into learning to ignore physical distractions, and it has backfired badly because during the hours when there is no reason to ignore them I feel like total crap. Sometimes I have to play video games just to take my mind off various minor aches and pains I have yet to actually come to terms with, because I ignore them when working. A few years ago I thought I was in some sort of medical crisis because I had been living in such a tightly regimented envelope for so long that I had forgotten that real hunger can in fact be actually painful.

Had I gone another route I might not be as smart or as well paid, but I'd probably be happier and healthier on the whole.

Used to be I got that exercise hauling routers and switches up access stairwells. The work-study students stole all that work, now that I'm too valuable to waste on it. I'm stuck here mashing interop configs and working around vendor bugs with my knuckles until things work reliably. Occasionally I manage to sneak a rack job in, but I'm well past the point of no return unless I move to the sticks and do the grizzly adams thing with the aid of some sort of pharmaceutical to get me through the transition.

Really need to find a motion capture game that isn't made so Disney it makes me puke.