Not at all. Spent my early 20s working in Graphic Design thinking it was my calling. But in reality, I got sick of the cubicles, meetings to “touch base”, 50-60 hour workweeks, and daily hour long commutes. Got up at dark and got home when it was dark. Quit it all and started over. I like what I’m doing now and there is zero stress.
I begin to think I’m the only one who had no real clue what life would hold for me, and no real plan. By the time I graduated from college, I had done nothing more than reject a career or two. I thought maybe I’d get a job at the Library or Congress or something and live a life of reclusion.
However… just at this moment of indecision, I met the woman I would marry some years later, and moved to Massachusetts to be with her. Three children later, here I am, working a 9-5 office job.
So no, things didn’t come out as I thought they would, only because I had no thought. But that said, there is nothing terribly surprising to me in the life I find myself leading. Do I wish I had done anything differently? Well, I wish in retrospect that I had said to myself, “If you’re going to work anyway, you may as well work at something that makes it worth your while,” and trained for a higher-paying career. Even so, I don’t feel like there was a particular fork in my life’s path where I took the wrong road, so I’m grateful for that.
Nah, not really. But I blame that on my lack of clear goals. Whenever I’ve bothered to actually set clear goals for myself, I always achieve them. I am the sort of person who, unless she has a clear plan, never gets anything done. So I’ve accepted this about myself and am working within it.
I always thought I’d be married, with at least one child before I was thirty. These thoughts, however, were interspersed with thoughts that I’d never meet anyone I could stand being married to and that I’d never have children. I’ve still got time to meet even that vague goal (should I keep it, which I doubt), as thirty is nearly two and a half years away. It doesn’t seem as important as it used to be. I would like to have a book published by the time I turn thirty. I better finish writing one first.
Yep. By the time I left school, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have any trouble making a good living, and I was right.
But I was also sure that I had zero appeal to women, and that this would pretty much preclude having any kind of a family life, and I was right about that, too.
No, but I’m only in my mid 20s now. When I was 14 I never would’ve predicted where I’d be at 20, and at 20 I never would’ve predicted where I’d be at 26. So I really am not sure how everything will work out in my 30s or 40s but up until today, no I never would’ve predicted it. The late teens/early 20s were extremely bad but my mid 20s have been alot better.
Nonetheless this is one of the more interesting threads on this board.
FTR, here is what I want my life to turn into
By my mid/late 30s I want to be an experienced chemist with a M.Sc. degree, own a house and have paid off most of the principal, stay in contact with my family and have a variety of hobbies and interests to spend my free time on. Not interested in a wife and I definately don’t want kids for a couple of reasons.
Interestingly enough as life expectancy keeps going up the late 30s will be considered pretty young. So I will, in some people’s eyes, still just be starting life as I approach the year 2020 (I’ll turn 41 in 2020). Even now life exp. is around 82 for a man (assuming you live to 65) and I’ve read it is supposed to shoot up to 150 within 20-30 years. So that’ll have a big impact on when people consider themselves ‘grown up’ and past the point of no return.
Point being, if/when life exp. hits 150 then even those of us who are 40 are still considered to be pretty young. What role that will have on how we relate to each other and live our lives remains to be seen though.
Ditto, only substitute southern California for the midwest.
I thought that by the time I was thirty, I’d be about ready to start thinking about going back to work, because the kids (three, at least) would have been born when I was in my early twenties. I had no idea what kind of job I’d have, but that’s what I thought.
What’s interesting is that I can pinpoint a couple of pivotal times, I think, moments when I zigged instead of zagged, and so ended up here – no kids, a house, no 9-5 office job but something with a lot more meat to it. Serendipitous, really. Who I am now is nothing like who I thought I’d be.
I don’t know. I haven’t lived it all yet. 
Yes. Never thought I’d live this long.
I never really envisioned myself after high school, so I can’t say that my life isn’t turning out the way I planned. I suppose that I assumed I would go to college, get a job, get married, and have kids.
Right now, I’ve just finished my Ph.D., so that’s step one accomplished. Now I am really, really nervous about the rest of it happening. I’ve been in school my whole life. Now I have to go find a job in the Real World. I’m being offered some full-time but short-term positions in undesirable locations; the big question is, can I get a tenure-track professorship in a nice place…? I was good enough to trail a blue streak through everything else, but this could be entirely different. This could be where everything goes terribly pear-shaped.
So I’m scared to death wondering how my life is going to turn out, basically.
Not hardly. Not only is life **now ** NOT what I thought it would be when I was 18, it’s not what I thought it would be last year! Everything seems to change at least once per decade. I’ve gotten used to it.
I got married earlier, had children later, and changed not only jobs but lines of work at least 3 times, not counting the years I was a SAHM. Staying home with the kids when they were small WAS planned, and DID happen. I love my children, but they are different from what I fantasized they’d be, as am I.
Life is what happens when we’re making other plans.
Many of the early plans and decisions I made have turned out to be for the better, though, as these have given me options and flexibility I would not otherwise have had.
Not at all. I wasn’t much for looking ahead when I was young. Just went along day to day without much idea of what I would do in the future. I was just an average student, in fact in the academic lower middle of my high school class. I suppose had WWII not come along I would have been a lifelong retail sales flunky or some such.
However WWII did come along and I enlisted as an Aviation Cadet, being a nut about flying as most kids of my era were. Lindberg and all that you know. The fact that I made it all the way through Cadet training was a confidence booster since many didn’t, and after the war I went through to a BS in Electrical Engineering with one semester of graduate school before I had to quit and go to work for a living.
One other thing that did work out for me. When I was young my mother used to talk about the turn of the century in 1900. I was born in 1922 and wondered if I would make it to see the turn of a century. I figured I would be just over 78 so I had a shot at it, and that worked out. It’s now in the into the 7th year of the 21st century and I’m still around.
My life isn’t done turning out, yet, but here’s a short list of things I’ve expected to do during my life:
- Become a mathematician (turns out the good stuff is really hard)
- Marry my high school sweetheart (adolescent-onset schizophrenia put the kibosh on this one)
- Go to the best computer science school I could find (this one I managed)
- Research programming languages (turns out the field isn’t, you know, alive)
- Keep playing tabletop roleplaying games (accomplished this one too)
So in a 3-2 decision, I have to say “no”.
No, it’s not what I had envisioned it would be. Am I happy with the way it is? Eh - I suppose. Could it be better? Hell Yes! Could it be worse? HELL Yes!!
I am trying to change some things - I’m going to school - I am rethinking some job goals - I am doing what I can for my son’s future right now - I guess I’m not even sure anymore WHERE I’m going.
I’m just one confused chick, I suppose.
I didn’t think being a grownup would be this HARD. 
I was always sort of “temporary about myself” ala Death of a Salesman by way of Grosse Point Blank. When I hang out with friends who have grown-up and become what I perceive as actual functioning members of productive and normal society, I pretend that all of what I am is by self-indulgent design rather than my complete surprise at still being alive after the excesses of my 20s.
I’m gradually adjusting to the idea that a wife, family, retirement funds, barbecues and softball games are somethings I should know something about, but I backslide. Alot. Maybe I should just blow the whole thing off until my early 40s, I dunno.
Well, yes and no.
Yes: I am doing exactly what I wanted to do growin’ up, although I didn’t think it’d be this bumpy of a ride. I’ve had ups and downs, but in the end it seemed to even out.
No: I figured I’d be married by now with li’l Trips running around, but that didn’t work out as planned. I also figured I’d have a house, and I’d be somewhere on the East Coast, but that’s probably a few years off yet.
Although, I do have to admit, I still don’t feel “grown up” yet. Yes, I’m 29 years old and fairly well established. But I don’t feel a day over 21. 
Movie critics write their reviews after seeing the show. I’m still filming the comic, action-packed movie.
Tripler
Think “Animal House meets Lethal Weapon”.
Expectations change throughout your life. When I was 17, I thought I’d get married well after the age of 30 if at all. When I was 22, I thought I’d get married around the age of 25. So which is the “right” expectations?
However, interestingly, in my case, my life has turned out far, far more like the expectations I had at age 13 than the expectations I had in my late teens/early 20s. And that’s a very, very good thing.
My plan when I was a teenager was to go to college, travel the world, have a fabulous career, make a six-figure salary, live in the desert Southwest, live in San Francisco, have children, and own at least one home, one of them being a beach-front property.
So how has it turned out? At age 43, I can tick several things off that list. I won a scholarship and academic honors and graduated with a degree from a top University in my field. I wouldn’t call my career fabulous, but looking back on it, I did what I went to school for. It appeared to be a fun and glamorous career. It was. But it was also extremely competitive and nasty. I reached most of my career goals, except that I did not make the kind of money I felt I should have. Promotions seemed to go to the girls who went for drinks with the boss.
One of the high costs of that career was family. When you’re required to move to take a job, developing a long-term relationship is a challenge. I never met quite the man I was looking for. And when I did, and after he bought me a ring, he left me for a very wealthy man-eater type of woman. I didn’t see that one coming. If I told you who she was, you’d recognize her. I’m still reeling emotionally from that break-up.
No children. Not that I didn’t want them, but I believe in having a good husband before creating life. I can always adopt later. Right now, I’m still hoping to meet the right man. Someone who won’t run off with a high-dollar actress. :mad:
I did live in the Southwest, and I loved it! Was happy to call New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and California “home” at various times in my life. I’ve never lived in San Francisco, but I have spent some time there. Life’s not over yet. I might go back to school in San Francisco. 
Property? Not yet. Now’s the time to buy and I do have money in the bank. I could buy a house with cash today. Just being able to do that makes me feel happy and secure.
Travel. I am a flight attendant now, and I’m happy to say I’ve seen almost every place worth seeing on this big, blue marble.
Life isn’t over yet. I do believe it’s what you make it. There’s still time. I still plan to get married, have children, live in San Francisco and make big money.
I wish YOU the very best on your journey. It’s not going to turn out the way you planned. You may be disappointed, but you may also be amazed. Your life may turn out better than you ever dreamed.
At the age of 49 and I can’t grasp the fact I am that old unfortunately yes, it is as my nightmares imagined it would be like.
I am astounded that so many people seem to have a had a clear idea of where they wanted to go in life when they were still teenagers.
I’m over 40, don’t know where I’m going or how I got here, but like where I am. Nice house, nice wife, two good kids, and a good job.