What amazing plans did you have as a teenager that were derailed by real life?

In My Humble Opinion
21

…I don’t know if I’m a pessimist, or a realist, or what. I never had amazing plans when I was a teenager. I picked my career at 16 (web development) and was planning to go to university for it. The university plan fell through, but I did study it elsewhere, and that’s where I am now.

Oh, I did have one plan that was derailed by real life. Always wanted to visit Japan. First time I was going to book the trip I got laid off. Second time I had the trip booked and was totally prepped - that was March of this year. :confused:

22

Astronomy! College physics dashed those hopes.

23

Yeah me neither. My plan was pretty much always: do well in school, go to college, see what I like and major in it, graduate, find a job, maybe related to writing. Or whatever, really.

All that pretty much happened.

24

I was going to move to L.A. and make it big in the movie business. Not as an actor…never wanted that, but I wanted to write screenplays and edit and direct and…whatever, as long as it was behind the camera and had to do with making movies.

Closest I got was taking a few film classes in college. In Oklahoma.

25
  1. Become an actor
  2. ??
  3. Fame!

Got as far as 2 then went into marketing.

I used to have this argument with several girls I’ve gone out with - if we were disputing some major life change they would occasionally say things along the lines of “…but ever since I was a little girl I wanted to X” (particularly with regard to weddings) and I would say “how many other major life decisions have you based on what you decided to do when you were completely fucking ignorant?” Didn’t do me many favors.

26

Be an inventor. I found out that constantly coming up with great, creative ideas is the easy part.

27

I was going to be a novelist. I had it all worked out when I was thirteen or fourteen: I was going to drop out of school as soon as I turned sixteen, move to New York, get a job flipping hamburgers, and write the Great American Novel in my spare time. (Of course there was a perfectly good McDonalds right down the street, and I don’t think I had even been to New York at that age, but I was absolutely sure it was a much more artistic place to flip burgers than anywhere else in the country.)

Turns out, I don’t deal with rejection well enough to be a novelist :frowning: (It goes without saying that it’s just as well that I never put the dropping-out-of-high-school part of the plan into practice.)

28

Everything I had planned was derailed, but that’s another story.

I found the key is find a job that pays the bills but make sure you spend a few hours a week on something you like to do. I was caught up in the come home, flop on couch, watch TV and I complained I never had time. Well once I stopped that and made time for something I wanted to do, life was a bit better.

29

When I was about 12 or 13, I observed that one had to be 35 to be President and–hey!–I would be 36 just in time for the 2000 election. Sadly, I was in no position to run for public office by the time 2000 rolled around.

On a slightly more realistic note, I wanted to be a rich and famous novelist. I have published 2 novels and am working on a third, but they haven’t made me rich or famous.

30

Be a veterinarian! I went to pre-vet school straight out of high school at age 18 … lasted less than a year, due to ADHD, depression, anxiety, etc. At age 28, I went back to school to get my AAS in Veterinary Technology. I finished school two weeks ago and take my licensing exam in December. I want to go back eventually to get my BS, but have no desire to be a DVM anymore.

31

Take over the universe, murder everyone, make Hitler and Stalin look like boyscouts.

My mother figured out my plan, kicked me out, and made me go to college where I worked in the cafeteria. Years later I did start a psittacosis epidemic but my plans for world domination were gone and I learned that other people had gotten a start on the Great American Novel well before I did.

32

I was going to spend a summer doing InterRail. Instead I went and worked, which is what you do if you haven’t got any money.

Somebody oughta have a scholarship program for InterRail…

33

I was going to be a writer and travel the world.

The first kick was when my mom got sick and I dropped out of school to work. I got my GED but then there was a boy, then a baby, then single parenthood in addition to sick mom.

Plus I kind of suck as a writer.
Oh, and I’m a homebody so travel isn’t quite so appealing.

34

Fascinating thread.

There’s got to be a connection between the depression rate in the developed world, and the lofty expectations that teenagers often set for their future.

35

(Not really amazing plans, but at least they were my plans)

As a child, I loved everything related to electronics. In third grade I was putting together motor kits and radio kits my folks would give me for my birthday.

Here is a photo of me, a ham at 13, preparing for old-school email :cool:

By my later teens, I had all kinds of cast off electronic stuff—loads of parts, an old oscilloscope a friend had given me, breadboards, tons of 7400-series logic chips, and so on.

I entered the Navy with the plan of becoming an electronics technician, then becoming an engineer after I got out of the Navy.

Well, the Navy decided that they preferred to have me working with nuclear power and steam turbines instead, and when I started to attend college after the Navy, the pressures of full-time engineering courses and full-time work lasted about two weeks.

Three months after that final episode, I stepped into the front doors of a major pharmaceutical company for a job in the stockroom delivering chemicals, and I have been in “big pharma” ever since. The company paid for my full college education, taken at night over several years, and they moved me into the computer field as soon as I had completed enough coursework to allow it.

I have been quite happy doing software design and development in the pharmaceutical industry for the past twenty years.

Funny thing is, my computer aptitude was present in childhood as well. My dad would bring home DEC terminals with 300baud modems and such and I was able to write simple programs and do schoolwork on his work network, turning in green-bar printouts of my homework in the 1970s, when most of the population had really never seen a computer up close.

36

I started out wanting to be a nuclear scientist. In high school, I decided marine biology was more to my liking. Several people breathed sighs of relief at this, as I was the sort of kid whose science projects tended to run amok, and who received a good-natured death threat from the Chemistry teacher. I also wished I looked like Sean Connery.

When my Dad was laid off due to the plant closing (long anti-union story) I couldn’t maintain a job and a grade point average simultaneously and never finished my MS. Few jobs in marine bio, and not well paid, anyway, unless you’re Jacques Cousteau. I did, however actually work as a sub-contractor to a NOAA/NMFS marine sportfishing survey.

I got a federal job as a radiological control tech, which ultimately led - wait for it - to a job with DOE. But in safety, not doing hands-on nuclear stuff. (You can relax, now :D)

When I wear a beard, I do resemble Sean Connery, a bit, but I neglected to realize, back when, that it was a moving target.:smack: And he wore a rug even then.

So real life didn’t so much derail my dreams as provide a lesson in “Careful what you ask for; you might get it.”

37

I wanted to fly, as well; wanted so badly to be a helicopter pilot/small engine pilot in Alaska. This was long before Northern Exposure, btw. :stuck_out_tongue: As with many folk, my seriously screwed up eyes blew that out of the water. Then various eye surgeries became more available, and I was psyched that I could correct my vision that way, but nope. I have astigmatisms that cause each eye to radically change shape every year or two, and that’s not correctable. I also discovered <Thanks to Cecil!> that the sneezing reaction I have to sunlight would have barred me no matter what, so…meh. I still love being a passenger, though, and the smaller the plane, the better! :slight_smile:

38

Plenty, as teenagers are wont to do. For instance at 15 I had decided I would study chemistry at Berkeley and live in Oakland with my internet boyfriend, making some spare change as the frontman of a punk rock band.

Well it turns out I hate chemistry, Oakland is a shithole, my hands are too small to play guitar comfortably, I’m not going to be the frontman of anything because I ended up deciding I’m not transgender after all, and I just got invited to the fellow in question’s wedding last week.

39

I wanted to write a book that would be published, sell a bunch of copies, be made into a movie and TV series, providing countless sequels and, more importantly, an income to life.

Like MAS*H.

40

Own a ranch,raise good horses and fat cattle. How I was supposed to pay for that never entered into it