What were you doing when you were 26?

Think most of you have a couple of years on me. So other than the usual what were you doing around the 26 years old figure.

As I'm thinking of jackin it in and going to see far flung countries/sights such as bhutan but i'm a bit embarrassed to say i'm worried to one day return with no money and no chance of getting a career as employers hate travel types.

Anyway what were you doing? I'm off for beer 🙂

Paramedic.

ask me in 6 years

Traveller types is just about anyone nowadays.

I was busy training hard for rowing and occasionally working 🙂

I spent most of the year at sea, and a lot of time in the states, and a bit watching my daughter be born into the world and the rest renovating the house we would all call home.

Nurse in a general hospital. However when I was 28 I did exactly what you suggested – returning when 30 to start from scratch again haveing spent everything including the profits on my house. It mostly worked out well

being a dad and working a shyte job and shyte hours.

my rewards have landed now tho………….life gets easier mate.

That's 4 year away!

Sitting bolt upright in bed with shock, listening to "God Save The Queen" on John Peel's "Top Gear" show and suddenly feeling alive again.

working in a record shop, boozing a lot and being a bit of a tit.

I did exactly that at 26 when i got divorced and sold my house, i went right around the world twice for 5 yrs 😉

That was 15 yrs ago and i started again, i now have a house thats paid for and a wonderful wife.

Do it and enjoy, it's a big world out there.

I was teaching at an RAF base in Germany, and generally having a good time with loadsa money.

i was on my third tour of bosnia . deep joy 😉

mostly being unemployed

Trainee Actuary for an insurance company.

Married for 2 years and 2 years before my daughter arrived so quite happy to be honest.

living in india with my wife and daughter in an ashram.

Nurse on a children's medical ward in a district general hospital. Got married. Went to France on holiday.

started working as a Civil Servant at the very bottom of the food chain ….. am a bit further up the ladder now tho 😆

at 26 I was 3 years into my career in IT, but still being treated as the office teaboy by most of the senior (and some of the junior) staff. My hair was still dark and still long, and my belly had yet to make much of an appearance

I'd just passed my driving test, was living with my then girlfriend (now wife) in our first house, which we finally managed to sell only this year.
I'd given up on music too…

pretty dull really

was coaching pro cyclists and about to make a huge marriage mistake

getting married working short, term seasonal jobs, drinking vodka,hill walking, cycling motorbiking

I was working for JPMorgan Chase Bank on behalf of the Trade Bank of Iraq.

Thoroughly bored with the whole thing I went off to Banff, Alberta for a season snowboarding at Sunshine Village/Lake Louise having done the same thing three years before.

When I returned to the UK I moved to Leeds for a while before returning to Bournemouth just after turning 27.

I met the wife when I was 26… 3 kids a mortgage and a cat later… In hindsight I should have gone travelling.

FFS Do it, what are you waiting for, plenty of time for jobs and stuff when your old.

my life was spent on the piss and getting laid 🙂

bloody hell that was 22 years ago

Had left the Navy and started working off shore. Still there and not really happy.
Go and see something, get a fresh perspective. Come back happy and do something you enjoy. Chasing money makes you (or at least me) miserable.

Living and parying hard in Ibiza, now 37 and have 25 years of mortgage in front of me, so I'll be paying for my fun long after other people have finished…!

in my experience travel types are the best people to work with. what makes you say employers hate travel types? maybe you're told that by people too scared to travel themselves?

tails – if you have the chance go! Not all employers hate travelling types if you convinvce them on your return you're not going to go off and do it again next year! At 26 I was generally abusing my body but working and saving when I could. Jacked it all in to go travelling when I was 32, best life experience ever, it changed the way I think and (I think) made me a better person. I've not met anyone who has travelled and regretted it and I have met quite a few who have gone travelling and not made it home but made themselves a life elsewhere. You'll regret it later if you don't go

At 26 I quit work and did a similar thing. I have absolutely no regrets. (Im 32 now)

If you dont get on with it, dont write the idea off and head home, just move on elsewhere.

Riding shite loads. Drinking shite loads. Working a very easy job that paid well.

God I miss those days. 🙁

Although at the same time I was with my ex so maybe not.

tails i left uk for 12 years and went all round the world and when i came back my same old mates were sat in the same seats in the same pub. i know which one id rather be 😉

Agree with those who say you should travel, my biggest regret is not getting in some travelling before work/marriage etc took over life.

Had come back from travelling and was a student in my final year. Working hard [for a student] and smoking way to much Skunk. Completed went travelling again. Depends on the career many jobs are ok with employing travelling hippy types I got my first FT job at 32 after various PT temporary stuff. do it you dont regret in life what you do you regret what you did not do when you are older wish I knew how true that was when I was younger GO now ,whilst you still can

Beginning what I thought would be a long term career move trading oil futures. Didn't last as long as I expected. made a bit of money. Built cars. ran more than I cycled back then.

Same job as i am now.No missus only had 1 child then.Having lots of drunken fun.

At 26 I was bricking it as I was just about to leave the military (all I'd known since 18); looking down the barrel of two years hard graft to fund myself through Uni and keep the house I just bought.

If you're going off the grid please do something useful FFS rather than just copping out to go find yourself or some other sanctimonious bullshit reason. there's millions of people out there that could do with a hand; and you'll have a cracking story to tell helping out.

Running a service/petrol station & having the best time of my life riding motorcycle trials. (badly, but enjoying every second of it)
At this time I hadn't ridden a pedally bike for 10 years!

You expect me to remember what I was doing 19 years ago – 19 minutes is a bit of a challenge sometimes!

Anyway, some hazy recollections: unmarried and staying that way for the next 7 years, incredibly unhappy.

12th wedding anniversary coming right up and now very happy and staying that way. Things change – much for the better in my life, thank God.

I've got a decade and a day until im 26!

Just got a great promotion with another company that saw me move down to Sussex and still be better off, which saw me with influence and responsibilties that I wasn't quite ready to handle but working with a great team who saw me right!

Just met the woman who ended up being MrsSwadey! Now 15 years since we met.

Abandoned my biking and martial arts in order to have another attempt at powerlifting and bodybuilding. Which is why I've had another visit to the physio today and why my right knee is heavily strapped to try and pull my knee cap back to where it should be after a lot of years of abuse……