Try the green energy industry, the engineering needed for the wiring this stuff and getting it running is a fuck load easier then getting an audio/midi setup to work and you get paid shit loads.
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If you live in the US, the Department of Energy will quietly fund a nearly free ride in nuclear engineering, without requiring a tour of duty on a submarine. I imagine the same is true in France and other places with civilian nuclear industry.
To add to this, as a long time recipient of/proponent for therapy, I find the parts I value most are simply having someone to listen to me talk about whatever, having an outside perspective check/validation of my thoughts, and having an immutable appointment that requires me to think critically about myself and what’s going on in me for an hour a week.
All this can be accomplished via telepresence or even the over-the-phone services offered by even our crappy insurance providers. So it’s possible to at least get started with all the bits I find most rewarding without spending bank on someone with a practice and an office and a waiting room and commute and all that.
It’s like analog monosynths; start with a volca to see if it works for you before committing to the big guns 
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Can confirm this from hearing them and checking on regs. I was in Bed-Stuy, which is majority black, but I’m pretty sure this was one or more young white people. Lasted less than a year, at any rate.
While I am going off-topic: there is a lot of bad coffee in Italy. I have been east-west from Trieste to Torino, north-south from Bormio to Bologna, and from Nice to Napoli. I have hit many of the fabled purveyors, at least half of which were utter disappointments. My top ten are probably entirely my fresh roasts with my blends and my roasting/brewing machines, at home, at unpredictable times. An experienced barista means nothing if the establishment has fully-automatic machines and some cost-effective bean source. Except, perhaps, the ability to keep one’s head down and not mess up, which a fresh teen may not be able to manage (or if they do, they will soon move on to something better).
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Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. It is the honest self-examination that is critical. My paid therapists (brief stretches) provided that reality check when I didn’t entirely trust my conclusions, but it was the preparation for and the decompression after that were the significant factors.
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For a person who is looking to do something different at midlife, a $500-600 home espresso setup is far cheaper and less risky than moving countries or embarking on expensive education.
There is a coffee thread somewhere below with all the details.
Edit: at the risk of sailing digression, small sailboats are much safer than motorcycles and can be cheaper.
At 40 I bought a cello. That was a good decision. At 51 my kids were gone (or nearly so), my wife left me, and that’s when the changes really started. Unfortunately, the cello had to go as a result. I still miss it.
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Not knowing you, OP, I can’t specifically recommend trades work but I like it well enough. It’s diverse enough that once you get a sense of it you can specialize in an area as narrowly as you want or be as broad and generalized as possible or anything in between. It can be physically brutal but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re used to doing anything physical it can be kind of pleasant. I’m building a staircase in a cabin right now. It’s on a little island I have to row to in the mornings. These days since I mostly do remodeling a lot of my time is spent on creative problem solving, math, and engineering specs for various materials. Plus I get job offers almost daily which means I have to say no a lot more than I say yes so I can refer the large concrete pours to the guys I know who prefer that sort of thing.
Trades work isn’t for everyone but it’s worth considering.
This is all, of course, secondary to the previously suggested idea that the problem might not actually be your job.
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Oh man, that sounds amazing. Worth reading the thread just for this image.
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This sounds radical! Wouldn’t mind seeing the work and the island!
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Thanks @Kegeratorz and @DimensionsTomorrow
I just got back to my island (well, the one I live on) and hiked up the hill to my van but if I remember I’ll take a couple of pictures tomorrow.
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Please do, though I’ll probably want to move as well!
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There’s lots of cool jobs out there.
I’m a self taught animator.
Online learning, self teaching is definitely a possibility.
School does seem overpriced for what you get when it’s all said and done.
However, you can’t really put a price on how school motivates you to achieve your goals even if you dont learn exactly what you needed there.
Even if you go to school, your going to teach yourself more online out of the motivation.
If you secure a job, that’s where you’ll learn 80% you’ll actually need.
I wouldn’t recommend animation unless your obsessed with being hyper focused on tedious creative tasks.
There’s other cool parts of the industry though.
Lighting and Compositing, or learning Unreal and contributing to games somehow.
Gaming industry pays well.
Also with animation/film/games there’s TONS of cool places to work.
It’s also a big work from home industry now.
So you can have a cool gig to so into in person, or just stay home.
Not sure what all else your into, but that’s my 2 cents.
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If you ever bring some gear out there for an island jam, be sure to take a picture and subsequently claim the title of most-liked post ever in the Your Setups thread.
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Oh! I’ve taken gear over there for lunchtime jams a couple of times but I never think of take pictures. If I do it again I will!
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Move to Eugene, OR.
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Death?
Wherever you go, there you are.
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Don’t stop dancing.
Many of the people who I raced sailboats against (and were soundly defeated by) were in their 70s & 80s. Keep moving, stay active, pick low-impact activities.
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Where do you live now? Besides your work situation what do you like/dislike about your current location?
As far as going back to school… if you have a bunch of money saved and no debt, it ¡might! be worthwhile. I would say depending on your current connections in the professional audio engineering/music world, paying for/going into debt for a degree in that is at best risky AF. This is all assuming you don’t have substantial money/resources as a safety net. If you’re 39 and doing ok and just kinda bored/unhappy I don’t think your chances at being happier grinding out a potential happy existence as an audio engineer are very good. I know it’s demoralizing and maybe I’m too cynical or negative. Good luck to you either way.
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