Social project
 

Hello everyone, i'm working on identifying certain patterns of human behavior and i'd like your help and perhaps you can learn something out of a reflection yourself.

A couple of basic questions.

When you were 14 what was your dream career/goal in life if you had a realization at that time?

Or earlier on in childhood if you ever had a certain type of dream.

Reflecting to now and what you're doing with your life? Are you living that lifestyle?

If you're in your 30's+ - how do you find your ideals and life view has changed since a kid, teenager, adult?


Thanks again to anyone willing to participate.

I wanted to be a pro snowboarder.

I'm a chef now, but I snowboard quite a bit still. I made money from snowboard coaching at one point. It was never a primary source of income.

I'm 30 now, happy with what I'm doing. My ideals have shifted to being family focused over absolutely anything. Its really all that matters. Other than that I still do the same things I did when I was 14. I'm much less self absorbed as an adult, but thats probably the case with just about anyone that isn't a sociopath.

Sorry.......... I have trust issues.

Had thoughts about becoming a police officer at 14 'cause I'd been watching a plethora of HK crime drama films at the time, but I always doubted myself and never truly believed that I was cut out for it. Making this world a "better" place was also a driving factor

20 now, schooling, and grinding towards the VPD dream. I've always viewed police officers as the exemplars of the traits that I, too, would like to possess one day. Constantly striving to become the role model that I've always wanted to be, and I have no doubts in my ability to get there within the next decade.

.

okay..........

When I was 14, I wanted to become a journalist. Automotive journalist, specifically... that kinda died after realizing that journalists don't make that much and their jobs aren't all that stable since a significant amount of it is freelance work. That, and other life responsibilities - and growing up as well - have shown me that I am more of a home-bodied person.

Currently working to get into a job with the federal government, I'm currently working there as a co-op student and have been for almost 4 years now (keep getting my contract extended due to good performance) with the end of goal of working in Citizenship and Immigration. Plan B is to go work for ICBC as an adjuster and eventually work up to fraud/collision investigation or something related to it.

As for the "30+" question, I'm only in my early 20s but can still put in my 2 cents. Realized that you can't just "do what you want to do", lots of life factors come in to play and ultimately you have to strike a balance between stability, work-life balance, rate of pay, and at-work happiness.. as well as any other responsibilities you may have. Money is nice, but having the time and people to enjoy what money you DO have is more important. Plenty of lawyers and doctors (older than me, obviously) that I know who are making well over 100k/year rarely ever get the time to enjoy all that cash and don't have many "real" friends...

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was 14, except that I probably wanted a cool sounding job like pilot or race car driver. A career or job wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities at 14.

Right now I am 5 months away from becoming a fully licensed lawyer. I was planning on practising corporate and commercial law but I am starting to realize that this might not be the right career for me in the long term because of how demanding the job gets on my time. Like the guy above me said, what's the point of the money if I don't have time to spend it or if I don't have time to spend with friends and family.

When you were 14 what was your dream career/goal in life if you had a realization at that time?
Coming from an immigrant family with strict parents, I honestly wanted to have as much money and freedom as I could possibly have regardless of career. I was one of those kids who didn't really know what I wanted to be but that I wanted to earn as much money as possible because that would help create more freedom to do whatever I wanted.

Or earlier on in childhood if you ever had a certain type of dream.
In childhood it was kinda similar, except instead of money, I wanted to accumulate as much toys as possible. I remember collecting hot wheel cars and I wanted to be the owner of all hot wheel toy cars ever made.

Reflecting to now and what you're doing with your life? Are you living that lifestyle?
Pretty much still paper chasing lol. I've got a wedding to plan, I'm about to hop into the second rung of the ladder in my career. I've been working from contract to contract the last few years so I'm hoping this is something stable that can translate into the next level after a few years. I'm about to marry the smartest and hardest working girl in my life, who's the complete opposite of girls I thought I would end up with. I'm not rich in any sense so I'm definitely not living the lifestyle I envisioned but I'm ok with that.

If you're in your 30's+ - how do you find your ideals and life view has changed since a kid, teenager, adult?
Money is second to happiness. As much as I bitch and moan and scream that money IS happiness, it's not always true. I think I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never be rich, like my teenager's version of rich which is probably closer to nigga rich. Rich is not a realistic goal. I've essentially got everything I want, and I know that if I bear down, there are great things well within my reach. At this point I want to focus on building and supporting a strong family, furthering my career and personal development constantly, and taking the time to enjoy myself no matter the situation every now and then. There's always shit I can laugh about.

Same. Used to go snowboarding multiple times a week, would go after school and stay up at the mountain until 10pm. Every saturday and sunday I would try and make it up, stay on the mountain from 9am till 10pm.

Would hit up every contest on the local mountains and even some of the ones farther out, won a few as well.

Then I cased one of the booters in the Black park in grade 10, just after getting second in one of the nintendo park jams. Fucked up my ankle/knee/leg so badly I got told I would never walk again. Obviously beat the odds of walking again thankfully; however, it definitely killed the dream of being a pro snowboarder. The season following the accident I only made it onto my snowboard one time (while still recovering and doing physio). Since then I have gotten back into the sport, I go as often as work, and life allows me to.

As for now, my current career is everything I could ever ask for. I love going to work, I love what I do. There isn't a single night when I sit at work thinking I don't want to be there, there isn't a weekend that I find myself distressed at the office because I don't want to be there. I like the projects I work on, I like seeing the progression of a project from drawings on a page to a real life working facility. Most of all though, I like that I am actually doing something, my job does not involve shuffling imaginary numbers on a page, it's not theoretical in anyway, it's not superfluous, etc. That isn't to say that people who do those jobs are not important, but it's not for me.

I love walking into a facility and seeing the people working, witnessing the product or resource they generate. I love having a tangible thing that I can point to at the end of each and every day, and say "that's what I fucking built/did today".

video game designer

went in to tech design instead for financial reasons. i thought it could lead me to video game industry but doesn't quite work like that, at least in my education/career path. then shifted to paper pushing for the financial reasons again.

always lived modestly or tried to. can't say i always love what i do but it keeps me & family financially stable and being happy with my family is where my joy is. my view is enjoy your work or work to enjoy your life...to achieve both is great but if not - either one can lead to a happy life.

more laid back and less high strung. less materialistic and more simple as i get older. try to be more accepting and try to see other's point of view, and not to take things as a personal attack. not to judge people (or try my best not to).

First post :)

When you were 14 what was your dream career/goal in life if you had a realization at that time?

Some sort of engineering or science researcher. I've always been fascinated with physics, astronomy and just how shit worked in general. Also considered a career in video game design.

Reflecting to now and what you're doing with your life? Are you living that lifestyle?

Didn't have the grades to get into university. Parents were struggling with bills, mortgage payments so I decided to just take a quick program at BCIT in tech.

Started a career in tech support. Worked my way up to sys/network admin made pretty stable coin in a unionized environment. Got bored and realized I wasn't going anywhere working for someone else. Taught myself to code and became a developer. Coded a few ambitious ideas of mine and the coded for a few startups for equity in the company.

A company is doing pretty decent and now I'm pretty comfortable. I still can't afford to buy a home in east van where I grew up but I make enough to save, invest, start a family, fund my hobbies and help my parents out. At the end of the day, more money would be great but wouldn't affect my overall happiness. I'm glad I finally don't have a job I hate. My days are flexible to work on projects and business ideas that I keep in my brain dump notebook. If i want to take a day off and spend time with my family I can.


If you're in your 30's+ - how do you find your ideals and life view has changed since a kid, teenager, adult?

I was pretty high strung in my teens and 20s. I got upset over the most little things and stressed out about everything. I used to think money was the most important thing in the world simply because I grew up in a family where money was pretty scarce. I wanted it all. The ferrari, the penthouse by the water the women and I was quite willing to sell my soul for it. Didn't care about marriage nor starting a family. Typical young men ambitions :)

I'm turning 35 this year and the biggest things I've learnt over the past decade or so?

- health and family > $
- learnt to pick the battles. If it's out of your control don't even bother stressing about it.
- control your emotions. control your reality
- the simple pleasures in life are the best
- being empathic is the perhaps the best people skill to have
- becoming a parent IS the BEST thing that can ever happen to you.

Have a great weekend!

Wanted to be a engineer of either mechanical or software. 23 now, dropped out of University and now a full time stock trader working for myself for the past 3 years. See myself owning a business or 2 in the next few years and becoming an entrepreneur.

I'm still young so money is the biggest concern for me as well as financial freedom for when I hit my 30's. Just got out of a LTR earlier in 2015 so literally have no ones happiness to worry about except for mine and my family (my parents). Which isn't really a big thing to worry about because they're usually happy with me being happy (and gifts haha)