But without the competitiveness or stress tolerance for academia; without a college degree or years of experience; without the talent or network to write a profitable blog; without the funds to be an entrepreneur or consultant; I feel like I am a bit hopeless. I feel like I am out of options when it comes to a fulfilling, challenging career, at which I would excel, e.g. business strategy, or organizational portfolio management, or something like that.

After working in telecom for the past three years, starting from the bottom as a field surveyor/hole digger and moving into a project management position with portfolio and operations experience, and learning a lot about change management, business analysis, organization design, organizational portfolio management, process mapping and improvement, etc., and using those tools for the betterment of the company when/where I could, I have realized that I love theory, quality, and improvement above the daily slog of creating schedules, supervising crews, or taking a shovel in hand, or walking the rounds (all of which I have done in the past, and would gladly do, if the situation called for it-- I'm definitely not a 'just ideas' guy).

And I have worked with and for people that all they want to do is dig ditches, carry a flashlight, and create schedules, and that is fine-- that is their thing, and their passion; more power to them.

But without the competitiveness or stress tolerance for academia; without a college degree or years of experience; without the talent or network to write a profitable blog; without the funds to be an entrepreneur or consultant; I feel like I am a bit hopeless. I feel like I am out of options when it comes to a fulfilling, challenging career, at which I would excel, e.g. business strategy, or organisational portfolio management, or something like that.

After working in telecom for the past three years, starting from the bottom as a field surveyor/hole digger and moving into a project management position with portfolio and operations experience, and learning a lot about change management, business analysis, organization design, organizational portfolio management, process mapping and improvement, etc., and using those tools for the betterment of the company when/where I could, I have realized that I love theory, quality, and improvement above the daily slog of creating schedules, supervising crews, or taking a shovel in hand, or walking the rounds (all of which I have done in the past, and would gladly do, if the situation called for it, I'm definitely not a 'just ideas' guy).

And I have worked with and for people that all they want to do is dig ditches, carry a flashlight, and create schedules, and that is fine, that is their thing, and their passion; more power to them.

EDIT: I am grateful for the valuable feed back you guys have provided (really gave me pause to think!) But I realize after checking this question the morning after that I have worded it very poorly.

So let me rephrase and see if that helps clarify:

After working in telecom for the past three years, starting from the bottom as a field surveyor/hole digger and moving into a project management position with portfolio and operations experience, and learning a lot about change management, business analysis, organization design, organizational portfolio management, process mapping and improvement, etc., and using those tools for the betterment of the company when/where I could, I have realized that I love theory, quality, and improvement above the daily slog of creating schedules, supervising crews, or taking a shovel in hand, or walking the rounds (all of which I have done in the past, and would gladly do, if the situation called for it-- I'm definitely not a 'just ideas' guy).

And I have worked with and for people that all they want to do is dig ditches, carry a flashlight, and create schedules, and that is fine-- that is their thing, and their passion; more power to them.

I have found that my passion and focus is at the top level, in improving the organization, in picking just the right projects to fit the organization's values and goals, in looking at how an organization can more efficiently perform some action. And I realize that doing each of those things involves ordinary, mundane, and boring actions that might not be the most appealing, but, big picture in mind, end-goal in mind, I would gladly suffer Powerpoint macros and Gantt charts because I know that my presentation has impact and value, and will help the business and its workers.

I see it in general terms: Quality Improvement, Organizational Portfolio Management, Project Management, Business Analysis - to me, regardless of industry, each of those is the same thing at any company, once you learn the specifics of the company/industry or have the background knowledge of 'this is how we make/sell/buy the widgets and these are the widget-makers'

My issue is this: knowing that that is what I want to do, and is what I love (the abstract, the theory, but both with a grounding in the practical fundamentals): where is a good fit for me, when I don't have the experience, time, or money to get to where I can make those levels of decisions? Am I stuck with moving from industry to industry, starting at the bottom each time? This is the hopelessness I feel, the continual unfulfillment-- we've only got so many years, and you can't have five 20+ year careers.