basically I am unable to commit to any path for what I want to do, and investing my spare cash seems like committing to this career for 5+ more years which strikes me as awful. which is why I haven't done it. simply because I might have to sell at a loss to fund any of the above options. so that part of the question at least, I know the answer to.
the classic golden handcuffs dilemma.
@BrightFIRE - this is an important point. But yes, I know I'm not giving up on FIRE
completely by changing careers and starting over, but it would no longer be a primary (singular... all-consuming...) focus if I found decent work in a tolerable location. I am of course naturally frugal and a saver, but the timeline would just push way out, which is OK if the work/life balance is good. I already have enough saved to likely cover retirement at a traditional age, if I let it grow for 35 more years. I certainly don't think I'd "never advance" in a new career, I just tend to assume the worst when making projections about the future, part of the engineers habit of always making extremely conservative estimates. Perhaps this is not a useful way to look at life all the time. Thanks for pointing that out.
My only issue is that work + side-hustle + training for my hobby is simply too much. I am at a point where I basically have to pick 2. I have done some self-learning and built my own simple projects and it is very difficult to balance all 3. I always fall flat at monetizing them. I have a hard time understanding how to make money outside of the paradigm of "company pays me money to think about their problems for 40 hours a week." Another bias in my way of thinking I am trying to self-learn around, it's just extremely difficult to make progress in this area with only 24 hours per day. 8 job, 8 sleep, ~4 training leaving 4 hours for building a business, and also cooking/cleaning/commuting/having any form of social life. I just have not been able to make it work. Yet?
@civil4life good insights. My FIRE goals are on a short time horizon specifically because I do not like my work and honestly never have, and it doesn't allow me to live where and how I want to live. I know which option I am more passionate about, have spent a very large amount of time "exploring" it and definitely know I could do it. But I don't have enough resources to pull it off yet and I have very little in the way of a safety net / fallback plan - because of "reasons" it would be very difficult for me to get a job in my field again if I were to leave this one. Nor would I really want to except out of necessity. It certainly feels like a 1-way trip.
I am also looking at negotiating a year off with my current company. I could use that time to focus on my guiding skills and also building some kind of internet side-income business while not spending 50+h a week on my job. So that's one option. I'm not convinced they'd go for it, but stranger things have happened.
