I find myself wondering if these friends are single, married, or have families. In my case, it was having a wife and child and a strongly engrained sense that a man must make a living for his family that, when I failed to get tenure, forced me to consider other, non-academic possibilities and find myself, now late in life, able to pursue academic interests as a fully self-supporting scholar.

Do I regret pursuing a PhD in anthropology? Not a bit. My life has been immensely enriched in ways unimaginable had I not set out to become a professor.