One major premise

One major premise of this book is that we must reverse the conventional “thinking before doing” logic to successfully change careers. That is not easy to do or to explain in our goal-driven society. Taking a sabbatical or going back to school is a socially accepted, “legitimate” way to dedicate ourselves to exploration, to following crooked paths. Freed from the everyday working world, detours and serendipity not only become possible; they become our purpose. A sabbatical temporarily suspends the rules and demarcates a protected milieu in which we can toy with possibilities, knowing we will return to reality again soon. In the interim, we can test unformed, even risky or conflicting, identities in a secure environment, incubating provisional identities until we are ready to claim one or more as truly our selves.

Women tend to make more use of time-outs as reinvention strategies than men, for simple social and economic reasons. Across cultures and occupation groups, it is still more acceptable for a woman to say that she is taking time to “find herself” than it is for a man. It is also more likely to be economically feasible: Within the college-educated population that is the subject of this book, women are more likely than men to have partners whose incomes are sufficient to maintain a basic lifestyle. Moreover, in highly educated, relatively affluent circles, men are still more likely to be the primary breadwinners. But that is changing, and I encountered several instances in which members of a couple took turns at reinvention.

Obviously, the larger context matters, too. Societal cycles of economic prosperity and social change can affect the timing and form of professional renewal. The study at the heart of this book, however, spanned from the Internet heyday of the late 1990s to the gloomier turn of the millennium; it showed that the process of renewal unfolds similarly even in leaner economic times.

Another dimension on which to compare and contrast experiences concerns the outcomes of the career changes. Throughout the study, one question came up more frequently than any other: Did anyone regret the move into the new? Many people said they made at least one “wrong” move. But they learned from their mistakes and moved on to something else, adjusting their course based on their experiences. Of course, there is always an element of rationalization: After the fact, we easily conclude that we did the best we could. People did make trade-offs: Some struggled with lower incomes when they chose to pursue their passion, and others gave up some measure of challenge or intellectual stimulation in pursuit of a more secure future. But I heard great regret only from those who failed to act, who were unable or unwilling to put their dreams to the test and to find out for themselves if there were better alternatives. The only wrong move consisted of no move.

So can anyone, regardless of education, social class, or gender, make a major change at midcareer? The combined experiences of Pierre and Lucy, Gary and Dan, Susan, Brenda and all the others suggest that the answer is yes. The real question is, “Under what conditions are people able to break with the past and plunge into a new and happier future?”