I started down the path in earnest about 1 year ago. Had been thinking about it for a long time and the impulse kept getting stronger and stronger.

Then I was laid off "due to the economy".

So, despite my deep reservations, I was, for all intents and purposes, forced to do two things with my time and energy as my future unfolded before me this last year:

#1 Do the easiest thing, i.e. Keep looking within the strict, diminishing confines of a dying profession to confirm my suspiscions that this is no normal "downturn" in the economy, and of course its actually worse than that for the profession---> its a STRUCTURAL transformataion that is happening RIGHT NOW.

#2 Do the harder thing, face up to reality (MArch, 12 years experience, licensed) that everything I had invested (time, money, opporunity costs) had already maximized its return (at least for the next 10+ years). So, swallow the old pride (paralyzing ego for architects) and consider and pursue the other options I had been developing for a number of years prior.

I spent the first 4 months or so post lay off to dividing my time about 50/50 between Effort #1 and Effort #2.

After about 4 months reality began to set in and I began spending more and more time and energy on Effort #2.

...and so far I am still nervous about the future but getting less and less so with each passing day, week, month, soon to reach 1 year.

how can I guarantee that this doesn't happen

The fire in the image posted above might as well be labeled "Design", Graphic design, art, photography, writing, or just about anything the average contemporary architect might be inclined to themselves.

Me? I jumped out of the frying pan with enough force to land way past the flames and in the realm of the hard sciences. BUt you've got to plan it hard first and be willing and able to do math and chem and physics and stuff most simple minded aspiring contemporary architects (self styled "modernists") cringe at the thought of. That is one particular reason I chose to do something in the hard sciences, i.e. jump past all the idiots at the bottom of the idiocracy as I can.

The typical, average contemporary architect has less than no leverage in society, either social or economic. Efforts dedicated to the pursuit of subjective and esoteric interests have always been that way in every advanced civilization.

The profession has been actively deconstructing and engaging in hypercritical theory towards society for decades. Now, the profession is being rewarded in like manner, i.e. IT is the target of deconstruction. Oh the Irony!

If only the golden rule and honesty had prevailed...

The entire movement of history, as simply communism’s actual act of genesis — the birth act of its empirical existence — is, therefore, for its thinking consciousness the comprehended and known process of its becoming.

Marx, Private Property and Communism

you've made the right decision. be calm and look forward to your new paradise.

>yawn<

re taards

obviously the OP is IHATEMARXISTS

seriously, gtfo. no one wants to hear your bullshit. please, just let us wallow unbothered in our own ignorance.