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This thread really took off and again, I appreciate all of the honest, quality responses.

Purple, I somewhat fit into that category. My interests vary widely but prior to my "career", I held many jobs that I thoroughly enjoyed. I like your reserve officer suggestion and it is one thing I'm seriously considering, possibly either the Cost Guard or TX ANG. As I stated earlier, I'm not interested in jumping all over the place and don't want to be hasty about this decision at all.

Slick, I fit into the late 20's, 4 years experience category. I'd like to think I have a nice variety of outside of work activities when I'm not busy with the family. The hard part for me is not being miserable at work. I suck it up because I have to and do a good job (or so I'd like to think). What I'm trying to find is something at least a little more enjoyable or meaningful to me. Hard to do obviously in this economy while balancing everything else but that's the point of this thread...I'd like to try.

I've been doing a little more thinking and the idea of working towards a CPA is growing on me. That is something I'll research more, I think.

Thanks again everyone.

Thank you for the thoughtful posts (and PMs), they are truly appreciated. Make no mistake, as I stated in my OP, my responsibility first and foremost is to provide for my family and that much I realize. This is why I'm hesitant to jump all over the place in search of this but that doesn't mean I'm not looking.

pbwalker, I'm in transition to another part of the company I work for, which is less technical and will not require day to day support or odd hours support calls. That will be an improvement in itself.

Thanks again everyone...patiently I wait and listen.

With the wide variety of life experience we have here, I figure this may not be a bad place to ask this question. This is going to be a bit of a mind dump so I apologize in advance.

I have not been really enjoying what I've been doing for a living. I'm starting to hit the point where I want to start making the moves to make a change as I'm having a hard time seeing myself do this for the length of a career.

Logically speaking, I should be very happy with my job. By all intents and purposes, I do have a good job which pays very well, with great benefits and plenty of mobility within the company. In this economy, it's nothing to sneer at. I should be thrilled with what I have and believe me, I am thankful I can provide for my family. I cannot shake the feeling in my stomach though that I am just not happy. Still seems foolish to write out...especially in light of how hard it has been for some to find work but I can't help but feel this way.

This is not a rash decision I've come to but has been several years in the making...here's my other problem and why I come to you for advice. I can't really find a replacement I'm sure about. My degree is in Business with an Information Systems concentration. In college, I had come to realize my desired career was in law enforcement and made some moves to pursue that. I was currently a Civil Engineer major at the time and knew I wasn't going to want to finish with that and eventually chose business as my major. I chose IS because it would require less credits to finish and well I wasn't really going to need it anyways...right?

Yeah...well let's say for a variety of reasons, the law enforcement career path didn't work out of college like I had hoped. Needing a job after college, I basically fell in to what I'm doing now. I've been doing it for about 4 years plus an internship and I've about had enough.

What I'm having trouble with now is figuring out what I want to do as a replacement. I did enjoy my accounting classes in college and nearly majored in that. I've thought about going back and getting the accounting credits needed to become a CPA.

Other than that, I'm pretty much at a loss at figuring out what I'd want to do. I have an interest in law enforcement still but that doesn't pay much at all out here and would be an incredible pay cut. I'm afraid I'll have to let that dream die. A few other career fields seem intriguing but I'm not sure the earnings potential is enough. I've done a lot of research online and with books such as "What Color is Your Parachute?" and it's just not clicking.

I'm not opposed to going back to school or the idea of a complete career change but I don't want to hop around always chasing the idea of something better. I'm open to a pay cut...I just want to find work that intrigues me and allows me to thrive.

Has anybody here gone through the career change process? Was it worth it? How did you choose your alternative career?

Thanks for the place to brain dump...it's been helpful.