My childhood aspiration was to become a medical doctor, or a priest… not being able to afford medical school and being unwilling to take out loans cured that desire …the desire was cured when i found out what celibacy meant…(converted to Episcopalianism later in life, after the priestly phase passed)…I am currently a policy and procedure manager for a European Bank…How the heck did that happen??? i’d love to hear from y’all…how far ‘off the mark’ did you all end up??
I wanted to be Willie McCovey.
Umm . … didn’t happen.
Professional cricketer. Specifically a left arm orthodox spinner. I’m right handed. I’m not athletic at all. I wasn’t even good at the U-10s.
My father was a Chartered Accountant. I didn’t think anything could be more boring. You know the rest.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot and then an airline pilot. I even joined Air Force ROTC in college hoping to make it happen but I quit before committing to service because there weren’t any wars at that time and very few slots available. After a stint in neuroscience research, I became a corporate systems analyst. It isn’t so bad as far as jobs go. It usually ranks in the top 5 in terms of careers overall (and sometimes at the absolute top) so I know I am lucky. Still, I would rather be flying planes for a living.
I wanted to be either a musician, writer or computer scientist. I used to be semi-obsessed with the film TRON, and I’d programme a TRS-80 CoCo2 with visions of *TRON *in my head.
20+ years later, I was working on genetic algorithms for my Honours. I went to see TRON: Legacy and Bruce Boxleitner’s character is talking about genetic algorithms–I realised at that point that when I was a kid I dreamt about being one of those guys, and now I was one of those guys.
I’m now doing a PhD in computational biology, so I guess it worked out pretty well.
I never in my life had any aspirations to become anything at all, just be gainfully employed at something. I earn a good salary, very good in fact, but I’d rather not work. I still have 15 or 16 years before that’ll happen.
Shag: Do you have the means to get a pilot’s license?
My dad is a joiner, a house builder and when I was a child he’d often have printed plans around the house. I always loved art and drawing so loved looking at them. I’d be facinated with these plans and joke that when I grew up I’d be the one drawing them and then my dad could build them; it be our family business.
I’m not sure if the childhood dream was actually the driving force, but I’m now an architect, so it may have been a factor in some decision at some level.
From ages 5 to 18, all I wanted to be was an architect. In college, they gave all incoming architecture students a test. I was the first person EVER to get a perfect score. Then I became interested in Philosophy. Then Fine Arts, then psychology, then math. Fast forward 7 years: I learned a lot but no degree.
Then I move to NYC. Lots of odd jobs, mostly in the field of typography. In the late-70s to early 80s, I had to kern every typeface in existence.
Then I became an artist, which is what I should have been in the first place.
Yes I do. I have been working on my Private Pilot license for many years but very slowly. I realized early on that the lessons themselves are one of my hobbies rather than actually getting one. I still would love to say I have my own private license but they aren’t very practical and I don’t know what I would do with it realistically. General aviation is horrendously expensive no matter how you cut. The license is for both for the right to fly on your own and spend a whole lot more money on it.
I can fly some small planes just fine by myself right now but there is no reason to do that because the additional cost of having a flight instructor sit in the right seat as a copilot is pretty nominal and I appreciate the additional safety and training that goes with that.
I will finish it some time in the next few years but I think my actions have shown that maybe I didn’t really want that dream as much as I thought in the beginning. I have had the money and ability to complete it for years but somehow made excuses not to do it quickly or boldly enough.
Cool Shag!
Dream: Civil Rights Law/Politics
Became: Drain on society
I don’t know why you can’t follow your dreams still. Unfortunately, dreams aren’t enough. It usually requires concrete actions to get there. Most people fail at their dreams because they don’t realize that there are a whole lot of tedious incremental steps in the middle. I am at least as guilty of that as anyone else but it is true. There is no reason why you couldn’t eventually practice Civil Rights law or politics if you really wanted to. It may take years but it could certainly happen if you mapped out a careful plan with some contingency plans and worked through it. If you currently view yourself as a drain on society, you really don’t have anything to lose. Again, it is much easier said than done but you could do some version of it even if it is very difficult.
I wanted to be a hobo. Really. Or at least some type of itinerant wanderer. Into the Wild (minus the starving to death) was a fantasy for me. I often told my girlfriend in high school that I’d like to be a “hot dog vendor in Paris” as a short hand for taking odd jobs while traveling the world.
For a short while in high school I wanted to be a musician. (Don’t we all? I was a pretty good guitar player though.) Also vaguely aspired to be a writer. But the cool kind, stories and novels, not a tech writer or journalist. I was a good writer in high school too.
I used to hate the people in high school who wanted to be engineers. I though it was so pretentious, and they basically wanted to be corporate drones with an eye towards VP. But in the Army I gained a new found respect for engineering. Everything seemed so poorly designed, I figured I could easily do better. 
So I went to school on the GI Bill and now I’m an electrical engineer. Mostly I just write code and technical documents though, so I guess I’m kind of a writer after all.
I wanted to be, at various times, a composer, a veterinarian, and later, a Navy officer (in my late teens). I did end up becoming a Navy officer, though I left after my initial 5 year commitment, and now I work as a civilian for the Navy.
And when I grow up, I want to be a writer.
I wanted to be a bus driver growing up. But now I don’t know what I want to be.
Wanted to be a commercial airline pilot. Just not practical, though.
I work for a university. Still want to have a career as a writer or composer, though.
Until my 10th grade year I wanted to be a police officer. Then I wanted to go into journalism of some sort, print, radio or TV…or maybe something to do with the stock market.
At college I studied Media Communications and Economics.
My first job out of college was working in the news department at a local radio station. I worked in radio, but not always news, for a number of years. Moved to TV for a bit. Then I went to work for E*Trade. First as a csr, then I got my licenses and became a margins analyst and finally moved into the seedy world of stock loan.
I think I am a rare case.
I am exactly the person I always wanted to be.
I wanted to be ‘a soda man’. As someone who LOVED taking things apart, learning how they worked, fixing things etc when I was little, I loved, loved helping my dad fill the soda machine at his store. Opening up this plain box to see the inner workings. All these cans, metal bars, things moving around, money sorters it was AMAZING. I always loved going to work with my dad but getting to fill the soda machine was the best part of the day. Sometimes if no one was looking I’d take some money out of it, put it back in and hit a button just to watch everything happen inside (then put the soda back where it came from.
Fast forward, what 20+ years, I work at the same family business and a few years ago we did have a soda machine and, naturally, I made it my job to fill it. I still loved filling it, still loved putting money in it with the door open to watch everything move around. I was officially a ‘soda man’.
Pretty cool.
We did have to get rid of it after about two years because the stupid thing shorted out every time it would rain or sleet and then all the sodas would blow up in the freezing cold and Coke (who owned it) couldn’t figure out what the problem was so I made them pull it. On top of that it got broken into every few weeks. But it was fun while it lasted.
I wanted to be a biologist, and to work in a natural history museum. Now I have my dream job in the project of a lifetime.