My monastic comparison was in reference to long haul trips - NY to Cape Town and back. Empty horizon day after day, only the time change to mark the difference.
If you need to shake your life up a little and get some new perspectives - The French Foreign Legion awaits you. Checks the boxes so to speak. This time next year you could be on patrol in beautiful exotic locales like the arid rocky deserts of Mali, or the wonderfully humid rainforests of French Guiana.
- Learn a new language by exposure (french)
- Possibly get shot at and maybe die
- Learn to never complain or ask questions again
- die of some foreign intestinal disease
- get the clap twice
… and so much more
The above serious replies had some good ideas though and I have nothing to offer otherwise.
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You may want to read the “shore leave” thread 
The the OP, reading too much reddit/theredpill is guaranteed to cause unhappiness…
My suggestion is to volunteer and become interested in helping others. It’s the only thing that ever truly made me happier.
msc would for sure get you some sea time !!! ha ha ha , and some time off in ports too!!
It sounds like he wouldn’t need a lot of upgrades etc. to fulfill the billet aboard msc ship (medical)
let us know what you end up doing toomuchcoffee, Sealift Command will send you to the stcw schools and otherwise get you qualified to sail if a bach. in nursing is enough.
I want to come work where you’re at… you at least have time to shave.
Seriously though, everything c.captain said in his response. I’ve got more autonomy than most Masters in my company, but I fought tooth and nail for 13 years to get on a ship that actually has that autonomy. Otherwise, it might as well be a factory supervisor position.
To put it in medical terms for you, the current trend suggests that the job outlook for American deep sea Mariners is akin to hospice. It’s dying fast unless there’s a massive need for sealift in the near future to remind the country how important we are.
I know exactly what thread you’re talking about from “theredpill”.
To the OP, be a travel nurse. Last I heard is that nurses and nurse practitioners make a grip up in Dutch.
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You would be a fool to go from nursing to being a merchant Mariner. Find a job in the medical area that you like better.
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That’s about as authentic as it gets.
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Life sucks then you die. Or…
I went to an academy in my mid twenties after working in another industry but I was working 100% travel and became a mariner to be able to settle down a little more and have a more stable life. I think it’s easy to go back and forth from one weird travel job to another but hard to go back and forth to 9-5 or normal shift work. The only intense experiences you’ll have at sea are pretty much wondering if you’re going to die senselessly in an unfolding industrial accident, otherwise it’s just a grind for money.
This is a corporate ladder climbing job at sea, the employers are like oilfield services companies and giant shipping lines ffs - faceless multinationals and you’ll need to move up the ladder to maximize pension credits in the union or secure some hope of keeping your job during downturns in non union work, otherwise what’s the point.
It’s not an adventure job any more than working on a pipeline or doing shutdowns at nuclear plants or any other travel heavy high dollar specialty blue collar gig.
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