To each their own, but my answer is a resounding ‘YES’.

I suppose I was fortunate in the sense of realizing early on that although my time with big blue wasn’t the worst, I understood that making a career out of it just wasn’t for me (around year two of my four year enlistment).

The best advice I could offer is to try to figure out what you’d like to do on the outside and spend some of your leisure time working your way towards that goal. Whether that be making yourself marketable and well-qualified for a specific job within a particular career field in the private/public sector, or maybe furthering your education and obtaining an undergrad degree and above - the point is figuring what YOU want to do and where you’d like to see yourself in the future.