Who do you know that took a path you didn't expect?

I had a friend who I was close with for many years, she always had high aspirations, talked to me almost daily about all of the things she wanted to do. Things were like having large career aspirations, moving to a big city, seeing the world, traveling.

Then she got married, and bought a house 15 minutes from her parents, and had 3 kids, all within 5 years. Her career is a standard midwest white woman job and her travel consists of visiting family one state over and going to Disney World once every 5 years or so. We drifted apart, I did end up moving to a big city, I chose a career and travel over having kids, but I think about her every once in a while.

Were those choices hers? Were they compromises? Did society pressure her into a certain life, or did she truly want to change her life for it? Were the things she talked about just dreams, or did she not believe she could accomplish them. I don't feel pity or anger, but I do wonder why she made the choices she did. I guess I hope she's happy and that she lives her life without regrets. Everyone who chooses that life says adamantly they never regretted it, but do they really mean it? No regrets at all?

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100% they do mean it.

I never really wanted kids. But me and a friend had too much to drink one night and I was a dad at 22. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I'm 30 and have 3.

People tend to focus on what you give up and not what you gain. Parenting presents a huge amount of moments and activities and feelings that you would never get otherwise.

Both paths are good. Just different.

I wouldn't trade the first time my daughter said I love you for anything in the world. Or even the first time she smiled. You could offer me any amount of money or holidays and I wouldn't go back and miss that.

I have a good support network so I can still go out when I want to. I could go on holidays without them if I wanted to. I could buy them less stuff and myself more. Nothing is stopping me.

But I wouldn't trade a moment of it.

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- You can only speak for yourself, there are plenty of people that do regret it
  
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- I'm very glad you're happy where you are. Most people that have had kids have said this to me. But I do occasionally have the rare person who actually has kids but recommends I don't have them. One of the people that told this to me is incredibly sweet and motherly, even to me, but she seems to be able to look past the feel good hormones and realize that it's not something a lot of people should be doing.
  
  When I visit family members or friends who have kids, it honestly seems like a living nightmare. Not that their children are shitty kids, but just the amount of constant work and attention they need and how you can never do anything for yourself ever again. And you have to do this until they grow up and maybe move out. I can barely even take care of myself mentally or physically. Doing that for multiple human beings sounds like literal torture. I will have people tell me they love raising kids while at the same time they have come into work on only few hours sleep because something happened with the kids in the middle of the night.
  
  I'm convinced the only reason why people get hooked on the whole having kids things is because of some sort of hormonal thing. Observing everything from the outside, it just looks like everyone has Stockholm syndrome or brain slugs.
  
  I hope you don't find this offensive and I'm sure you're a great dad. I know your kids are lucky to have you and we do still need at least SOME people to be willing to be parents for the sake of the human race. But yeah idk.
  
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A lot of people that want to travel can't handle the hard stuff. It seems more about how you deal with that than how you deal with the good stuff.

Same with careers. Lot of people chase the good stuff then realise all the bad shit makes it terrible. I also noticed a few women who really want to be high in their career to stick it to the man. They either really sexist people or they find out that no one actually cares and that all the guys that have made it to the top worked really hard and put a lot of hours in. Suddenly they realise that what they will have to do too and they completely lose interest.

Being a house wife has a lot of perks and limited downsides, if you don't mind the downsides it's really really appealing.

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There was a boy in French high school who seemed a bit impaired, in the sense that he seemed way more childish than people are at this age, so he was often mocked, and I don't remember him having any brilliant grades. Turns out he went into the top of the top of the French scientific universities (École Polytechnique).
Think Harvard level of prestige (countless top scientists, leaders and CEOs from there), but specialized in science, with way fewer seats, fully paid by the state and an extremely competitive entry exam that the best French students spend 2 to 3 years preparing for after high-school, with the vast majority failing and entering the next schools on the prestige list (still a lot of other prestigious schools under it). I guess he exploded his intellectual potential at this time, when others just implode into depression due to the high pressure.
I was floored when I learned about it and really happy that he took his revenge this way.

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Myself, not that I did something so beyond recognition but I think about where I am now a lot.

I was a very naïve, somewhat sheltered Midwestern kid to a 17 year old mother who married (someone else) happily when I was just six months old. In elementary school and into middle school I was never popular and kind of chunky. I’ve always been a computer geek and started making websites when I was around 10 (I was bored a lot).

Heading into high school I made tons of friends in different groups. I had friends in the “drug crowd” but wasn’t into drugs myself. I graduated early only to go into working in fast food and never could finish college.

In my 20s I got really into weed and drinking and I had a friend who inherited a ton of money and long story short, we moved to Los Angeles. Tons of partying and lots of hard drugs later, we moved back but I came back alone two years later with nothing more than a backpack, computer monitor and $800.

10+ years later, I don’t party nor take drugs and have a rather boring life as a web application developer after ~5 years in warehouse jobs.

I’m generally very happy, but I’m very frustrated with the world after having lived in a big city now for almost half my life and having not been raised knowing how exactly the world works — if took me much, much longer to get where I am than those optimistic 90s teachers had me believe it would. Some days I daydream and wish I could go back to those wild days living it up, taking a couple mollies and not having a single a care in the world.

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backpack, computer monitor and $800.

What happened to the computer?

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- Ha, it was in the backpack with a bunch of clothes. It was a MacBook Pro with a nonfunctional display.
  
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I have a relative who was a brilliant student in school, studied law, moved to China, learned the language, always very high achieving and motivated to succeed in what ever she chose to do, seemed like she was aiming high career-wise, then she met an arab guy, turned muslim to marry him, got two kids, as far as I know is a house wife now. They live in the Emirates so life must be very restricted for her. We are not close but it was quite surprising that she chose a closed life and conservative religion instead of career. But like said, I don't know her enough to know her side of the story, but I'm sure she's happy with her life.

A friend of mine, when I first got to know him, didn't strike to me as a person with many goals in life and was at that point unemployed and living with his cousin, hadn't really studied, wasn't doing much anything. Well he got into gardening, wen't to career school to become a gardener, one day he decides to become a landscape architect and study in the most top tier university in the country, so he just studied to the entrance exam like hell, failed a couple times and kept on pushing and finally got it. Very proud of him. Not the easiest path if you come from career school background. Also how the hell can someone be so motivated to bang their head onto the wall until they finally succeed?!

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brilliant student in school, studied law, moved to China, learned the language, always very high achieving and motivated to succeed in what ever she chose to do, seemed like she was aiming high career-wise,

Burnout is a bitch, speaking from experience. One way out is to radically change your lifestyle. Whether it turns out good or bad in the long term is very individual

15
First story kinda reminds of French female rapper Diam's who got famous in the 2000' for her songs talking about women emancipation and her positions against right populism. After about 10 years being at the top, she announces retiring because she converted to Islam, married, had a kid and stopped making and listening to music because it is haram, she later moved to live in Saudi Arabia. She also published an autobiography in 2012 and a documentary in 2022 to explain her trajectory where we learn that she had many psychological troubles since her teens and being bitten by her partner at 17, had stays at a psychiatric hospital in 2007, stopped her treatment, attempted suicide and converted to Islam at the end of 2008.

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- I had no idea about Diam's. She was the shit in the early 2000s
  
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They live in the Emirates so life must be very restricted for her.

As a Middle Eastern guy with stereotype-level knowledge about the Emirates, I don't think so. Even if Islam demanded women be restricted in their lives (it doesn't) Emirates is very famous as an "only Muslim on the cover" country. Now we can't really guess anything about her life, but whatever she wants to do, it won't be the country stopping her.

5

Had a friend in high school who was an out lesbian, very independent. Was the first person I knew married at, like, 24 or so to some guy she met online.

Had a terrible bully who got bone cancer. She still alive, but she calmed down considerably. I remember they were asking people at school to get blood tested as they were having difficulty finding a marrow match, and most of us were like "👀."

22

A dear friend of mine, singer and ballet dancer for a band I always loved, one day collapsed on stage. Turns out he had a massive brain tumor. He retired from music and is now gardening a lot. None of us - even his family - expected him to survive.

He's living a very peaceful life these days and I love that for him. Needless to say his garden is to die for.

21

Had a friend, super advanced in math/science. Basically finished high school in 2 years, went to university at 14/15, took computer engineering or some similar hard STEM program, was a teaching assistant tutoring people older than him, snuck into the university bars a few times showing his student ID while he was underage because how many people expect a 17 year old graduate student?

Anyways he became a pastor.

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My brother used to put on extra coats just to hug people because the thought of touching humans sickened him.

Now he's a CMA in a nursing home.

16

wow that's a big shift. What happened ?

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- No idea. To be fair it works it well for him, he worked through covid and was the only one in the building that didn't catch it.
  
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My friend from high school, very smart, got a technical Bachelors degree and then became a circus performer. Figured it would be for a few years max but it’s been 15 and they’re still at it.

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Wow that's kind of really neat actually. I hope they are living their best life.

4

Donald Trump.

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Me i left religion✌️

6

The double split experiment.

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What was their name?

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- Incredible comment
  
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- That girl with the fringe.
  
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- Particle and wave
  
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Hey, I used to do the same, but with meth, heroin and needles. I was literally not brave enough to end it, so I was slowly trying to kill myself or hoping a good bag would do it. Thankfully, I never found that bag. I won't lie and say life is great, but I promise it can be different. I'm no bringer of hope, but if you ever feel like chatting, DM me.

7

Robert Frost

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That's a misinterpretation of the poem. The point was that both paths were equally valid but no matter what he picked, he would always think that the other was better. It was a poem about "the grass is always greener on the other side"

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- I was still surprised.
  
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At the very least, it's possible he could 1.) travel both paths, if they are relatively short OR 2.) travel part of the first path, then either cut across directly or loop back to travel part of the other path. Hell, they might even connect and form a big circle, if they're headed in the same direction, so you could probably make a scenic loop? Worst case scenario, you go back another day.

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