Where did/do you see yourself in ten years?
 

Simple enough question, when you were a kid, what big dreams and ambitions did you have, and are those ambitions the same now, or you more realistic now?

Are you less realistic?

Have you changed paths completely, or do you simply not have a goal yet?

^^

When I was a kid I wanted to be Goku. That should answer ALL of your questions.

I must admit, I am reasonably pathless at the moment. For several years I tried to do nothing but find something to succeed at, and that made me incredibly unhappy. In the last two years or so I have learned that literally doing what will make me happy helps that a lot, but it means at the moment I'm guide-less. So I have chosen, for the time being, to take the things that make me happy and attempt to do them in large quantities (painting, writing, etc) to see if perhaps I can find success in that.

In the end I know I will probably have something more than my high school diploma in the next decade. I get too bored not to go back to school, even though I really hate upper education's bureaucratic tendencies. I'll probably end up an art teacher or something for the money.

I do know my husband will be attempting to further his education in the next half decade or so, and will definitely become a teacher. He was born to be one. We have discussed a lot of stuff and we have a goal to move to Austrailia in the next decade, especially if conservative politics continue to push against our rights. [ (Not looking for an argument here, just stating a fact. I have a vagina. They have been trying to take my rights away because of it. I will not discuss this point further.) ]

We chose that particular country because it is somewhere we have both wanted to at least visit since we were children. Having visited a lot of other countries, perhaps that will be the right one for us, we'll see, it isn't like we're just going to move there without checking it out first.

Also, might try to adopt/pop out a baby when I'm 35. Again, I guess we'll see. A decade away is an extremely tenuous and far off number. We might all very well be dead.

Very interesting Ocean, and I think Australia is probably a wonderful place to live; I literally do not know anyone whom has been there and not liked it. Though I hear New Zealand is also worth checking out. I think you will make a good art teacher, just make sure your in a school which cares...(this is the interest, we are allowed to dream...shut up...). I know from my own work, that working in schools which do not care at the things which truly matter is the most disheartening thing in the world. There is no greater crime than to see peoples lives wasted due to the inadequacies of the world around them.

As for myself, well I was shy and quiet child...believe it...so I when I first met a lawyer with my father (for reasons we shell not go into), I was instantly enthralled; they were so confident, calm, composed and most of all, articulate. Everything I wanted to be, but was not. (Admittedly, the wig and robe also went some way towards impressing my young mind.) So following that fateful meeting I decided I would work towards becoming like them. I decided I wanted to become a lawyer...not every 8 year old's dream, but it was mine.
=However as I got older, my goals and ideals got slightly less self-centred and childish...slightly! I realised 3 things:
1=I also honestly wanted to help people and that I had also irrational hatred towards injustice, or at least what I personally envisioned to be injustice.
2=I did not really care about money and that spending vast amounts of cash was an almost unnatural act to me.
3=I had a ego and pride, which held a vision of myself in a manner somewhat attuned to some great white knight. The idea of being someone respected, whom others followed and saw as revolutionary appealed to my sense of self. I guess that means that childlike core of wanting to be more than I was still drives me to this day.
=This meant my ideals changed and I no longer wanted to be just another person working within the system, another cog in the wheel so to speak. No, I wanted to be someone who changed the wheel and drove it forward. I wanted to make this world a better place. The goals of family, wealth...etc just not appeal to me, I wanted to fight injustice, I wanted to be able to do something worthwhile, but my ego would not let me do something time, like be legal worker, I wanted to my contribution to the world to be big. Maybe that comes from the fact that I never really considered myself to someone whom would have a family or do the normal things in life, so I figured if my social position was offering nothing, then my career had to be my defining characteristic. This led me to want to be a politician.
=As for now, well I still want to be a politician, and I still have the 'naive' goal of changing the world in my heart, but I think maybe I am more realistic and know what changing the world means a little more now. I think maybe that is the thing which changed in me, my dream is the same, but less cartoon like now, more directed and real.

when I was a kid... geez... I went through ideas of what I wanted to be a lot... I was very girly at first... so girly dreams =p
I wanted to be a Ballerina, a singer, a fashion designer, an artist.... I later realized that I didn't really want to be a ballerina, lots of work and really... you're just told what to do.
Singer, I didn't give up till much later, but I realized that I am not one for living like an idol, I was a chubby kid... thin people have a better chance at that, and my voice is not that impressive
Fashion designer... so hard to get in, and I find sewing kinda boring... so bad idea XD
Artist... well I gave that up because I decided I couldn't draw well at all

Now... at about 12 I took some tests to help give you ideas of what job you might like... and computer programming kept coming up. So I looked into it and at 14 I took one light computer programming class at the local community college, loved it and learned it fast
Currently I have a few more years to my degree, and hopefully a job in the industry. Also several people suggested and think I could run my own company, which I think might be a blast, but hard to know if it will happen.

in ten years... I would see myself married to HS, maybe getting ready for kids... and I will be either a video game designer in some company... or head of my own video game development company, depending on how things go

as for being more or less realistic... I think that is anyone's call XD

on another note... at one point I saw myself a computer programmer, coming home late at night to an empty apartment... and that just seemed sad...

Definitely as a pharmacist, I'm going to pharmacy school this fall :). I haven't decided my exact career path, as I know there will be offers of different opportunities even if I'm working at CVS/Walgreens, like district manager, owner, etc. Can't wait to get enough money together to travel to Japan and Europe too, or own my own condo, corvette, and a cat (or two) XD

I've heard that Pharmacy is a degree for incredibly sexy and brilliant people who are just plain amazing. I'm in second year at the moment XD Excellent choice.

In ten years I see myself as happily married to my soon-to-be fiance(accentmark). By then I hope to also be a mother, preferably to twin boys (twins run in my family, and I would prefer to have sons vs. daughters). I will maybe be beginning to homeschool them, if they are kindergarten age by then.

Between now and whenever I have kids, I intend to work as a speech-lanugage pathology assistant, preferably in a clinic environment rather than in a school, helping individuals with communication disorders gain or regain their ability to communicate (pretty straight-forward, right?).

And in everything, whether it be ten years from now or now, I hope to be the best window to Jesus that I can be in every aspect of my life. =)

also, lol

Fenrir: I take it you dropped out two days later then. :D

musigal: Interesting plans, seems you are very pro-family. :)

Yep. Accurate assessment. ;)

In response to Fared (Finally):

Dude, I can totally see that. Everything about your future goals, the way you react to things, and what-not make a lot more sense now.

When I was a kid I wanted to be Goku, because I watched too many cartoons. I had a lot of different dreams, but the first actual "career" I envisioned was actually President.

Someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I thought "May as well aim high". I chose President because it seemed like the highest rank of career attainable.

Because it was an auto-reaction, I began to think of whether that would make me happy or not. It was a short debate with myself, but I concluded I didn't know enough about it.

A few years passed and I learned about the legal system, thus learning more about who the President is. I decided the President has little power because I was a stupid whelp, and decided instead I wanted to be a writer, what with constant reading and writing poetry and prose I did.

After I got to high school I decided that being a writer was something I could do part-time. So, stupidly, I decided I wanted to also be a lawyer. This went on for quite some time, and I felt I was fitted toward being that because I could distance myself from the fact of sending people to be imprisoned or worse who weren't actually guilty. First I wanted to be a prosecutor, then a defense attorney.

I got to college and I tested out a handful of different possible tracks to see what I'm most talented at. I tried a criminal justice course but it was more fitted for police officers than lawyers, so I tried to take an american politics and government course only to realize I actually knew everything they taught there, just about.

I also tried an english course and a math course. Predictably, math was my specialty. Granted the only english course I took was Junior-level, I still only got a C+ in it, and that's not good enough for me.

I chose my Major as Mathematics because it's what I was good at. I also suddenly found myself fascinated in History, so I chose that as a minor. I decided "Business Administration: Accounting" would also be a decent minor.

I spent the past year thinking about what would make me happy again, and I decided that I want to get married to a certain someone, and change my Major to Engineering. I'll double-Major that with Computer Information Systems, and I think that should allow me to explore a career with Mathematics that I can get practically anywhere.

My father was an Engineering Inspector so I didn't want to do what he did, but eventually I realized that his job was a good one and he had a good union, so it's a safe path to take, if tough. It gives me more focus than Mathematics and won't require a phd. I wanted to be a professor but that's expensive as all hell. Maybe I'll go back to school when I get older and get a phd to professor a place that way.

Have finished studying a honours degree in 20th Century europe history, at Oxford university. Maybe a best selling author, maybe a historian or Journolist as a day job. Hopefully married, maybe with kids. Famous would be nice too.
I wish...

For most of my life I have had no ambition. I didn't want to be anything when I grew up. I wanted to have enough money to avoid being troubled by things like taxes, bills, and other everyday expenses, but beyond that I didn't really care. I don't care much for luxury and I don't think I would make any dramatic lifestyle changes if I suddenly became rich. So working hard to get a high paying job didn't hold much interest for me.

When I first entertained the notion of a career, I was about 13 years old. Like most boys my age, I had a healthy interest in pornography. Possibly unlike kids my age, I thought it would be a perfect career. The people that owned porn studios made tons of money and it looked easy as shit. I can draw reasonably well and I thought that with practice I could draw hentai for some start up cash to get a business going. After things started up I thought I would just sit back, take my cut, and live out the rest of my life without a care in the world.

In high school I had all but abandoned that dream on the basis that it was stupid. Still, out of spite for the teacher of my career counseling class I listed "pornographer" as my number 1 career choice. (Its been a long time. The class might have been called "life skills" or some stupid horseshit class where they tell you to lower your standards and accept your exciting new life working in data entry.) She sent me to the principal's office and I got detention for a few days, but fuck that smarmy cunt. (She was pretty much a real life Umbridge from Harry Potter.)

At 16, when they pretty much force you to pick a career path, I decide I want to be a Pharmacist. My neighbor is a pharmacist and it looks like a pretty sweet life. Tons of money just for counting pills all day and knowing what they do. Also, there's no ladder climbing involved. Once your a pharmacist, that's it. No promoting from Assistant Regional Senior Manager of Douchebaggery to Head Regional Senior Manager of Douchbaggery. That might be fine for people who want to feel like their life is a video game and you have to level up in order to be anything other than a peon, but that's not for me. So that's what I went to college for.

Fast forward to my second year of college and I am coming to the end of the prerequisites to enter the actual Pharmacy college. On the application, there is an essay portion where you have to write why you want to be a pharmacist. And for the life of me I couldn't answer that question. I had no idea why and for some reason I didn't think writing "money and bitches" would win anyone over. So I changed majors. I was already mostly done with a biology degree so I went ahead and finished that out. Got my bachelors in 3 years and graduated with honors. I was on the fast track to nowhere.

So I spent about a year dicking around. Something like 8 months passed before I even started looking for work. I took a few online classes trying to find something that interested me, but for all the good it did I might as well have burned that money on my lawn. The grace period on my student loans was coming to an end so I needed to find a job. It turns out I am overqualified for entry level positions, but I lack experience for anything else. Funny how our system works. I ended up taking an ad out in the paper for a private tutor. I said in the ad my price was negotiable but it turns out no one really knows how much is an appropriate amount so I walked away with fistfuls of cash every time. Some time later, a friend of the family calls me and asks if I would like to work full time as a tutor at the local community college. She is in charge of the tutoring center and hired me for the semester. That same semester, the math department was short staffed. In addition to the new tutoring job, I also taught classes for the math department. After about a year of this, I find out that almost all the science professors are going to be retiring soon. I hear that if I can get a masters degree by then, I stand a good chance of getting one of those jobs.

So here I am now. I start grad school in about a month. Maybe more school isn't the best thing for me, but I like working at that college and liking work isn't something I have experienced before. Sometimes I regret changing my major, but I am more or less happy with where I am now.

Most universities require a masters degree and work toward a PHD. Masters Degrees take 2 years for a full-time student, and PHDs take an additional 6 years.

This is a community college. I don't think anyone teaching there has a PhD. That isn't to say I won't eventually go for one, but for right now it isn't necessary.

Fair enough.

Killshot; that is an interesting story and it is nice to see you found something you like. I think a lot are like you, in that they do not plan to end up where they do, but they end up there anyway. The main thing is whether you are happy or not, and it sounds as if you are. :)

As for this:

:P...It is a pain I know only too well.

as a child I just wanted to be left alone
I never thought what life would really be like when I was 23 for example, at 13 I had enough crap to deal with.
now I just want to own a house. that's all, get a half decent paying job that doesn't make me want to commit suicide
sure I have my dreams but they will never happen, I wasn't born into money

As a kid... I wanted to be a ballerina...
Reallt, ever since I could write, all I have wanted to be deep down is an author.

I'll try to keep this short.

But I see myself living on my own. I guess that's my nature. My pet cats and close family and friends are the ones I usually don't mind whenever I want to be alone. I've been asked out by some guys in the past, but I always turned them down because I just don't find myself needing a relationship. I suppose that's just my introverted self.

I plan on becoming both a Stage and Voice actress, so I'll be mostly busy with constantly job-hunting due to the nature of the business. Right now I'm in college, so I can't really be totally focused on such job hunts, but my persistence in school, I think, would reflect my work ethic in the future.

My parents are kind of icky on the choice I made to Major in Theatre Performance. My dad gives me all kinds of lectures, which in turn makes me wanna strangle something. I get that it is a very competitive and subjective field, but I am willing to try. After all, I've kind of already made myself an accomplished musician throughout school, so I know what it's like to be competitive.

But overall, that's how I see myself. Perhaps someday I can land that big role or job to set me on a good career. Who knows...

[In an exaggerated form, I'm going to be a cat lady and a starving artist. xD;]

Yup, I hear 13 year old Canadians have it even worse than those Kids in Africa. ;)

Cool, go for it :)

I wanted to be a cool skateboarding punk when I was 17.

Damn, the early 00s were a weird time. Now I'm just the prototypical average teenager.

When I was a kid, I thought aged 15, I would be an ultra girly teenager, like really fluffy and baby pink with tiaras and handbag dogs, or a prima ballerina. As I was super girly as a kid.
Aged 11-13 I went through a really tomboyish stage, which kind of ruined the idea. I'm out of that now, I turned out to be some posh, nerdy, somewhat goth.
My 6 year old self would be so proud.... Not.

As a child I wanted to be a hairdresser.
As an elementary school pupil I wanted to be a famous violin player like Stefan Milenkovich, or anything that doesn't involve too much math, or physics. I really hated those two subjects.
As a high school student I wanted to be a computer scientist, academic painter, or a chemist.

Now I study mathematics and computer science.
Where do I see myself in ten years?
Working as a high school math teacher, and working on my Master's degree.
Also: unmarried (not by choice), abandoned by all my friends who are married and have a child or two, living with a cat, taking a foreign language course (either Russian or Italian, or maybe both), seriously thinking about moving to Russia or Austria when I finally get that Master's degree.

Ten years ago, I was thirteen. I wanted to be a movie maker, writer, or musician. I really wanted to find a way to combine the three, because I couldn't decide what to do. I didn't think I was going to "be somebody by age 23," but I thought I'd at least have the tools to put my plans into action.

Turns out, I'm actually a little ahead of where I thought I'd be ten years ago. I have the tools and skills to do what I want (thanks to a good education and a student discount on some software) and I'm glad I had the good sense to start practicing when I was still in middle school. I also know how I could combine all my interests in a way that might actually make money. I'm not famous, or anything, but I don't really care about that.

It also helps that now I know exactly what I want to do (I just had a vague idea when I was younger).

I want to live in a Cherokee Grey Wolf 2013 model 17 BH camper. And help more people lean towards renewable energy, have restaurants that throw away 1,000,000 pounds of food a day give at least some of them to homeless shelters and/or other starving places, and reintroduce native plants and animals into areas of their native habitat. Oh, and write my books and do animation. It’s been the same ever since I was 6. Of course I removed the fact that I want a unicorn. That's probably not going to happen anytime soon.:)

in Ten Years...in an Apartment with a Cat Working as a Librarian in my Town visiting my friends almost everyday...I have no life simple as that.

In 10 years I shall be barefoot chasing a 8-year-old child around my home while Harry watches newly released Beatles DVDs

No idea whatsoever.

Just 2 years ago I never thought I would make it into uni, but it just proves that anything could happen between now and 2023.