Have you ever given up your current life(lifestyle) to start anew?

[Sunnydruid]

@title

Have you ever decided you weren't happy or wanted to try something different, be that a new city or a new career or other things, and actually went through with that change? Maybe you moved cross country, maybe you moved across the world, maybe you had a completely new change in career, maybe other life changing things?Hell maybe you just started excercising and you've dropped Xlbs! Share!

Myself am planning on moving from Philly to California (going to move in with my best friend and his wife who are already out there), however I have no job lined up due to the distance factor turning employers off among a few other reasons. But I doubt it will take longer than a month or two to get and start a new job. Savings are in check, place to stay out there in check the only thing is selling my stuff back in philly and driving out there. And of course buying new things out there.

[Ciddy]

Any starting over I did would be a new career. I've had the same circle of friends since college. My friends and family all live in this area (family on both sides has been here for a very long time...I can show you old black and white photos of dudes with epic beards standing in front of log cabins and holding shotguns), so I wouldn't want to move a great distance away.

I'm fairly happy with my career right now and have no immediate plans to leave it, but some of my friends and I have dicked around with the idea of starting our own business. I'd drop my current job in a heartbeat if the business with my friends ever gets off the ground. But right now, those plans are just in the "you know, it'd be cool if...." stage, and "it'd be cool" doesn't pay my bills, so yeah. I'm not going to make that jump until we actually get moving to the point that I could have at least a reasonable income from it.

[Darsithis]

I have not. I've been a software engineer since I was a teenager, though I recently got promoted to product manager, a somewhat fancy title that really means I'm responsible for both lead development and development of a product.

My partner, however, has. 4 years ago he quit his job in ophthalmology, went back to school, studied to be an accountant (graduating summa cum laude), and starts at Ernest & Young in just a few months.

[theWocky]

I'm pretty much doing this in about 6~9 months or so.

Crime in South Africa has just become too bad.

At 44, I'm selling up my house, everything and business of 20 years, moving to New Zealand.

Never worked for anyone before for longer than a year, so it's going to be a scary experience.

Not to mention that I will have to rent / have a mortgage again as the South African currency is so bad, I won't be able to buy a house.

[Pony Soldier]

The biggest change I ever did in my life was cut out soda. The next change I want to do is cut out sugar entirely like instead of cookies and cake, eat a fruit. It's proving rather difficult though.

[Independent voter]

I would like to start a new lifestyle but starting over seems so overwhelming. I guess I'm not unhappy enough to motivate me to change. And once I did change how do I know I'd be happen then? Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, etc.

[Karrotlord]

I was homeless twice and moved 5 times in the last 6 years. Does that count?