darcy's bargain

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Darcy, 26, offered this bargain: if I could be 26 again—but at the cost of having to repeat my entire career—would I do it?

I couldn't say "fuck no" fast enough. This surprised her.

"You know how you hate losing an hour's worth of work?" I said. Imagine it was 35,000 hours you had to do over again. I would rather die."

Now six months into her own career, she was, to say the least, alarmed by this. Is youth not worth a little work?

I've since posed Darcy's bargain to many peers, and I haven't found one who's even ambivalent. Eternal youth be damned; no one wants to repeat their careers. The older the friend, the more virulent the "fuck no."

"Absolutely not. No effing way," says Lynn, 59. "I look at people age 20 and think 'You poor bastards!' because of the 40+ years of slavery they will have to put in. And I don't see where doing a repeat with a different career would be one whit better."

Perhaps the real question is for the 26 year olds: why aren't you killing yourselves to avoid your careers?