Do you have a plan for your life?

[tik 🪀✨]

Until recently I've had general goals that didn't have a strict timeline to be reached (save money, move to Australia, marry my fiance, find a job, move into our own place). I've done those things despite never having a strict timeline. Now, though, I'm without direction because I didn't plan this far ahead. Does anyone? Here's where I am now:

- Education: I am aware that I should probably return to school in order to focus on something with which I would aim to build a career. What that is, I have no idea. And I feel like time is running out for me to choose what I would like to do and then find a place to employ me in it.

- Career: Similar story. I have achieved a small status within the company that I work but don't see a path further anytime soon without specialization in things I'm not really interested in despite a potential. That is, I may be good at things I'm not keen on doing forever because they may pay the bills. Do I invest my time in them or let my current career path stagnate?

- Marriage: Already married and satisfied.

- Kids: Don't appeal to me or my partner whatsoever. It's not something we seriously consider.

I have never actually thought through where I'd like to be in X years time. I am just floating along at this point and trying to find direction. But this whole idea of having a full plan for ones life fascinates me. Who has specific goals? How are you going meeting them?

[Lief 🗽]

I have a fairly specific plan for the next 3 to 5 years of my life. After that I don't know.

[dead0man]

4...always been that way.

[Miles]

A federal agency just hired me and I hope to stay with them as long as possible. I've heard they'll pay for my graduate school, so at some point, I'd really like to look into that. At some point down the line, probably when I retire with my agency, I'd like to be a teacher. Maybe running for office will be in the cards then...

[Cassius]

Ah, not as such. I'll just (hopefully) take good opportunities that come my way and run with them.

[Napoleon]

4...always been that way.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I wish I was good at making sacrifices now for the benefit of the future. My grades were good enough to study and become whatever I wanted, but I told myself I'd rather do something I enjoyed and not sit through four more years of chemistry and math stuff. I guess I didn't realize that the difference could literally be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now I'm struggling to patch something together career-wise, and I have no idea what I'm actually going to do. I'll be a certified elementary school teacher this time next year, but good luck finding a job. Maybe I'll try my hand at urban planning next and build up a good experience profile for municipal politics. I don't know. The bad thing is, as time goes on and I feel less and less on track and independent when compared to my peers, I feel more and more bitter. I actually find myself loathing people with a lot of money, just because I screwed things up for myself. Gosh, I really did my undergrad wrong. Then again, if I did it over again I don't really see myself doing it any better. That's the sad thing.

Anyway, I'm done with my incomprehensible sobbing.

[DC Al Fine]

I have a general plan for the next few years but nothing super specific.

[TDAS04]

Option 4.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I have a very vague idea but I know it will have so many twists and turns that my life, for better or worst, will be unrecognizable by 2076ish-if I even make it that long. I can die tommorow for all I know, so I don't dwell on these things.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I have goals for the next decade, but they're pretty much just that right now - goals.  I'm going to get my first feel of college next month when I visit the retreat in Appalachia (part of my orientation), and I'll be studying at Catawba for four years, hopefully majoring in Religious Studies and minoring in Political Science.  A double major isn't off the table for me, as well.  Then at some point down the road, I'll begin applying for seminaries.  The Iliff School of Theology in Denver is my top choice and I'm going to put a lot of effort in getting accepted there.  When that's out of the way, I'll look for work in the theology field.  Ideally, I'd like to be ordained, but that's no guarantee and I don't want to spend my entire life as a minister.  A run for local or state office might be down the road for me, but I don't think about it a lot.

Marriage and children don't suit my fancy.  I wouldn't mind companionship somewhere down the line, but things like marriage, sex, children, even cohabitation just aren't on my radar screen.  I don't think about those things, either, nowadays.

So yeah, it all sounds really specific and planned-out, but really I have no idea where I'll be in ten years.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I'm far too impulsive to realistically plan.

[Rooney]

How do you make God laugh? Tell him your future plans...and dirty jokes. He likes those too.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

My God, no...

[ilikeverin]

Professional: God willing, I'll have my PhD in 2017.  Then, I suspect, I'll have to get a postdoc somewhere (UT-Austin?  One of the UCs?  Somewhere in Boston?  UCL?), which I'd have through 2019.  After that, I hope I'll have a tenure-track job at a Big Ten institution (other than Rutgers and Maryland) in a psychology department.  My top choice right now would be UW-Madison.

Personal: Meanwhile, I hope to be shopping for a husband - marriage would be nice sometime between 2018 and 2022.  I'm not sure I'll be interested in finding one before I leave DC, and the postdoc stage is kind of complicated, but at the same time I'm the settling type, so... I feel like I can't wait too long.  Two kids to follow sometime in the 2020-2026 timeframe.  One of them will be biologically mine; I'll let my husband decide on the other.

[AndrewTX]

Of course I do.. I've been following it so far pretty well. I'm doing very well for myself professional. I am starting a new job Monday that is going to be putting me more out there, and will fast track me into a more senior management position. The past 3 years have been a rough journey, but with hard work and dedication I've been doing it.

On a personal level, I'm on track. I've got my weight in track, and still dropping lbs and adding muscle. My health has shown tremendous rebounds, which that I am happy for. Also, there might be a very special person in my life. We started talking and we are both on a very similar track.. so since we are so close to getting our professional life on track, we are taking things nice and slowly. I am in no rush for anything too serious, or marriage.. if it can happen it will happen.

 Over all, my life has been getting better and better by the month, and I'm happy with where I am, and where I am going.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I have a five year plan, of course.

[Indy Texas]

I don't. I don't see a path forward in my current job and would like to be doing something else, but inertia is keeping me from looking for another position. I'd like to move somewhere else, at least for a while, but I'm not sure where. I'd like to travel more while I'm still somewhat young, but I don't have the time or anyone to go with.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I've got it all pretty much planned out.

[Indy Texas]

I wish I was good at making sacrifices now for the benefit of the future. My grades were good enough to study and become whatever I wanted, but I told myself I'd rather do something I enjoyed and not sit through four more years of chemistry and math stuff. I guess I didn't realize that the difference could literally be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now I'm struggling to patch something together career-wise, and I have no idea what I'm actually going to do. I'll be a certified elementary school teacher this time next year, but good luck finding a job. Maybe I'll try my hand at urban planning next and build up a good experience profile for municipal politics. I don't know. The bad thing is, as time goes on and I feel less and less on track and independent when compared to my peers, I feel more and more bitter. I actually find myself loathing people with a lot of money, just because I screwed things up for myself. Gosh, I really did my undergrad wrong. Then again, if I did it over again I don't really see myself doing it any better. That's the sad thing.

Anyway, I'm done with my incomprehensible sobbing.

My mother didn't get around to finishing her BA until she was 32. And over the next twenty years, she went through multiple careers before finding one she actually enjoyed. So one thing I have learned from her is that life isn't always going to be a traditional, linear path, and if you don't like the one you're on, step off and make a new one and don't let anyone tell you it's too late or that there's no point.

[Хahar 🤔]

My parents have money and connections, so I don't need a plan. Over the past few months in particular, a lot of good things have happened to me for no particular reason and through no effort of my own. What would the benefit of a life plan be? All my material needs are met and so I have the leisure to pursue whatever I want. I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't live in the moment.

[Napoleon]

I've got it all pretty much planned out.

Let me know how that works out for you lol.

[Napoleon]

My parents have money and connections, so I don't need a plan. Over the past few months in particular, a lot of good things have happened to me for no particular reason and through no effort of my own. What would the benefit of a life plan be? All my material needs are met and so I have the leisure to pursue whatever I want. I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't live in the moment.

True but I voted option four because I'm not going to go and get myself thrown in jail or something like that. Theres limits. Otherwise I have always been a strict option six.

[windjammer]

Option 1 obviously.

[Simfan34]

I have a plan for life, and without it I imagine I actually wouldn't be able to get up in the morning. Unlike Xahar, good things generally have not happened to me in recent months (at least not to the extent that I know they have to him), and certainly not "through no effort of my own".

Sometimes I think that there is a disconnect between my plans for grad school, which involve studying development economics, and my academic profile- I haven't published research (though I might be able to publish my senior thesis) and am unlikely to end up PBK. But I after I graduate I'd like to do work for 2-3 years, somewhere along the lines of international political consultancy or an analyst. And I will be very frank, these years will be the few years of "freedom" I have, so I am hoping for a job that pays... well rather than be vulgar and give you a number, I'll just say "pays around the median starting salary for graduates of my school", which you should be able to get a figure close to without much effort.

However I think (fear?) that the wiser thing to do would be to go through a post-bac or MA program to bolster my credentials for grad school. I am a bit delusional about my grad school chances, I will openly state- I sometimes like to think that "well, if I could get into a number of top rate schools like I did as an undergrad, why I can't I get into the same schools again?" or that "well, my father went to a first tier school for his PhD- heck, even though he teaches accounting his degree is in economics, too!- so why can't I?".

But I understand I am not in the best position in that regard so I will have probably have to go to a third-tier, or, if I'm lucky, a second-tier school to get my degree, and really, really, work hard there to get a tenure-track position at a first or second tier school, where there should be no matter with compensation. I'd like to spend no more than 5-6 years there, I want to be out by 30. I will probably have to swallow the very bitter pills of the quantitative side in order to make myself more marketable- I've already told my father about my all-consuming fear od real analysis.

After that, if it all works out, I'm on the top of the golden mountain- teaching and researching development economics. I mean, for years, I have just read papers on development economics for pure pleasure, and I really decided that it was what I wanted to do with my life when I saw this guy's CV- I was in awe of the fact that "you can do this for a living!?".

Like I said, without this "golden mountain" as my goal in life I have no idea what I'd do with myself.