Your future?

[Maverick]

Even if you "think" you have your future planned out, life gets in the way and throws you a curve ball! And I'll tell you what, when your parents (or an elder) say something to you like "time flies", believe them, cause it really does!

[Nicholas]

So, I'm just curious, how many of you have your future planned out? Do you know what you want to do for the rest of your life???

I'm 23 years old and I don't really know where I see myself in the future. Quite frankly, the future scares the shit out of me. Also, the thought of doing a job for the rest of my life is exhausting to me. I have a job now and I keep going to school on and off for it. I enjoy my job, but at the same time, I'm already bored with it.

I hate school. I'm a terrible student. I hate going, but need to go as it is a requirement for my job. I have other passions and interests, but again the thought of doing one thing forever is tiresome. I don't need to be judged for the anything, btw. So if you're going to judge than back up and leave.

I'm just curious if anyone else feels like this or has felt like this. Maybe some advice?

Hey Malec!

I'm going to tell you something I wish somebody had told me. It's okay. Your situation sounds very similar to mine, actually. I'm 25 now, and I JUST started on a year long course to become a primary school (elementary in some countries) teacher. It was only last October (when I was 24) that I came to this decision. However, knowing what I know now, if I complete this course and it turns out that teaching isn't for me, it's okay.

It's unrealistic to think that you should know what you'd like to spend the next 60 years of your life doing when you're only 23. The future used to scare me, too. So much so, I really started to have some issues with worry! My uncertainty due to not knowing/being able to plan my future was difficult. What I found really helped was talking to someone who dealt with worries like this regularly, and working together I was able to overcome these concerns!

It's okay if you try something for a couple of years and it doesn't work out. Put it down to experience and move on to the next thing. Every single thing you do throughout your life will add to your life experiences and consequently shape you as a person, so no decision is the wrong one! How will you know something is right for you if you don't try it? It's okay to change your mind.

The one piece of advice I will give you, though, is to stick with school. It sounds like it's something that's only part time at the moment? But all I know is that if I'd quit halfway through my Bachelor's Degree (which I really, really wanted to) I wouldn't have been able to do what I'm doing now. So just follow things through once you've started, but after that, feel free to move onto something completely different! Any and all positive experiences will only increase your personal and professional worth - so don't give up!

I'm going to leave you with a quote from a song called Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life,
The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

[AdamAndWill]

Will: Man plans, God laughs.

There have been so many unexpected changes in my life this past year, I've been cured of planning forever. I do have some goals: to finish my Master's Degree in December, to get married in January. I hope to eventually have another child.

I'm content and comfortable with my life. I hope it stays this way. But...some huge, sweeping Master Plan? Nope, I know better lol -

[BlueStar]

I wanna travel and visit every corner & every place in the world. (sounds like a dream, eh? But I see myself extremely ambitious )

As for the near future, at every period I set a deadline and plan everything to be done before it's crossed. I don't know if it's hazardous, but I always succeed in it...

Example: the upcoming year, I'm planning to finish high school, pass my official exam and my 18th birthday, run away from my home and live with my boyfriend in a house just for the 2 of us

[LJay]

I think my future will involve staying alive until it is over.

[East]

My future? Trying to outfox Mother Nature...I will lose big time...but I will have fun trying

[Camfer]

Malec, I don't think you fear the future at all. You fear your idea of the future. Sounds like you need to expand your conception of what is possible. Don't believe everything your mind thinks.

[StingRay]

In the past if I hadnt moved when I did Id have no future to speak of now. I moved here with $300 and all my clothes in my ragged car. Thanks to my best friend I started a good job with good pay four days later. I started classes for EMT certification and in two years became one making good money. Thats the only "job" I work but with my friend I learned how to look for opportunities to find other means of making money and how to make money work harder than I do. We went in together to but a run down line of small stores after we came up with a plan to make them work. We figured out what businesses we needed here in this town and went out to offer them good deals to move to our property before we even bought it. Then we had to do a lot of work to make a shitty line of stores look good and ready for the businesses to move in. Now we have the busiest place in about 20 miles. We have gotten into three other business deal together since that one took off and planning a really big one that could become bigger than all the things we have going on now.

Sure the future is unknown and things can change for the bad or good in half a second. There's no way to prepare for those types things. All you can do is jump in and make the best out of the bad things and latch hold of the good ones and dont let go. You have to look for every opportunity and stop waiting for opportunities to look for you. When an owl is hungry it goes out and sinks its talons in something and gets fed. Buzzards fly around waiting for something to die so they can eat it if its fresh or rotten. Id rather be an owl.

I feel sorry for anyone who isnt out there on the edge doing all they can to get ahead and make a better life for themself. Id have been that way until I moved and found out the ways to take as much control over my destiny as possible and squeeze the most out of it.

In a way, reading what Jake wrote reminded me of me when I was young. I had a fake driver license when I was 16 and was getting away from home on weekends to dance in gay bars making in two nights more than my mother did in a week of selling drugs or a month at her real job. Making more than I knew how to spend I was saving then to keep my mother from taking it. I did that for almost 3 years before joining the marines. Once I came home there wasnt a decent job to be found and I went back to it until I was in a rut surrounded by moochers and drugheads and even got on drugs myself. I still do stripping when I want to and have time because the money is awesome and Im more focused on the money that i ever was before.

It's just good business sense. Do I want to sit around the house on weekend when temps are 20 below and do nothing or drive 6 to 14 hours to strut my stuff in next to nothing and usually average $250 to $300 an hour to get enough money to do other things? That's a Duhhh moment everytime. Im not ashamed of it but Im real glad to live far enough from the bars I work in that I dont have to worry about word of it getting back here. I couldnt have gone thru school to be an EMT without income from stripping. I couldnt have done lots of things with that money. I just learned not to waste it.

[LJay]

Hmm. Sounds like a trip to the Midwest would be enjoyable. Just where are those bars?

[LJay]

38 more, right?