Chad McCullough on Nostr: As you get older, do you ever sit back and reflect on parts of your life? I'll be 57 ...

As you get older, do you ever sit back and reflect on parts of your life? I'll be 57 soon and this has me doing a bit of reflection on my career over the years. There are positives and HUGE failures. After 6 years in the Navy, I worked as a Unix Hardware Engineer in the early 90's, Unix Support after that and then on to InfoSec for a number of years. Some of the best, and most rewarding, jobs I've ever had. Then, the downfall began. I was unemployed for nearly 3 years as I struggled to make ends meet. It took nearly 500 resumes sent and 37 job interviews but I was finally hired by a company to do Community Support. A job that I like but doesn't pay well and I'm still struggling to survive week to week (after 3 years of unemployment with mostly medical bills that piled up). The depth (or distance) at which I've fallen in my career is staggering and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I look back on all of this and wonder what I could have done differently. What could I have done to have gotten that dream Linux or Open Source job? Or that dream IT Security job? Sadly, at the age of almost 57, I'll probably never know. I used to have a list of the top 5 companies that I wanted to work for. I threw that list away years ago as it became very clear that I would never work for any of those companies. Okay, on to 57.