THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: Professor Snuggles on 28 Dec 2009, 17:39
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I am wondering what the average age is for someone realizing that they aren't going to be a famous novelist, great musician, etc. What point you were at when you decided that fuck it, you were gonna get an office job, make enough money to live and maybe a little more, or even a lot more, and that would be it. Also wondering what made you give up, how dissatisfied you are with the career you have, if you are dissatisfied, and whether or not you're still kind of trying a little.
Also feel free to brag if you are completely living your dreams and doing everything you ever wanted to do.
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Yeaaaah young and excited n' livin' da dream.
(poor)
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I want to be able to fly.
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I have not yet given up on my dream. One day they will be able to make me a cyborg!
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What about serious responses, guys? I am actually really interested in this question right now.
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Perhaps some people haven't given on their dreams?
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I quit tattooing, uh... I don't know, when I was 27ish or so in order to go back to school and do something respectable. Though I have thrown a few here and there on people I know, the shop got closed around 99? Yeah, that's about right.
A decade-ish later I'm thinking about giving up respectable and going back to being a completely non-respectable scumbag again.
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even since i was really small i had this kind of bizarre obsession with birds. my dream #1 ever since i could remember was to become an ornithologist and study birds forever. i guess i gave up on that dream when i started applying to universities during my senior year of high school and realized maybe my grades weren't good enough to be a science major. i enrolled at the university of guelph in sociology on a complete whim with absolutely no clue as to what i wanted to do with my life and somewhere in those four years became really fascinated with rehabilitative justice. now i've revised my plans slightly and i'm trying to get into school next year to do my master's in criminology so i can have some kind of career in that area. if i don't get in come this spring, i guess that'll officially be the point where i give up on dream #2.
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I just want to fly (hang gliders, planes, etc) and walk up mountains. I've never been able to keep a career goal for more than a few months, which is why I dropped out of college and haven't started university yet. I've decided to try to study what has consistently interested me, and something I won't be completely incompetent in, and possibly take a masters in a fairly different, but related field.
One day they will be able to make me a cyborg!
One day 'they' will be me, hopefully.
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I was probably around 16 or 17 when I realized that I was never going to get into game design because I had no actual interest in programming. The shit put me to sleep. Other than that, I'm not actually sure I've had any real "dreams" career wise.
As of right now I'd say the best thing that could happen for me is becoming a house husband. Can't think of any career I honestly want to keep up with as a career right now.
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OK. I can be serious.
I never really had a single all-consuming dream to work towards. When I was in High School, I thought physics was really cool and thought I might like to study it and be a physicist. But I gave up on that after realizing I have no aptitude for higher math. So I fell back on my great love, history. I thought maybe I would be a history professor. But then one year one of my professors (later to become a favorite) introduced himself by rattling off all of the places where he'd been, and I realized that I could wind up an academic carpet-bagger, bouncing around like a pinball trying to get tenure. So I said fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck THAT!
I then had zero clue what to do. I was despairing at having to work in some damn office with no purpose other than to make money for a corporation. Then my current job fell in my lap. My employer was on campus, I interviewed with them and got a job offer on the spot. In a field I had never thought of but that suits me perfectly. I've been there for nine years now. Now my dream is to be the best I possibly can at what I do.
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I haven't given up on anything yet, but I'm only 22. I'm at uni studying to be a game programmer, and I sideline in stand up comedy. Livin' the dream, fellas.
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I'm living the dream. I mean, life could be better, sure; it could be an awful lot worse too, though.
When my Roy Batty moment comes, I've had enough moments of marvel to look back and be happy with my lot.
Edit: I'm 23 and a service person.
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my dreams are basically to hold some sort of job down while i play music. im in music school right now.
i have no idea where this is gonna lead me though.
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I'm studying to be an architect. There are so many things I want to do in my field, and I think I have the opportunity to do them. Among making amazing buildings, I want to be involved in Architecture for Humanity and start up a Sydney Chapter, if there isn't one by the time I graduate. I think I would also like to work overseas, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to sell out and work for a big developer.
I just finished my undergraduate degree, and will complete my masters after working for a year or so. So right now i'm looking for a full-time job to help me get to right kind of experience I need to ace my masters. Also I'm getting involved with student activism in architecture and trying to get somewhere with that.
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I don't think I've ever really felt like I had a dream or a calling. I mostly just want to be happy and I'm not particularly good at it.
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oh, yeah, outside of career being happy is about it. I think I'm doing a mostly good job at that.
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I think part of it is that well, I dream really, really big, to the point where I'm not really sure if that stuff counts. The things I want to happen cannot happen basically by definition. So, I gave up pretty much as early as I can really remember. For example, it'd be pretty awesome if everybody liked me, but I learned that it ain't happening pretty early.
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When I was in junior high I wanted to be a fighter pilot. All my teachers discouraged me from doing so as they said I wasn't smart enough to be accepted into the RAAF. I like to think that I was smart enough, but it turns out that my eyesight is bad enough that I wouldn't get in anyway. So that's dream number 1 down at 16 years. Then I thought, that as I like writing that I'd want to be some kind of writer (I was particularly interested in script writing and I wanted to develop a tv series). I did the highest level of English it's possible to do in high school and got 98% for the television script I wrote for my major work. I got into uni to do a Bachelor of Arts - Creative Writing and did that for the first semester (dream number 2 died here at about 19). I took Psychology as one of my electives and fell in love with that subject so I changed my majors and spent the next four years studying Psychology at one of the worst unis in Sydney which it turns out had the best Psych faculty in the state. After finishing my undergrad I applied for post grad but did not get in. I did a make up year to get my marks up (which I did) but again, was rejected. I've applied again and will hear back in January. If I don't get in this time I will probably never get in so that'll be dream number 3 dying at age 23. I think I'll be ok with it though, I'm still unsure as to whether I even want to go back to uni anyway.
Dream 4 (my plan b) is to do a small business course at a technical college and open a comic book shop. We'll see how that goes.
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I am not giving up my dreams of having a unicorn you can't make me.
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I'm really interested to read everyone's responses but I don't have time right now, I'll have to come back and read them some other time.
Me, I'm about spitting distance from a full-time teaching position as a professor in an art school. My primary goal for quite some time has been developing games, and hey look that's what I do.
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I want to be a musician. :( Barring that, working on other people's instruments to build or repair is pretty cool and I've gotten a bit of experience in having to fix everyone else's guitar but mine.
I also want a tail. A big, long fluffy black and white tail. I'm completely serious on this one.
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I was 21. I thought all my life I was going to be an elementray school teacher.
Then I went to school, realized teaching is 20% about the kids and 80% political bullshit, met a ton of people with teaching degrees that weren't teaching, and decided not to do it.
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I used to want to be a teacher until I realized that putting up with such insane amounts of bullshit in high school drove me up a fucking wall when I was 15, having to deal with it all over again when I was all growed up would make me put someone's head through a wall. Probably mine own.
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I don't know. I've never really wanted to be any sort of famous profession as far back as I can remember. I do want to start a band, but I don't care if it goes anywhere. If anything it would be a launching point for my cousin since he's the better musician. I did want to be a journalist once, but after taking a class I got really bored of it
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In all seriousness, I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid and so I went to art school, moreso because I wanted to teach art than be an actual artist. I decided to skip getting my license so I could have some life outside of school for a bit and now I'm going to go back to get my license. I haven't quite given up yet.
But before that I wanted to be a vet. That dream was dashed when I shadowed a vet when I was 16 and watch a cat get neutered and found out I wouldn't really have the stomach for that. Also now I realize I would be an emotional wreck anytime someone brought in a pet to be put down, so yeah, there's that.
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I think I gave up on the dream of being an amazing god of science and mathematics maybe three or four years ago? Realized I didn't give a much of a damn about my classes but that everything else I was doing was pretty cool.
I got into cooking in a big way but recently semi-gave up on my dream of being a baker in the yukon when I told the guy I couldn't do the heavy lifting involved at the bakery on account of my shitty knees.
Now I do not have an office job but I might go in for such in the interest of continued existence. Maybe I will rekindle and old dream or come up with a new one first, though, but I'm not sure.
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The first year of University taking science was enough to completely discourage me from ever wanting to be a doctor. When my sister wasn't accepted into Med school I gave up that dream completely.
Right now I'm hoping to be a teacher. The only reason I graduated was because I had some seriously awesome teachers who helped me out. My biggest problem with teachers is that when they don't care it affects the student so much. If your History teacher hates his job, you're not going to enjoy his class. I enjoy teaching and I think that things are going to work out. I'm seeing how long that dream is going to last for.
Honestly though, I have more dreams about my future asides from work. I want a room filled only with books, a cat that I'm not allergic to, and a house close to the beach. The plan is not to give up on that one.
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I was 19 and I was going to be a pharmacist. I am too lazy for the schooling, basically, so I switched to sociology, which I fell in love with but you need a minor or a few years of a foreign language. I had a semester left with a minor in management communication when I had too many panic attacks and hated everything and everyone and now I am a corporate drone at a stupid call center for a pretty large bank. I hate it. Even if I go back and finish my degree, I'll have a totally bullshit job that I could have already had without a degree but with way less debt.
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I wouldn't say there was a single spot where my dream died. It's more like in Mario 3 where you'd get a mushroom or a feather and then you'd run afoul of a Koopa and you'd get downsized, except that it never stops happening.
I wanted to be a rock star, then I wanted to be a session muso, then a working muso, and then I trained and have been kind-of-but-not-really successful as a sound engineer.
I guess I still have dreams (I toyed with the idea of going to law school and maybe becoming involved with politics a fair bit this year) but they're more wistful "what-ifs" than anything substantial. Right now any work-related dreams I have have taken the backseat to personal dreams like traveling and relationships of all kinds and learning for the sake of learning. I guess in a way that's a sort of giving up? I don't know, I feel like I can resume my attempts at becoming a totally awesome engineer (or whatever I want to do professionally) when I've seen the world.
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My childhood dream was to be a ninja turtle, so that dream was crushed around age 15 or so.
My real dream though is kind of undefined career wise. I just want to use my engineering background to help others. Originally I had planned to go into prosthetics but had trouble finding grad school professors interested in working with me. I will get back on that once my fiance finishes med school and we become financially stable. So I haven't quite given up on that dream quite yet.
Ultimately I want to live a long happy life with another person and raise a healthy, successful family. I'm getting married in a few months and kids are planned in the future. This is one dream I don't intend on ever giving up on.
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I never really had big dreams, to be honest. I was never that great at anything. I'm in college right now but I have no fucking idea what I'm going to do with a degree in Political Science. I feel like maybe I should be doing things that interest me and make me happy, like work at a radio station or do some volunteer work, but I feel like I need a plan and I feel the sand going through the hourglass. I'm 23, in school on this one path, and I feel like I'm stuck. But I don't know where I'd jump to if I had the opportunity to pull stakes and move.
Really, I had two real dreams that I remember, one was to be game designer, and the other was to have a family. I had the former back when I was a kid and only thought about video games and had no idea what goes into them. A designer has to have a background that goes beyond design philosophy - you have to be able to code, or you have to be a decent artist, etc. I'm not artistic, my math skills are basic, and programming schools shed the majority of their students every year despite all their applicants being 10x as good as I am at math and logic. The latter, well, I think it really just has to do with this doomed feeling of uncertainty. I'm so frantic about it internally that I feel like I could live an average life taking an average paycheck at a not-very-interesting job in a nowhere town and as long as my life felt stable in some way and I had people who were dependable and stuck just as much as I was I'd take it.
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I suppose I have dreams. I'm still only 15 so I should have them. I used to want to design games and things of that nature but then I realize how much work that really is and how boring programming really is so fuck that.
I have little to no ambition in school, if my grades are low Cs or above and just passing in Math, I am fine. I try to do better than that but not if it involves too much effort. I would, someday, like to open a small cafe or restaurant, perhaps with a used book and/or record store attached. That could just be the stereotypical indie teenager who wants to hang out in coffee shops all day, I don't know. I would really enjoy doing this, I think but I am still young and I guess I have a little while more to make my mind up.
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ITT Game Designer seems like a really cool career until you find out what Game Designers actually do
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*ahem*
Excuse me, Dovey.
So! This could be interesting.
When I was little I wanted to be a gymnast or a tap dancer, but my parents never let me take lessons so that was dashed pretty early on. After that all I wanted to be was a model but honestly I looked like a scruffy little shit so that was never going to work.
I grew up a bit and got into computers in a largish way, building and modding them and hand coding websites and doing spots of graphic design for my friend's LJs and the like. I applied to do IT at University after school - and I was accepted at my last choice - but the campus was too far away for me to afford to travel there every day.
Instead I went to TAFE (like a community college) and did a half year IT course as a bridge to get into Web Design. When I realised I couldn't afford to do another course I gave up and applied for receptionist jobs. I worked as a temp doing data entry for a little while until I landed what I thought could turn out to be my dream job - a receptionist at an IT company.
After a month of full-time work I was fired because I couldn't figure out how to work the phones. Instead I got a job at Subway and realised that, oh hey, food service is kind of fun!
Whilst working in different cafes, bars and function centres, I completed my Certificate in Hospitality Supervision at TAFE and decided that I wanted to make coffee for a living. After a few years behind the coffee machine I became pretty skilled and ended up being a barista at a tiny, excellent espresso bar in Sydney. Dream achieved!
(Also in those years I did end up doing a little bit of photographic modelling so that's that dream fulfilled too, I guess. I also had a side project of becoming a bit of a photographer but after assisting with a couple of shoots and meeting lots of struggling photographers, I realised it was probably not going to be much of a successful venture.)
I was actually on track to becoming the manager of a new espresso/cocktail bar my boss wanted to open, but the long hours and the tiring work and lack of holiday pay etc were getting to me. My favourite co-worker left and everything turned into a giant mess and that was enough for me. I decided to apply, once more, for office jobs.
This was about seven months ago. After a month I was beginning to lose hope in finding something since I am not really trained or up to date with officey things. Then I applied to an ad asking 'DO YOU LIKE COMPUTER GAMES?'
The position was for an admin assistant in a company that created online games and slot machines, but they were splitting up to work on a new project - a giant fantasy card game/rpg. I was hideously excited at the interview and almost wet my pants when I got the job.
When I started I was doing your regular admin stuff, helping the Director's PA, cleaning the kitchen, getting coffees. When the Production Manager saw how well I was doing and had a chat to me he realised that I'm a bit of a gamer myself and my job shifted to focus more on the fantasy game side of things.
Next month I am being promoted to Assistant Production Manager and will be getting more into the writing/game design side of things. So basically this is the best thing ever and I would never have dreamed of being able to do something so cool and get paid for it.
So uh. Don't really dream of being in something big and maybe you'll get lucky like me I guess.
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I am hoping either we get some sort of coffee shop here or when I move out to bigger and better places, I can get a job as a barista or something in that field.
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Well, I've been cooking for the last 3 years, which makes it my longest running field of job experience. Frustrating thing is that it's really ruined a lot of my passion for cooking, and coming into 2009 I was next in line to have my red seal paid for by the company I was working for, salary position upon completion. In February we had a change of Chefs, and the new guy had basically been brought in to clean house and replace the experienced staff with 16 year old kids, so my development package was basically handed off to a kid they hired off the street with no experience, and in may i was fired in a fashion that I could have gone to WCB and really shaken the milks but I was too angry to think about it clearly. So now I am working at an irish pub with little motivation and almost no real room for upward mobility trying to figure out what I want to do. Film school has always been a pipe dream of mine since I do not come from a wealthy family and I am already struggling to pay off my first student loan which was squandered on useless film studies at the local college. So, I suppose I was 21 when my dreams got squashed the most recent time.
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17
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What about serious responses, guys? I am actually really interested in this question right now.
Why don't you share, then?
Also, could people share what they're doing now? Curious about DonInKansas (cos I'm thinking about teaching), ackblom, and plumbob78. Don't mean to single you guys out, and I understand if people are intentional about not-talking about it since it's the internet. Just saying--me personally, I'd be curious to hear about it in the context of this thread.
I think I'm in between the time in which people have dreams (in the sense of specific aspirations far-removed from their current situations) and the time in which people end up having to make meaningful decisions that may preclude those dreams, so, I guess I can't really say what I'll do yet.
Actually, I might not have ever had career-specific dreams? Honestly, the only thing that I've known since I was young is that I want to raise children. I'll have to think about this more.
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When I was at school I wanted to be a vet. That dream lasted up until I was about 16 and I went to a veterinary surgery for work experience and I realised how gory it would be. It was around that time I also realised how lazy I was and obviously didn't care about it enough to work hard enough to try ad get the marks a medical student would need. I don't think that dream ever got crushed or anything, but I just stopped wanting to do it.
For a while after that I wanted to do hospitality stuff, and did that in the last 2 years of high school and even looked into applying to hospitality schools. But at the same time I had this idea of a job that I wanted to do that I had no idea about how to go about it. It was essentially a job at an editing house, but it seemed like one of those things where you had to be in the right place at the same time, so I didn't really think that much about it apart from applying to uni for Creative Writing degrees.
Some things I learned after a year and a half at uni were: I liked the creative writing stuff rather than the communications stuff in my original degree; doing creative writing classes made me not want to write any more; linguistics is awesome; for what I wanted to do with my life, uni is not going to help much; going to uni seemed more like something I had to do, rather than something I wanted to do. So I stopped going earlier this year.
I am now living in Sydney and working in a cafe; it's not a necessarily well paying job, but the people who are there are nice and I am happy. Every now and then (and especially when I was at uni) I feel like I am wasting time here and should be going to uni to get a job somewhere before I get too old to go to uni, but I think at the moment I am just happy to be happy. If I start getting stir crazy again and really want to learn linguistics again then I will either go to TAFE or apply to one of the many unis or correspondence courses available. But at the moment at the ripe old age of 22, my dream is to just be happy for a while.
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Oh yeah. I forgot about the year I studied as a mature age entrant part-time so I could get into a teaching degree at the Uni I was working at.
I got excellent results and got in but made it six weeks into the actual degree before I had a complete breakdown and quit in a sobbing mess.
I try to forget that ever happened.
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When I was fairly young, I watched a bunch of Law & Order, and really wanted to be a state prosecutor. Before that, I had wanted to be, at various times: a bull rider, a country and western star, a professional baseball player, and a NASCAR driver.
Though, around the age of 12, I started taking an intense interest in movies. Got my first camera for my 13th birthday, and have wanted to be a filmmaker ever since then. I worked my ass off in high school and ended up directing three plays, writing and directing 12 short films, and completing one feature-length film before graduating. I am 18-years-old now, and made the admittedly risky decision of staying away from college and film school, and really doing something useful with the next four years of my life. Yet, that payed off about two months after graduating when I was commissioned to make a feature-length documentary over the course of 2010 which will be hitting the film festival circuit in early 2011.
So, I am definitely living my dream so far. All I want to do is make a living off of making films, and be able to entertain some people. I'm going to be making a relatively large amount of money for my age making a movie, and that money will allow me to find the time to secure financing for the other projects I am working on. I don't think I could really ask for anything better.
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*ahem*
Excuse me, Dovey.
I did not know about all that advancement you had done, I was under the impression you were still doing Admin Assistant stuff. That is really cool though and I am incredibly happy for you!
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What about serious responses, guys? I am actually really interested in this question right now.
Why don't you share, then?
It's hard for me to say, honestly. I haven't really "given up" yet, there are still a variety of things I could work towards and maybe even be successful at! I have realized more and more that if I do want to do anything in the creative world, it is going to be just as if not more important that I have the right connections than that I am actually really good at writing, which is still of interest to me. When I was way younger I really wanted to be a journalist, but I'm kinda done with that dream, just because journalism doesn't exist in quite the same way anymore. I could start a music blog or something, but that's about it.
I just don't expect to be incredibly successful like I used to. I am not going to be using my philosophy degree for anything that isn't philosophy, you know? And I'm not going to do anything in the realm of philosophy except be a professor. I'm not going to be the next Nietszche. I won't be the next Kerouac. I probably wont even get to write comic books, or movies, or any of that nonsense. But given this, I am currently thinking I'd like to do something in the foodservice industry, either running a restaurant, going to culinary school, or, my current main desire, running a bar. I think I could really enjoy running a bar. Think I'd even be pretty good at it, despite the low margin of success.
I honestly think the big thing for me is going to be getting over my fear of failure, because I don't have to give up on any of my dreams as long as I don't try, which so far I really haven't. Figure the bar would be an easy place to start, because somehow financial failure is less intimidating/scary to me than personal failure.
So yeah. Thinking a lot about it, not giving up quite yet.
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Something I see in your post that worries me is it having phrases like "I won't get to". I think one of the quickest routes to failure is waiting for permission. It seems like a lot of people waste away their time waiting. Waiting for a record producer to hear their music. Waiting for someone to hire them to write a screenplay. Waiting for someone to publish their book. Waiting for someone to acknowledge their existence.
If you want to write screenplays, then do it. Don't wait for anyone to give you permission. There's a wealth of information on how to do it on the internet. Final Draft is easily piratable, and you don't even need that. All you need is a drive to get it done. And once you're done with that, don't wait around. Write your comic book, open your bar. You don't have any reason to wait. No one's going to give you permission.
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I could be wrong, but I think, oftentimes, if not necessarily in Kieffer's post, people say "get to do x" and they really mean "get to do x and achieve success with it, financial or otherwise." Cos if you want to do something for the sake of doing it, you'd do it. However, I think for people who don't desire those things (or even any particular thing) that much, then the fact that success isn't certain or guaranteed is enough to dissuade them from putting in the time and effort. And frankly, this is good--they'd probably regret it if they forced themselves to do it despite their misgivings.
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It's always easier to decide not to do something. But I doubt there are many people you view as successful who put things off due to fear of failure.
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I mean I've got multiple drafts of multiple screenplays started. I am saying the success thing.
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What do you think is stopping you from completing them? Story problems? Boredom? Fear of what others will think of the product?
Sorry if I'm coming off as a condescending dick in this discussion. It is not my intention. I just know that this thought process has really helped myself. I've always liked this from Robert Rodriguez's 10 Minute Film School:
The moment you think about that you want to be a fillm-maker you're that. Make yourself a business card that says you're a film-maker, pass them out to your friends, soon as you get that over with and you've got it in your mind that you're one you'll be one, you'll start thinking like one. Don't dream about being a film-maker, you are a film-maker.
I used to just sit around. When people asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I told them I was an aspiring filmmaker. My plan was to go to film school, get a film degree, and then it'd be easy riding from there. Surely someone would want to hire me if I had a film degree. And then they'd let me into their world, and I'd start making movies. Really simple.
Then I got realistic about it, stopped referring to myself as an "aspiring filmmaker" and started making films. And I think it has really helped me.
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Then I got realistic about it
lol
I don't mean to be rude; rather, I think this is pretty clever, esp. since I imagine you (and most other people) probably thought that you were being realistic when you were trying to get a film degree first.
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The difference is, when I thought film school was realistic, I knew nothing about the film industry.
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I'm studying math and I like it so far. I don't know what I want to do afterwards. I want to be less lazy.
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I'm really not sure what I want to be. When I was younger I thought maybe engineering, but then writing, and then computing. Started a computing degree, thought I'd wind up as a programmer, got a job in tech support to pay bills & 10 years later I'm still doing it. It's not a bad job for someone who loves computers.
I have a bunch of creative ideas for music, stories & video games that I am slowly fleshing out as I can, and I am not sure if my dream of creating something with them will ever die as much as seem more and more unlikely until I am lying in some hospital bed thinkin' "ah, so. I guess I never did write that story properly, huh."
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Then my current job fell in my lap. My employer was on campus, I interviewed with them and got a job offer on the spot. In a field I had never thought of but that suits me perfectly. I've been there for nine years now. Now my dream is to be the best I possibly can at what I do.
If you're being cagey because you don't want to get too much into your personal life that's cool, but I'm wondering what exactly your job is.
Also, until this thread I didn't realize there are a few newer people in their 30s. At some point there will be enough forumites older than I am that you guys will stop referring to me as the old guy.
got a job in tech support to pay bills & 10 years later I'm still doing it. It's not a bad job for someone who loves computers.
Definite YMMV. I love computers to an almost sexual degree, and I disliked working as a computer tech so much that I don't list those couple of years on my resume because I don't want employers to ask me about it.
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Don't worry Joe. You'll always be the old guy to me.
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I was literally responding to your post when you posted! woo cross-posting
it turns out that my eyesight is bad enough that I wouldn't get in anyway. So that's dream number 1 down at 16 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfKJ6aVyxGU
(in case you haven't seen the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Miss_Sunshine#Plot )
ITT Game Designer seems like a really cool career until you find out what Game Designers actually do
That goal worked out well for me because I didn't actually have that goal until after being obsessed with computer art and programming. So it was one of those "well I'm really interested in doing work with these skills and oh hey that professor says I can use those skills to develop games." (it was this guy (http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/) btw)
And actually that's reminding me, at the time I took his class I was studying biology. I guess you could say I stopped pursuing my dream of being a biologist, except I never really had that dream (was studying biology because my mom wanted me to be a doctor.)
I know Harry also studied biology and is now doing something different. Conversely, yelley studied biology too and she's a pharmaceutical researcher, was that her dream?
I told them I was an inspiring filmmaker.
psst the word you want is spelled "aspiring." "Inspiring" is a different word. Maybe this one needs to be added to doninkansas' avatar.
I am lazy.
I think expecting to work hard is probably the most important thing my parents drilled into me. Although, I can be pretty lazy about things that don't interest me, I guess I'm just lucky that among the things that interest me is working on the computer so hard that I forget to eat.
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What if he really meant inspiring?
I hope he didn't. I hate films that try to be inspiring.
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I'm finding that giving up on my dreams is a continuous and ongoing process, but I guess it started when I was around sixteen or seventeen. Fortunately, as you get older you also learn adaptability and you also get a better sense of what you can achieve, and more importantly how to achieve it.
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I made the background on my desktop with the slogan "Ideas are easy, Implementation is hard." That's a useful slogan to remember.
I'm finding that giving up on my dreams is a continuous and ongoing process
oh god I love my current sig quote
DILEMMA
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Too late.
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I think hair-brained schemes run in my family, here's one of mine.
There's this cute little cafe in the corner of a block near Broadway in sydney that is right near where I went to uni. I've never been inside, It always looks pretty empty. It's a fairly large corner block, with a tiny door and two tiny windows and an awning. Next to is is a cute staircase which leads to 1st and 2nd storey residential. It's on a small street behind a main road in a slightly forgotten/inbetween part of the city.
I have always thought running a cafe would be pretty awesome, and I am absolutely in love with place. Arthur and I speculate about it sometimes. It would be dark and cool inside, part of the local scene, very unassuming. We'd have live music and support the local community. There'd be free wifi for all customers, and a space comfortable enough to hang around in all afternoon. Above it we could have a home office, a comfortable living. If I'm an architect, I could even work from there or have my own practice!
All I have to do now is pray that the building lasts the next 5-10 years for us to buy it.
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I can feel the tl;dr building already. :-P (correction EPIC tl;dr)
Anyway, the dream hasn't died quite yet, but it certainly has morphed along the way.
Background:
Coming out of high school, I really didn't have any specific inclinations. I went straight into university undeclared and drifted into Physics because I like science and have a decent head for math. But I didn't do shit as far as the work went, so even though I'd pick up and understand everything perfectly well from lectures (when I went, having nobody else being responsible for me getting up on cold mornings was not a good idea), not doing homework really does have consequences beyond just not getting those points. So basically after 5 years of futzing around, I only had 2 1/2 years worth of the degree.
So for work I drifted into retail, where I was pretty good at my job, reaching assistant manager at each company. I overall enjoyed it, and I have to say it was really useful with overcoming a crushing shyness I had when I started (also helped by a required speech class at uni -- I really did get a lot out of the general education classes). But after 9 years at Borders books, I became too expensive to keep under a new austerity program to pay off crushing debt, so they found an excuse to fire me. I'd really like that to be the last of retail for me, but it's the most likely fallback job for the foreseeable future.
The Dream:
This came late for me. During uni, I read a lot of Star Trek novels along with some other sci-fi and fantasy, and at one point I thought "I can do this" so I started writing a Star Trek Novel. Not fanfiction, this was intended from the start to be something publishable by the company. Soon after, I discover the various science fiction magazines, buying and reading about 120 (with about 1000 short stories in them) of them when I ran across a box of them at a charity book sale. The same thought hit, "I can do that" so I started writing a story. I had also just gotten online, so I was able to discover a couple of writing communities where I learned how and where to submit my stories. I also found out that you had to already be a published writer to write Star Trek books, so that part of the dream got put on indefinite hold.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had a vague interest in music production. I had played sax in high school, and with money from my first job I picked an old Yamaha DX7 and a 4-track cassette recorder and subscribed to Recording magazine for a while. I've fiddled around with this for years and now can do decent recordings to my computer, but I'd hardly call myself a musician or an engineer. This becomes relevant later, though.
So I wrote, intending my work all along for professional publication, but I still never had that burning desire that drives other writers to get up at 5am because that's the only way they can find a free hour to write between job and family commitments. But I learned the craft fairly well, and I'd say that when I do sit down and write something, it will be at a professionally competitive standard. I also went to the big sci-fi conventions that have a lot of writers, so I've met, hung out, and have become good friends with people at all levels of the industry, from talented aspirants, to award winning pros and editors. I have the kinds of connections that most people could only drool in envy over. But for the most part, I recognize that I'm mostly talking a good game, so until I feel I've committed myself to writing something worthy, I don't pester these people for favors I can't yet use.
What this has done, however, is allowed me to observe friends who have reached every stage of the dream. Some have already "made it" and are making a living off of their writing, others are being published, but still need a day job and/or a spouse to fill in the rest of their needs. Some have achieved publication, but then faded away again when their works failed to sell enough. One close friend was successfully selling TV scripts, comic scripts to Marvel and DC, and a novel, but burned out so much on the politics of the industry that she dropped it all and only writes for fun now. Most of my friends have been writing and submitting for years without much success, and just drift away from the dream eventually.
So I'm brutally realistic about what "success" in my field means. But I still think I can do it, and the serial novel I've been posting on the boards here is an attempt to reboot the spark inside (getting back to that this next week, btw). One thing about writing is that it never is too late to start or restart. Many of the writers who have won the "Best New Writer" in science fiction/fantasy have been in their 30s or 40s. So this is the main answer to the OP.
Another answer is that I've discovered that helping other people achieve their dreams really means a lot to me. For a while, I had my own fantasy fiction webzine, and finding the right stories to publish out of the hundreds of submissions was immensely satisfying to me, particularly when I found out it was the first sale for that writer. I'm very good at writing, but I feel now that my true calling is as an editor. I understand story at a level that has led a lot of my professional writing friends to seek my advice when they're stuck. The problem is that I have no idea how to break into this side of the field without the kind of credentials it would take years to build.
But this leads me to the next stage. When I was fired at Borders, it gave me the free time to help one of my coworkers with her music. So I took classes at the local access TV station, made a show featuring her and her music, and now I'm not only continuing the show with new artists to showcase, I'm in school again taking more classes where I can maybe make something in this field my career. The dream would be making music videos, but even if I'm just a camera guy on the local newscast, I think I'll still do what I can to help local artists out with live clips, video features, music videos, whatever.
Finally (finally!), it sounds corny, but I try to be the person who believes in other peoples' dreams. It's sometimes very lonely wanting something that most people around you don't understand, and sometimes all it takes is for a friend to ask what you're working on and can they see it to provide the motivation to take that next step.
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When I was younger, probably below the age of 10 I wanted to be an astronaut. Somewhere along the line I sort of lost interest in it when I realized it took a lot of work.
My next dream (when I was about 14) was to be a comedian and/or actor. In fact I chose the high school I went to because their improv troupe did a presentation during their open day. But I never got accepted despite trying out all four years; never got into a school play, ended up joining theater tech and meeting the people who would be my friends ever since. But by the age of 17 or 18 I was pretty resigned to the fact that I'd never really be an actor, simply because I didn't try hard enough. I never tried auditioning for other plays at other places or going to workshops (only did one).
So now the real dream (ever since I was about 15), which is still going on, is to be in a band. But since then my dream has expanded to hopefully opening up a venue or a record label or recording studio, so those dreams run concurrently with the big one.
Also I guess my other dream since when I was younger was to have a girlfriend and stuff? I didn't date a girl since I was 17 (and that lasted for 3 months), and now I've been dating a wonderful lady for 3 years and a month. So I guess that one was fulfilled, if it even really was a dream (or I was just pathetic as a teenager)?
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(http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx41/jimmy_the_squid/qw-astro-big.gif)
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I could be wrong, but I think, oftentimes, if not necessarily in Kieffer's post, people say "get to do x" and they really mean "get to do x and achieve success with it, financial or otherwise." Cos if you want to do something for the sake of doing it, you'd do it. However, I think for people who don't desire those things (or even any particular thing) that much, then the fact that success isn't certain or guaranteed is enough to dissuade them from putting in the time and effort. And frankly, this is good--they'd probably regret it if they forced themselves to do it despite their misgivings.
COME BACK TO POSTING
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All I have to do now is pray that the building lasts the next 5-10 years for us to buy it.
Why do you have to wait that long?
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Curious about... plumbob78. Don't mean to single you guys out, and I understand if people are intentional about not-talking about it since it's the internet. Just saying--me personally, I'd be curious to hear about it in the context of this thread.
If you're being cagey because you don't want to get too much into your personal life that's cool, but I'm wondering what exactly your job is.
Work is pretty much the only part of my personal life I won't talk about on the internet. Sorry.
Speaking as someone who never had a very clear sense of direction in my life, I must say it's very interesting to hear about how folks have gotten to where they are today. It's always amazing to me how people can start off towards one place, and over the duration of the journey their course has drifted enough that they've wound up someplace completely different. Some people have a dream and go out and grab it. Other folks may burn through a hundred but end up someplace good. I think that's inspiring, personally.
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I think hair-brained schemes run in my family, here's one of mine.
There's this cute little cafe in the corner of a block near Broadway in sydney that is right near where I went to uni. I've never been inside, It always looks pretty empty. It's a fairly large corner block, with a tiny door and two tiny windows and an awning. Next to is is a cute staircase which leads to 1st and 2nd storey residential. It's on a small street behind a main road in a slightly forgotten/inbetween part of the city.
I have always thought running a cafe would be pretty awesome, and I am absolutely in love with place. Arthur and I speculate about it sometimes. It would be dark and cool inside, part of the local scene, very unassuming. We'd have live music and support the local community. There'd be free wifi for all customers, and a space comfortable enough to hang around in all afternoon. Above it we could have a home office, a comfortable living. If I'm an architect, I could even work from there or have my own practice!
All I have to do now is pray that the building lasts the next 5-10 years for us to buy it.
This. Exactly this.
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you guys know about my dream of a better Regina restaurant right
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the only comfort is that at the end of the line even the scars on your knuckles and the thoughts in your head are not yours to keep
don't stress the little shit like becoming a guy recorded in a history book you'll never get to read
the fact that there is most plausibly not an afterlife is the only rapture i can see in a world like this (where i get to be writing this shit on my personal computer while some kid is being raped by her abusive father not too far away)
carpe diem
it's the only day you got!
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if you like art, make art
if nobody likes your art, fuck 'em.
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When I was a wee child I wanted to be a queen. I didn't want to be a princess because princesses have to wait until they are queens to tell everyone what to do. I think I told people I wanted to be a vet for awhile when I was a bit older, but that was because I didn't know that you could be marine biologists yet.
Pretty much my only dreams are to build my own house, have some goats and maybe a horse or two, and find some place of employment that facilitates me riding a pony to work. The most obvious and workable solution to this is to run my own business of some sort, probably a bakery since I think I will probably like that for a long time, but I am a little afraid of my own attention span because I am well aware of my potential to sabotage myself. Also last night I was thinking about the ride-a-horse-to-work thing again and imagined an office job where they let me keep the horse during work hours in some sort of over-sized broom closet. I'd have to put hay down on the floor and maybe soundproof the walls to keep people from freaking out, and find a horse that wasn't horribly claustrophobic, but. I guess it has become apparent that graduating from uni should probably be one of these dream things? But I hate uni and I wouldn't care about it at all if that stupid piece of paper didn't matter so goddamn much.
I don't really have any other goals, or "dreams" as such. I have never really done long-term planning ever because I don't think about that sort of time frame and because every goal I have been forced to set and ultimately have achieved has been incredibly underwhelming, so really the pony thing is just something I would love. I would also love to find myself the owner of a 19th century clipper ship and go sailing down the east coast through the Caribbean and around Centroamerica and over to New Zealand, but I am pretty doggedly realistic about such things.
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All I have to do now is pray that the building lasts the next 5-10 years for us to buy it.
Why do you have to wait that long?
It's going to take me another 3 years to finish my degree, and another few years till I can be a registered architect. Arthur is going to take nearly 2 years to finish his degree. By 5 years we are likely to have some small savings, but are probably want to be involved in our careers for a while before we branch out into other things.
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When I was little I wanted to be a Lawer, but then I realised I didn't want to do that at all (By the age of 10)
I wanted to be a music writer, I have done, do & been paid for this.
I wanted to be a muppeteer & do the voices for cartoons, I have just started a project which will make this happen.
I wanted to write childrens books, all my favourite childrens authors were older than me when they had their first book published, so I'm not stressed. (Also I would like my book to be read on Jackanory)
I wanted to run my own pub, I have done this. (It was horrible.)
I wanted to get a degree, I'm working towards converting an HNC into a BA as we speak.
I'm 30 next year & I still believe I can achieve a big portion of my dreams, even the seemingly big silly ones. I gave up on some of them for a bit & it made me miserable, doing terrible temp jobs so I can afford to keep following them is bearable. Just doing those jobs is horrid.
I have however given up on being a rockstar (I can't play guitar or drums so good) & being a concert pianist (A hand injury means I can't play for more than 2 lines without my hand cramping up in pain.)
I think making your dreams smaller or different is OK (Like whoever said they decided against computers games as they didn't like programming), but forgetting them althogether, gives me chills!
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I haven't given up on my dream of becoming an astrophysics researcher, although I am prepared to be put off at university. I don't really what I'll do if it does go badly, something IT related I suppose. I considered computer games design and such, but I never really connected with the corner-cutting that I've seen in game engines in my time as a modder. Incidentally, modding is a great way to release your game design urges without the need for programming. You can become an artist for a mod team, for example.
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This turned out pretty long! Tl;dr down the bottom.
When I left school I really wanted to be a writer, or at least do something with writing (Dream No. 1). I applied for, but didn't get into, the communications course I wanted to do. I had biology as my second choice as I'd been quite good at it in school, and thought it'd be a more stable career than anything involving writing.
So yeah, got accepted into a bio course which involved way too much maths and chemistry for my liking, as I'd never done chemistry and had done the lowest level of maths available. I had to do heaps of out of semester courses just to pass all my maths/chem subjects, but eventually went on to get a 1st class honours in Bio, going down the road of molecular/microbiology (I wrote my hons. thesis on extracting DNA from soil samples to test for a specific frog pathogen using PCR vs. traditional mycological methods. It was pretty fun).
I guess at some point my Dream No. 2 was to work as a biologist, but then I got a bit disillusioned with the way the system works in Universities... once you finish your PhD you're "trapped" in a cycle of applying for grants to fund your research, most of which have a three year lifetime. To get these grants you need to keep up a steady stream of papers published in journals. If you fall off the publication treadmill at some point it can be quite difficult to get your grants, and perform the research you want to. There's also a lot of pretty petty political maneuvering in research institutions depending on who has got the biggest grant, the most space, the most students, etc.
After finishing Uni I got myself some research assistant work directly related to my thesis, and then decided I needed a break from science for a while. I worked shitty shelf-stacking jobs in kmart, frying stuff in cafes, and also making coffee in many of Sydney's cafes.
Got sick of working three casual jobs at once and decided I'd go back to working in science, and applied for a couple of jobs, including the one I worked for about two and a half years. I was working on transmission of antibiotic resistance genes amongst human pathogens, such as salmonella, cholera and e. coli. This was probably a pretty important and beneficial thing for me to be spending my time on, in the broader scheme of things, but my supervisor was absolutely insane. This is only a bit of an exaggeration, she actually has mental problems along the lines of paranoia and egomania. She managed to drive off every one of her collaborators and post-docs over the years, and can now no longer get grants or publish papers. I nearly quit after a year, but stuck around for longer as I became very good friends with my co-workers.
Then about a year ago my contract was up, and my supervisor told me that she didn't have enough money to renew it, so I started thinking again about if I should do a PhD and continue in science or do something else. I decided to revisit Dream No. 1, and have a go at becoming a science-journalist, and so enrolled in a post-grad course in journalism, got a few internships and all that.
I interned for a science mag, and also one of Australia's major newspapers. On a voluntary basis I also "re-designed" and work as an editor on two non-profit news sites for my Uni and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (here (http://www.reportageonline.com/) and here (http://www.reportage-enviro.com/)), which they eventually paid me for as well.
I discovered that I quite liked, and was good at journalism and editing, but had picked an incredibly bad time to try and get into it. Newspapers were/are firing staff all over the place, if they're not closing down completely. I also discovered my real passion is multimedia, and that I didn't particularly want to just write for a newspaper for a living anyway. I love shooting and editing video, stills and sound design, and preferably I'd like to continue working with all three...
...Which is what I now do.
My internship at the newspaper lead to someone recommending me for a job at a place called the Newspaper Publisher's Association, which is where I now work. I'm enjoying my job immensely. We put out a newspaper every two months about the media, we run a website for which I get to produce multimedia content, and we work on policy and advocacy for media rights. So yeah... I'm one of two editors responsible for a newspaper and a website, and I also write and produce content for both. I've also taken up photography as a hobby as a result and will also be doing more and more videography for fun.
Might even go back and do my PhD at some point, not sure. I also play in a band, but have never really harboured any dreams about being a professional muso.
Oh yeah... I'm 26. Changed careers when I was um... 25 I think.
TL;DR - I wanted to be a writer and then a biologist, and I guess I fulfilled both dreams, though not in the way I was expecting.
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To be honest, I've never had a solid career goal that I thought HAD to happen. I mean they came and went, but I don't really think one's job defines them. I think all I've ever wanted is to have a story to tell, to have adventures and continue to experience new things. I mean, it's hard when you're in university to travel the world, but I try to have fun, experiment and continue with my journey of growth. I've always needed to challenge myself emotionally and I try to do that by undertaking bizarre and mentally tasking personal projects, whether they be volunteer ops, studies, or personal relationships. I think to have novel adventures is the only true, consistent, unwavering goal I've ever had in my life. I haven't given up on that and I don't see myself rejecting the desire anytime soon.
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I've never really given up on my dreams in as much as I've never really tried to pursue them.
I've always wanted to be at least a published writer, have written one complete book as well as countless other bits and pieces but I've really never put too much work into submitting it to anybody. This year I made my strongest break in sending it out to three agents, one of which responded asking to see the full thing but then also responded with a rejection - though with a recommendation to try another agency, which I haven't gotten around to.
I kind of want to be in a band, ideally singing, but I figure to do that effectively I should probably learn guitar as well, and again am just not really putting a lot of work behind that either. I'm learning bits and pieces, mainly songs from tabs, and keep saying I should take lessons to build my technique, make sure I'm doing it right etc. etc. but there always seems to be more important things to do. I don't really have any grand designs on being some rock star, just being able to play to decent crowds in clubs and entertain would be enough.
I don't really like my job... it is what it is, just a source of income to facilitiate me being able doing what I want.
So I'm just lazy, really. I don't sit around and complain that nothing is working out for me, though... I'm well aware the power to make this stuff happen is in my own hands and I'm just passing it about. Generally my self-esteem is also such that a lot of it comes to a point where I'm preparing to, say, submit my book somewhere else and I just think 'what's the point?' since even I don't find my work to be of any decent standard or quality.
To summarise, then, I haven't given up on the dreams, they've just remained exactly that: dreams.
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Every day. I should stop listening to my parents talk.
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To be honest, I've never had a solid career goal that I thought HAD to happen. I mean they came and went, but I don't really think one's job defines them. I think all I've ever wanted is to have a story to tell, to have adventures and continue to experience new things. I mean, it's hard when you're in university to travel the world, but I try to have fun, experiment and continue with my journey of growth. I've always needed to challenge myself emotionally and I try to do that by undertaking bizarre and mentally tasking personal projects, whether they be volunteer ops, studies, or personal relationships. I think to have novel adventures is the only true, consistent, unwavering goal I've ever had in my life. I haven't given up on that and I don't see myself rejecting the desire anytime soon.
Are you still going to do the dumbest thing in the world and come to Regina
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Well, I was gonna, so.
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I'm finding that giving up on my dreams is a continuous and ongoing process, but I guess it started when I was around sixteen or seventeen. Fortunately, as you get older you also learn adaptability and you also get a better sense of what you can achieve, and more importantly how to achieve it.
boiled frogs high five o/
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Well, I was gonna, so.
Offer remains standing for you too, Katie! Everyone makes mistakes and you're still welcome to join them.
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Sure, JC. Thanks for the reminders, I'm totally gonna scope out summer jobs there. Now, how badly do I need to be able to drive in Regina?
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When I was about sixteen I figured that I wasn't going to be an astronaut; this is when I said 'screw college, I'm enlisting in the Marines.'
Now I'm 3 years from going back into the Marines as a pilot with an aerospace engineering degree. I stand a decent chance of becoming a test pilot and from there applying for the astronaut program, ten or twelve years down the line.
So, uh, I guess I un-gave-up? Can you do that?
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Now, how badly do I need to be able to drive in Regina?
Hahahahaha.
Probably a lot.
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When I was really young, my dream was to become an Olympic Figure Skater. Too bad I found out that to be that, I should have started learning how to ice-skate as soon as I could walk. Dream forgotten at age 9.
Throughout middle school and until my Junior year in high school my aspiration was to become a band director and teach music in high school. I looked up to my band directors as if they were Gods, my student teachers I always ended up talking to trying to pry as much information out of them as I could, and I practiced my trumpet pretty much non-stop. Then, my Junior year of high school, my band director pretty much was an asshole to me and I decided then and there that I wasn't going to be a band director. It's a long story why, but basically I didn't want to go into something that had the possibility of going to my head and making me think that it was ok to intimidate people, try to shame people into doing what I wanted them to do, and then completely blowing them off when they didn't do what I wanted them to do. I'm not ok with that. Dream given up on at age 16.
However, ever since that day I've pretty much been at a loss as to what I want to do in life. So - I guess the only dream that I still have left is to someday get married, settle down, and have a family. I really hope that dream doesn't fall apart, too...because right now it's about the only one I have left.
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I've kind of wanted to make computer games for as long as I can remember; it probably started when I got my first computer with my first computer game, Age Of Empires, and it's brilliantly easy-to-use map construction tool. And I'm hoping to do the basics in IT next year at university, unless I have to take a year of to catch up on the maths I don't get to do in Drama High School, but that shouldn't be much of a problem, I've never struggled much with maths (got top grades until last year where I took the hardest maths available and got second-notch), and I'm pretty intimate with computers, so I think I might still get there. Who knows?
18 is no age! wooo!
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dreams i have given up on:
becoming a professional ballerina at age 8 when i decided that figure skating was more fun
becoming a professional figure skater at the age of 15 when i realized i really suck at it
being a writer at the age of 17 when i realized that i hate writing
dreams i have not given up on:
joining the peace corps
finding a job that is meaningful to me
roadtripping across the USA
owning my own tea house
becoming a rock star/unicorn princess
currently:
working two horrible jobs, but i'm starting grad school so i can get certified to teach high school history for the fall. i think i'll love it, but even if i hate it that's ok because i'll have saved enough to take a road trip next summer. in the meantime i am applying to peacecorps & hoping to start by next fall. who knows where i'll actually end up a year from now... but it's the uncertaintly which makes life exciting! dreams change and grow and that is good.
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professional ballerina
professional figure skater
I was waiting for "professional wrestler" but it just never came.
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I guess that was a dream that I had for a few seconds and then gave up on. You see?
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about a year ago. around my 23rd birthday. (upon which i did not want to go to my birthday party, i just wanted to go home and sleep. god i'm boring.)
i went to school and got a degree in theatre, concentration in stage management, but it's been almost a year since i worked on a show. and that was a crappy followspot gig. but since then, i've worked two office jobs. and i'm kind of okay with office jobs, because the whole unemployed-every-three-months aspect of theatre really scares me. and they have normal-people, 9-5 type hours.
i'm now considering applying to be the assistant tasting room manager at a local vineyard. but i feel like i should probably at least go to a tasting there before i do, because i don't even know anything about what that might possibly entail.
but i also just this evening agreed to SM a remount in february, of the last show i SM'd, in may 2008. i haven't told The Boy yet. he doesn't like when i do theatre shows, cos they pay absolute crap when you consider the number of hours you spend traveling/working. but whatever, i already said ok, and it's a one-woman show and i've worked it before, so it's only a week or two of rehearsal. take that, Boy.
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Hey guys, just an update:
My future cafe has a 'for lease' sign above it, though I do not know if it refers to the shop or the floors above. No chance I will be able to move out just yet, so I will just sit on it a bit longer.
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I'd love to have a cafe/tea rooms. WhereI lived before here a girl set up a vegan tea & sandwiches place & filled it full of fail. (No-one but crusty punks wants to buy sandwiches made by crusty punks, not hot food license, not opening early in the morning when the students are on their way to college etc.) It made me angry, so angry.
I wish I had the capital to rent somewhere....(Goes off in daydream.........)
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I've never had to give up on a dream for my future, but there are a lot of possible future aspirations that I've left behind because I found more attractive alternatives.
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left high school (and was sick to death of everyone asking me about it all the time). All I knew as I came to college was that I was happy and blessed with many wonderful friends, and the future seemed like a formality that I figured I'd deal with when I needed to. I didn't need dreams because I had the present. Within a year after entering college, I'd started an unprecedentedly intense relationship, tried a few really interesting drugs, and read a few really interesting books, and I realized that whatever it was I did with my life, I wanted it to involve improving the psychological and emotional health of the people around me. I declared a psychology major for this reason, but it wasn't long before I made the pragmatic decision that I'd probably be better off devoting my time and energy towards learning how to be a healing influence on the world in all the ways that I wasn't going to get paid for, and just maintain my lifestyle however I could in the meantime (in other words, I opted not to bank my emotional fulfillment, which I gain from helping people feel better, on making a career out of helping people feel better ... instead of putting all my eggs in one basket, I've always felt as if I could make everything simple by carrying them by hand). I finished out my degree and going back to get a Ph.D is probably the firmest and longest-term dream I have. I have vague aspirations to do research in the field of psychedelic medicine but that's something that will depend on the academic climate whenever and wherever I happen to go to grad school.
When I went to Burning Man for the first time, my world kind of exploded and the number of options on the table for me seemed to multiply enormously (in fact, all I need to do nowadays in order to feel as if I've got more potential than I ever dreamed was reasonable is hang out for a little while at a party or event where Burning Man is a common denominator among the people around me ... burners seem to invariably be engaged in interesting, innovative, thought-provoking pursuits, and they always seem to be able to offer opportunities for others to join them in these projects). It's gotten to the point where I feel like I can just trust that my life will be happy as long as I keep paying attention to it, and all I'll need to do for the rest of my life to feel joy and fulfillment is go with the flow of things. My life's already pretty fucking cool, and it never seems to take steps backwards. The only issue for me is making sure I don't get too comfortable and end up feeling vague disappointment when I'm 38 or 62 or whenever I might realize that there was something even better I could've been doing all along. It's not really something I'm concerned about, because every time I get worried that I'm not doing enough, I find something out there makes it cool and fun and interesting to push myself a little harder and find out about another new thing I can put my effort into.