The pool of tech jobs in my area was sparse, but the local employers were fully on board with the big-city "use them for a while and toss them out" system. So when times were good in IT, I bought a machine shop, and in between times of lucrative IT employment, I did short-run metalworking and engine rebuilding.

I think I would enjoy building houses, or solar-battery-electrical installations. I like infrastructure (my favorite games include Factorio) and being able do that in the real world sounds both useful and enjoyable/satisfying.

I’d go into psychology research. I have some very low percentage chance mental health traits and there’s not many people studying what I have who have lived experience and are not too disabled to study it. I know I’d enjoy doing clinical work too, and often find my time not doing software is helping others and making community w those folks.

Sadly, I’m not wealthy enough to afford to reset like that, I’ll never be able to retire.

If i could start over again i would love to work as forester. I even considered working as lumberjack. I got required certificates, im legally allowed to work in the industry doing sawork (as in, felling trees, even if not private property).

I know it is an highly physical demanding and also very risky job. Now that a second child arives, obviously, life changing again, i just cant do it, i need to feed two kinds soon and these kind of jobs are not well payed.

So ill stick to doing my own firewood once a year, a couple of days outside in the woods and keep dreaming about it.

Live goes by too fast.

I'd go back to civil engineering. Building things. Good, honest work.

Binge watching Netflix and doom scrolling Insta-rcisst.

And once I had gotten over the anxiety and low self-esteem that I'd develop by engaging in these activities, probably become some kind of tech artist or simply be creativity for the sack of creating something.

No insta, no facebook, no twitter, more a reflection of what these technologies are doing to our "societies" or rather our "individualised groups of humans collectively doom-scrolling into global disaster of one kind or another".

I'm currently incubating a sick twisted fantasy to run a handbuilt bicycle wheelbuilding store. If you asked me this question 20 years ago, the answer would be music teacher.

I was a copy editor long ago, and pretty good at it. I have been slightly surprised to make the acquaintance of a couple of people who still do that. One said that the wages aren't great, which was my recollection. But I wouldn't mind working as an editor.

I could have been an academic or an activist. My son reactivated in me the "making" aspect of experimental physics that had a big impact on me despite doing theory for my PhD. (My son builds buildings by day, guitars by night)

In the last two years I've become a semi-pro photographer. I guess I am also an "activist" now but approach it as personal change [1] instead of interpersonal conflict.

[1] a kind of global "daoism" that embraces all kinds of human development

I personally believe that life is better if you do what you are naturally good at versus something you're interested in. I was lucky that I am both good at and interested in tech.

The LSAT doesn't feel too difficult, especially the sections based around logical reasoning. So if I went back in time and tech somehow wasn't an option, law is probably where I'd be