I got my Realtor's license without realizing just how much it cost to break into the business. I did it for a year, and then dropped it.
That's the only one I can think of. Typically, I don't learn on spec, I learn as I go, "on the job". So, what I'm learning is directly applicable to what I need to do.
For instance, I recently refurbished an old, cheap desk. I learned to apply laminate with contact cement. It's not hard, but it was my first time doing it. A few weeks later I'm at a counter at a business and they have laminate that is separating from the base, and I knew exactly why. They told me that someone had been hired just a few weeks earlier to repair the same problem, and it happened again. I knew how to fix it right, but I didn't need a job so I just commiserated with them.
I dropped the only frivolities I used to get during the pandemic, and never picked them up again, which were only eating out once a week, and movies occasionally. I also dropped red meat, and processed foods for health reasons around the same time.
I don't feel like I'm suffering because I never really engaged with the consumerist culture to begin with.
I know Wikimedia is getting deserved shit for what they're doing now, but allowing anyone to download the entire shebang means it's far less likely it will be lost in the future.
If PBS wasn't forced to make money they could have done the same with their content. The only reason they needed to control it was because they needed to sell it.
Traffic fatalities in the U.S. have been pegged at 40,000 per year for decades, in spite of the number of drivers going up every year. So, by that broad statistic, things have been improving.
I'm old, I never did more than one interview, and all but one place hired me on the spot when I got an interview. I didn't always make it to an interview, though. I'm not bragging, I'm nothing special, it's more about how things were much different 30+ years ago.
Does that not even happen at fast food, or Walmart anymore? Multiple interviews for them, too?
Might want to tape that one.