Has anyone given up on their plan A in life, and have accepted plan B or C?

My plan A life was to be a professional trombone player. I am now a software developer and compulsive clothes collector.

Plan B certainly brings in more income and being separated from the classical music world lets me enjoy going to concerts without an obsessive fixation on the low brass section. On the other hand I feel a slight sting of envy whenever I hang out with my old musician friends, many of whom are now professionals.

I am on at least Plan E. Gave up on pro hockey player, rock star, university professor, and clinical career.

I'm somewhere around plan D, and A-C looks remarkably similar to this. Though I wanted to be a football player, not a hockey player.

I'm also working on my second million now. I completely gave up on my first!

Tried and gave up actor, drummer, painter, chef.

No regrets...trying was damn fun.

My Plan A was not to waste seven years on Style Forum, and look how that worked out.

Just wanted to let you know I'm stealing this. You can now take pride in the fact that someone somewhere in Georgia will hear a Pio joke.

My plan A all along was to be 100% self employed. Almost 20 years ago that happened. Now there are certain aspects of plan A that I would like to see happen and with a little luck and a lot of work they will.

Plan A was to play pro basketball which I gave up since I'm 5'8" and have a 2" vertical. Plan B was to be a rock star and though I did tour with a band for a few years we never came close to star status. Currently, I'm a stay at home dad, which I like to call Plan WTF.

personally, i think anyone who ranks plans is asking for trouble. man proposes, god disposes. i started out a sportswriter, switched to music writer, switched to news writer, switched to feature writer and finally wound up writing about food. keep doing what interests you and while you may never make a million, you'll never get bored.

My Plan A was to be an architect ... so I'm still on Plan A ... although it's been amended a few times over the years ... and interrupted once or twice.

For example there were a couple of years spent on Wall Street -- that would have been my plan Plan B -- but I soon realized that this direction wasn't going to do it for me ... the only thing that allowed me to be really happy was my Plan A ... even if it meant less money.

If I had the opportunity to do everything over ... I can't think of much I would change. I might choose to fight fewer battles ... having come to see them as a loss of time that otherwise would have been given to something I really enjoy.

Not really, a bit. Always on the lawyer path, I just thought I'd be doing it in my home city, and am instead doing it elsewhere... I don't know if that qualifies as plan B, though.

Are you kidding? I'm only in my late 20s and I'm on plan L or M by now.

My very original dream as a kid was to be a chef. Then I grew up and wanted to be a lawyer, then a preacher, then a historian, then a businessman, now I'm a cook. So kind of plan A and kind of plan F.