Careers are not cast in stone. Some people do change their careers if they realize that there's something else that they'd really rather be doing with their lives.
I've met an artist who became a doctor, a lawyer who became a stockbroker, a software developer who became a full-time professional musician, a professor who started a hedge fund, etc.
On the other hand if you are changing field because you are unhappy with your current situation it is relevant to ascertain that your current field is part/cause of the problem.
Per Hyrum's law, someone will rely on any given behavior. So, if you choose backwards compatibility, it becomes harder for the committee to evolve the language over time.
The path of breaking changes can be made less painful, and does not, necessarily, invalidate all the code that is already written.
With that being said, the problem right now is not the decision of keeping backwards compatibility or not, but the fact that the standard should be explicit about it, so people know what to expect.
Changing hobbies is not the same as trying to change what you did for a living for the past decade.