I remember thinking that I could avoid doing any real work, and that I could find a job where everyone would let me half-ass my way through everything. Then I graduated college and went to law school.
Now I feel like an idiot.
The truth was that everyone’s tolerance for childish behavior was limited to teenagers and children. Once you become an adult, everyone suddenly expects you to act like an adult. Who knew?
I still feel a little like this guy from XKCD.
I had it in my head I was going to move to Montana and…I dunno. I never really thought ahead.
The fact that I had crappy grades in high school, no college, and a poor family so I couldn’t get money from them put a end to that dream.
Early teenagehood, I thought I’d run a computer company, but I learned am not cut out for the cut-throat nature of business. I also wanted to be a teacher, but after doing poorly in my teaching class twice and the bad parent stories all the teachers told me, and that I learned I don’t like being around kids as much when I’m “the man,” I’ve mostly decided against that, too.
I can’t think of much else, unless you count the women I dreamed I would be marrying–or even just being married by now, like my parents would have been.
I wanted to go to Dartmouth, and eventually law school. I would practice Civil Rights Law, enter politics, and become POTUS. Yeah, that worked out! :rolleyes:
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My illusions were shattered while I was still a teenager.
Lets see, first of all I was going to be rich, brilliant and live somewhere warm. I was very clear on the change of climate. I wasn’t going to marry until I was 35. I figured based on my parents marriage that I would be smart enough then to know what I wanted in a relationship. I wasn’t really clear on what I was going to study but I was going to graduate from university and then travel the world for a year before settling into real life.
What really happened is I moved out on my own at 17, joined the airforce at 18, married at 19. had kids at 20 and 21, and was divorced at 21. And back to living in the Toronto area after a couple years in Alberta. None of this is a warm climate. Travel has been limited to North America and there has never been a year of travel just short trips here and there.
In the end though there is very little I would change. I can’t erase my marriage without losing my kids and they’re awesome. I can’t imagine when I could have fit in the travel I wanted to do without missing out on them. I would however have jumped on the chance to emigrate to Australia 10 years ago instead of being responsible and keeping the kids on the same continent as their father. I gave up the warm climate and his input into their lives in that time has been nothing but negative.
As a ute, I got a full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League medical school.
At the same time, my folks were moving to Atlanta and mom was opening up a 3rd travel agency. She asked me to come work there for a year, and then go back to school.
I never did.
I have, however, been everywhere. Twice.
I really wanted my two best friends to get married and for me to live in their basement. I have no idea why I really wanted to do this but it came up a lot when we were teens.
They did get married and both of the houses they’ve bought since then had basements, but neither I nor them had any desire for me to live in their basement.
Oddly enough, the basement they have now has serious water problems and had I been living in it my entire existence would have been under 7’ of water at one point.
Oddly enough still, our mutual friend from school, who was my best friend’s best friend before we were best friends, actually does live in my basement now. And I hate it.
I was totally going to be the next Einstein/Hawking and also an astronaut! Then college physics happened. I’m smart, but not nearly as smart as I thought I was, especially when it came to math beyond calculus. I finished the physics major with okay grades and am in grad school in astronomy, where I continue to come to terms my mediocrity as a scientist.
As for being an astronaut, I gave that up when I found out how terrible my eyesight is. I understand they take LASIK now, but even if the space program weren’t dying I’m still not remotely competitive enough.
I wanted to take an expedition to Angel Falls and hike on top of the Tepui. That didn’t work out, so I had to settle for watching Up instead.
I was going to be an Olympic swimmer.
My dreams were crushed when I went to a swim camp run by the at-the-time Olympic coach. The worst male swimmer on his college team was a 7 time national champion in the circuit I swam in. Dreams = crushed. I’m also short, that didn’t help.
Thank Og I had smarts. Some other kids were* seriously *crushed at that camp; they only had sports.
I wanted to be Jane Pauley. My dreams were crushed when I got to college and learned how hard it really is to be a TV news star. The closest I ever got was writing news stories for morning drive on local radio.
I was going to be a lawyer, senator, and then the first woman president.
A mortal fear of public speaking put an end to that.
I was heavily into cartoons and comics as a kid and planned to be an artist of some sort. In my high school I made friends with a very talented, now famous artist . He was a better artist than I but encouraged me and liked my art, never talked down my art ever. I made the mistake of comparing my skills to his thinking If I can’t draw like him I might as well get another career.
Then the Simpsons and South Park came along and I can definitely draw better than that. Should of stuck to it.
I wanted to be a videogame designer or an author. Has been given up on, but both are now in the “want to get back to once I find something I can enjoy now” class for the moment.
I wanted to be a pilot. Turned out my 7.5 diopter* eyeglass correction took me out of any and all flying trades.
I ended up being an engineering student. I also got radial keratotomy back when it was one guy with a scalpel (and some really good drugs). After the eye surgery I got my Commercial and Flight Instructor licenses, and actually worked my way thru undergrad school as an instructor pilot. Eventually I ended up doing flight control and navigation software for all the major aircraft companies**, and ended up flying my own airplane (I’ve had two so far).
Other than college, I never got to make my living flying though. (and since I’m 55, never will)
*I don’t know whether it was positive or negative. All I know is I was seriously nearsighted.
**Boeing, General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, etc. I’ve worked for all of 'em.
I planned to live overseas, doing Christian missionary work. I even got a college degree that would enable me to do such.
Then I went to work for a Christian missionary outfit. It sucked*. Now I work in a warehouse.
:smack:
*It sucked because the American couple that I worked for, who ran the outfit, were terrible people. Basically they wanted their employees to be their slaves - help them with their household chores, babysit their daughter, etc. If I had worked for better people I’d probably still be there.
I wanted to move to Colorado and raise Arabian horses, and be an author.
I still live in Indiana, work a soul-sucking call center job, no longer even own a horse, and just write for myself. 
I was born loving animals, and could raise and take care of pretty much any animal I wanted on our farm. My dream to be a vet, though, was cut down pretty badly when my sixth-grade math teacher subjected me to a public lecture on how I could never be a vet, since I was too stupid in math to make it. Added to the regular teenage low self-esteem nicely. I never have been proficient in math, but managed a teaching degree.
I was going to be a rock star, forming a band with my two best friends in 7th grade. I was a fair guitarist and I sang soprano. One of the girls was learning guitar, sorta, and she sang alto. The third was tone deaf and couldn’t quite master the tambourine.
We had some cool publicity shots, tho - the tone deaf girl had a sister who eventually became a photographer - she took a whole roll of the three of us doing whacky rock-star poses.
In reality, I joined the Navy and eventually became an engineer - I’m retiring the end of this month. The wanna-be guitarist went to work for Social Security Admin and recently lost her job. The other one recently retired from her job as a county food inspector, discovered she couldn’t afford to be retired, and took a retail job.