who here has their life mapped out?

[jefhatfield]

..or who has kept on course with their life plan?

...or is life what happens when you're busy making other plans
-john lennon

[Mr. Anderson]

life is a journey down a road that's not always mapped...

I keep my options open and don't stress out if I'm not doing exactly what I plan :D

D

[idkew]

maybe if i could get a job i could work on my plan.....

[Stelliform]

....

[TEG]

I'm spending my life wandering through a hallway system like the programmer's escapes in the matrix. When ever I feel like it, I'll try opening one of the doors. However, some of the doors are welded shut, like things I won't allow my self to do, and others have huge locks, the things I can't do.

And remember... "When you come to a fork in the road [of life]. Take it." - Yogi Berra

TEG

[themadchemist]

As I've mentioned to some of you, especially jef, I definitely have my life planned out to a pretty significant degree. I'm still considering some of the different paths, but I've quite thoroughly laid out where each path would take me if I chose it.

[SilentPanda]

My map just has two phrases... "one way" and "dead end"... :)

Just kiddin'...

I try not to plan too far ahead because I've found that my life is constantly changing... I want to have kids someday (and get married too!) but who knows. I thought I might be getting married next year but well... that all fell apart... but instead I'm getting to do something I really wanted instead. Not that I didn't want to get married... but I also wanted to spend some more time in Romania... so now I'm doing that. I really don't know what the future holds and... that's just fine with me.

[MoparShaha]

I've come to the conclusion that you can't plan your life out. If you try to put yourself into a rigid plan, you're either going to be dissapointed, or lose out on opportunities because you're trying to stick to your plan. And hell, you could die tomorrow. I'm ambitious, and I enjoy life. I'll pick up paths and opportunities as they present themselves.

[Cervotragik]

A map is usefull to know where you are going and how to get there but if you dont know where you are it's useless. I'm trying to find where I stand first, then I might Map it out. ;)

[AngryLawnGnome]

It sucks coming out of high school...I have no idea what I'm gonna do or where I'm gonna go to college. Plus, I have had the problem of senioritis since sophmore year. Needless to say, it's reflected on my grades, and that makes a plan even more difficult to follow.

[jefhatfield]

on some things, mostly very small things, i have followed a plan but for a whole five years, decade, or longer, life has dictated my direction

on short term projects, i ask myself three things

1) where am i
2) where do i want to go, and
3) how will i get there?

it's a simple but effective way to undergo short term plans that last a few days to a few years at most but for long term projects/plans, it's nearly impossible to stick to a plan or set of plans since things almost always work out differently in life, sometimes radically so

by letting go and basically living one day at a time, things are much more enjoyable

inch by inch, life's a cinch, yard by yard, life is hard

[Dippo]

I've come to the conclusion that you can't plan your life out. If you try to put yourself into a rigid plan, you're either going to be dissapointed, or lose out on opportunities because you're trying to stick to your plan. And hell, you could die tomorrow. I'm ambitious, and I enjoy life. I'll pick up paths and opportunities as they present themselves.


I am more of the type of person that has goals with different plans of achieving those goals, but I am to be careful to not neglect to live life in pursuit of those goals.

I like to say that I have dynamic plans for the future, because even after I achieve my goals, there is always more that I want to do.

[JesseJames]

You're born, you take your knocks, then you die. Pretty much sums it up.

[mj_1903]

My life plan is relatively simple which means I can follow it.

Simply work until I'm 30, retire and move to a poorer part of the world to assist building infrastructure for clean water, plants, sewage, school's, etc.

I'm following it pretty well right now.

[wdlove]

I had a plan when I was a junior in high school to be an embalmer & funeral director. Continued with that plan for about 6 years, then I realized that it just wasn't meant for me. Didn't have the needed outgoing personality. Then my plan changed to be a nurse, prefer helping people. That is the goal that I followed successfully.

[howard]

i have a lot of my life fairly planned, basically i look at all my situations good and bad, and i do what i can to get rid of the bad ones....so that whatever ends up happening will be good, that way i keep my options open. i'm always will to change and adapt...basically i just want to be happy, and i'm doing very well at it so far.

[scem0]

I kind of did for a while.

But I lost interest in the semiconductor industry which was my planned claim to my fortune.

Now I'm looking at computer engineering.

I do have the house I'm going to build when I'm rich mapped out though. A huge Japanese style mansion with bonsai gardens, venus fly-traps, and bamboo floors. I'm looking forward to building that. :)

scem0

[darkblue]

I am a nurse, but my love of children has seen me move into the field of paediatrics. Everyday I see young people who may have a terminal illness, or fighting for their life against cancer, etc...and it inspires and motivates me constantly to pursue this goal.
Well at least that's how it 's mapped out so far :)

[Daveman Deluxe]

Education and career wise, I want to get my master's degree in choral music education, then a master's degree in ministry. Then I want to be a high school/college choir director, music minister, or youth pastor, depending on what approaches me at any given time. Being a vocal performer (like classical music or Broadway) would be fun too.

In terms of my life, I want to get married to the woman I love more than life (haven't met her yet to my knowledge) and have a family.

[virividox]

i have a perfect map with yearly goals, 5 year goals 10 year goals and 20 year goals with specific routes to achieve them

but i lost it, so im winging it

winging it is more fun :D

[revenuee]

i plan to finish my degree ... other then that, i don't know what i'm doing friday night until like 9.30 ... never-mind make life plans

[eyelikeart]

I have no plan, but I know where I want to be. I feel like that's worth more than anything.

[Krizoitz]

After the events of the past week in my life, I think planning anything other than a general trend is pointless. I guess you just can't get too comfortable. Life may be going fine one minute and then *BLAM* everything is completely messed up and you are just sitting there in the aftermath blinking like an idiot and wondering what the heck just happened.

I know you all can relate, it's like your in a boxing match and you get hit *BAM* and while you are staggering from the first blow *BAM* there is another one....now I'm just sitting here dazed wondering when the next punch will come...

[jefhatfield]

some people find a real need to jump out of their comfort zone and do something out of the ordinary, from the context of their little world, and make a statement before they turn 30

sometimes it takes somewhat longer though

i had a friend who is very, very shy who had the goal of having a girlfriend before he turned 30...for him that seemed completely unreachable and when he was 29, he did meet somebody and had a relationship for several years...before that time, all he dwelled on was how he could never meet any women...after the experience he seemed to really mature and get a more balanced perspective on life

another friend i know who is 31 and who still lives at home and never went to college felt so insulated from life and he felt he needed to make a statement...a big and expensive one...since childhood, he loved fishing boats and either built models or collected photographs...so last year, he went ten grand into debt and bought a 1928 salmon boat and restored it...he never wanted to get married or have kids, but now he compares his boat to having six children and it occupies every waking moment he has that isn't at work

another friend i know is a 33 year old musician who never got any fulfillment by finishing college, buying a house, or collecting material things...what he wanted to do was take his music farther than playing in his garage and playing a local nightclubs a few times a year in his small town...so he joined the musician's union and went to los angeles and recorded in a professional studio just so he could say he did something...now that he has a contact down there through his union membership, he can basically reocord there anytime he wants...before that point, he was always in a state of unrest and terminal adolescence

his good friend, also a musician, didn't find that lifestyle to his liking as he approached his later 20s so he left music and totally out of character for this liberal, long haired heavy metal guitarist that he was, he joined the military, around the same time he genetically lost all his hair, and became a pilot and now he flies spy planes and is very happy he did it...the air force is his life and though he only planed to be in for the shortest time allowed so he could ditch it and make real money as a private pilot, he actually is fine with spending 20 years or more in the service and make this his career

i had a friend who wanted to become an mba and business tycoon...so around age 30 he did it and started a software company that made 14 million in its first year and then failed like so many companies in high tech...he went bust but never regretted his bold journey knowing that 99 percent of mba business people will never fly the skies he did, or crash from them...he later became an accountant and consultant for high tech businesses and made a decent living and became content with that

i had a friend who wanted to come to america and get a college education here in the states...she came here in her mid 20s, learned english and enrolled in the local junior college and plugged away at it and finally recieved her associates degree...she later liked that so much she collected a bachelor's and then much later an mba degree

from a very early age, i wanted to be in graduate school and know what it was like to embark on some insane level of study and research...when i was in second or third grade, a substitute teacher came in who had a master's degree and we all thought he was this wise, old sage...though i started high school strong after having done well in junior high, i lost steam and graduated high school with a very low gpa but i got into college somehow, barely...freshman year, i did ok but then i lost steam again and barely made it through the second year and dropped out...i had no focus but i still wanted to embark on my original goal of being in graduate school...then through many twists and turns, i managed to finish my undergrad degrees and get accepted to grauduate school at age 30...for me, it was the culmination of a lifelong goal just to be able to sit in class, do homework and real research, and live and breathe that grad school experience...most of my friends, whether they went to college or not, thought my hobby was boring and basically uncool...but i liked it ;)

by far the most common big goal i have heard a lot of people mention is dating tons of people and having lots of fun before age 30...and after that get married and become an annonymous, responsible, quiet member of society... i remember hearing this 30-ish woman say how she thought that getting married before 30 was a crime...they should have fun, date, travel, and party and get it out of their system first since there was plenty of time for rent, bills, children, and adult resposibilites for the rest of one's life

[Raid]

I don't have my life mapped out, but I have goals. The way I achive them seems to be a combination of skill, luck, planning, fate, and force of will.

I know people who've mapped out their lives, but only after most of the work to get their goals was done. Plans fail all the time, but a goal never fades from sight. Remember that, and your probably not going to give up on something you want just because it didn't go to plan.

[bryanc]

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Cheers

[Stelliform]

....

[Awimoway]

I loved to plan my life out when I was a teen. Then reality hit me in the face. (Momma raised dreamers.) Now I don't even try to see past the next 5 years or so, and even that's optimistic.

[Angelus]

I don't have a set plan but i know some of the stuff i want to do.
First is get my medical degree.
I don't know what branch of medicine i want to do but right now im entertaining doing medicin sans frontiers because it links into my next point.
Travel the world and experience all of its beauty and diverse cultures.
Go rock climbing in Yosemite.
Get married and have kids.

[Neserk]

...or is life what happens when you're busy making other plans
-john lennon

Pretty much ^

[sethypoo]

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.



Absolutely

[Nanda Devi]

I think too many people feel compelled to follow the blue-print that society has laid out for everyone to follow:

They must go to college, take all the most practical courses, get the tidy job making decent money but getting no satisfaction from it... they absolutely must be married by a certain age... then they just have to have the house, the little plot of land in suburbia... then by yet another pre-determined age they must have the first kid, then the second a few years later. Kids grow up, move out, you've been numbly droning your life away in some dreary office for the past 40 years and then you retire and you're too old to do all the things you always dreamed of doing when you retire, so you spend your retirement years in a daze and then... that's it.

Of course not everyone lives that way, and maybe that was a bit too extreme and depressing, but I do think it's a mistake to never leave anything to chance, never take a risk or do things that don't fit into the socially "acceptable" way of life.

So I'm trying to make sure, before I do anything in life, that it's because I truly want to do it and not just because it's the "right" thing to do and the "right" time to do it.

ND

[themadchemist]

While it's not a great idea to map out your life event for event right to the end, a nice general plan is good. It's a nice feeling to know what you want to be doing with life and how you want to get there, at least to some degree. It's something I think I'll be happy with and as I've learned more, it's only attracted me even more the field that I've thought I wanted to enter.

It doesn't take much time to develop a plan and to have one gives your life some meaning and value to yourself. It's nice and comforting and it doesn't mean you don't have to take risks, but it does mean that you have direction. There's nothing worse than being aimless...I can't imagine something more unfulfilling than just not knowing what you want to do with your time. That's why I hate boredom so much.

[JDar]

It sucks coming out of high school...I have no idea what I'm gonna do or where I'm gonna go to college. Plus, I have had the problem of senioritis since sophmore year. Needless to say, it's reflected on my grades, and that makes a plan even more difficult to follow.

You should market the PopeCap. Anyone with your imagination will do well--it's getting pointed in the right direction that's hard. I'm first in line to buy the PopeCap!

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I plan to have a computer job that I can do over the internet, get a laptop with wireless internet, and travel the world.

If I can't do that,(which it is likely that I won't be able to) then I will move to California, and do whatever it is that I end up doing.

[CrackedButter]

I like to stay flexible, i've been in this state of mind 100% since september 2003. The life I had planned out was one of getting a good computer education and then travelling to the states. The first thing to change my mind was that I realised I wasn't that interested in computers, moreso when I had to use MS access for a project. Second thing to change my mind was 9/11 and the US's policy towards the rest of the world.

I went to do a Art and Graphic Design course (i've never practised art so i'm out of my depth here). It offers me the flexibility I would like since it covers so much in learning about the creative industries, I study photography, illustration, graphic design, art, art history, colour theory and much more. There are so many things I could do. The only thing I do want to do is either live in NZ or Japan.

I try to stay mobile as well (not at the moment because I am grounded with an emac) but normally I would have a laptop, would prefer a travel printer. I have a some solid amount of clothes (I like to stay small) and personal items because I believe having to much cushions you from the world and just provides clutter in ones life. I don't have a TV, DVD player, video. All I have is this emac for entertainment, where I live all I have is two desks, one is a glass computer desk the other is a standing draft board AO size (given to me by my college for free as well ;)). A metallic fold away chest of drawers a huge cd wallet for my cd's. If I wanted to leave I could do it in under five minutes and thats how I live at the moment. Maybe this will all change by the time I settle down (if I do) but at the moment I am so happy even if I think I am going bald! I devote nearly all my time to my course as I want to get it done and I am a little behind since I am the oldest in my year and the next year above, since i've been in college since 1997.

Away i'm explaining to much and giving away all the surprises!:)

[themadchemist]

I don't have a set plan but i know some of the stuff i want to do.
First is get my medical degree.
I don't know what branch of medicine i want to do but right now im entertaining doing medicin sans frontiers because it links into my next point.
Travel the world and experience all of its beauty and diverse cultures.
Go rock climbing in Yosemite.
Get married and have kids.

I'm with you on medicin sans frontiers! Once I've gotten my MD, I definitely want to be involved in that for some time.

[Les Kern]

..or who has kept on course with their life plan?


I did, years ago. I found that I was doing those things anyway, so the list went bye when I was in my late 20's. Still have to visit Russia and Egypt, but that's about it. The list had things like skydiving, getting a pilots license, skuba, cruising, a motorcycle, hang-gliding, mountain climbing, traveling to weird countries, smoking hash (!), surfing, etc., etc. Like any adolescent list had.....
The trouble I fear is that my particular list, being almost complete, just reminds me that I'm on the tail-end of my life. Being 48 isn't bad and I'm in excellent health, but let's face it: Mortality is something that sooner or later reminds you of its existence. With parents and even siblings starting to drop dead, there's a bit of urgency, but I'm not sure about what. I have no advice for you young-s**ts out there other than to respect those older and wiser, for one day you will be me.
As for a "career", alas, no. I knew early on that life was to be an adventure. I've had quite few jobs in my life and I'm doing quite well now, but I truly believe we are not defined by what we do for a living. One of my favorite quotes was always Arthur C. Clarke, in "Time Enough For Love": "Specialization is for insects".

[TheMacOS.com]

Jesus has mine mapped out and planned... which is good.... takes the stress off me. :)

[MacAztec]

I really don't have any idea what I want to do when I am older. I am 15 years old. I am pretty smart, and i know quite a bit about technology.

I don't think I want to get in the computer industry. There are far smarter people than me, and I don't believe its an area where a lot of money is to be made. Maybe I will get into farming? Who knows.

My goal, one day, is to live at some beach. I don't care if its in the United States, Mexico, wherever. I want to own a beachfront house. I want to have BBQs on the patio out front on the sand. I want to surf and be at the ocean often. Surfing is so fun.

I don't even know what I plan to major in at college. I think an awesome job would be a hollywood film editor. Long hours of work, but very worth it.

I'm sure i will find my place in society, but I want to have fun before i do. I don't plan on being engaged before I am 26 years old. College will be awesome I think, I think I will manage fairly well on my own.

My other goal is to have a son. I think it would be so neat to raise a son and teach him things. Sports, tricks, cuss words, the list goes on...

[scem0]

Don't be dissapointed if you son turns out to be like me....

Hates football and most other mainstream sports, is annoyed when their parents cuss, etc, etc, etc.

But as for my life since my last post, I've become more interested in stuntwork. I've been thinking a lot about becoming a stuntman specializing in martial arts, and when I get too old for that becoming preferably a fight scene choreographer, or if that isn't possible, a stunt coordinator.

Too many people my age are interested in computers, I would just be one fish in the sea. Not enough money in computer jobs. Plus I don't really like working on computers. I like being on them, but I don't like programming, I don't like web design, and the list goes on and on. The only thing I could see myself doing on the computer is something like graphic design, flash design, etc. I wouldn't mind using a computer for an engineering job (a route I have been considering) though.

I'd like to be able to plan out my life, but people always say "follow your interests" and stuff like that. My problem is that I'm not interested in much. I like Starcraft and martial arts. That's just about it. I don't see a good future with starcraft, and I don't think owning a martial arts studio would be too much fun, so I have decided that I'd enjoy stunt work the most out of anything.

scem0

[IIvan]

I would hate to have it all planned out now. I wouldn't mind if I actually knew what I wanted, but every new experience makes me think differently. I love the idea of just winging it, but I fear the consequences of being old and not being able to make any money. Damn the college system! It would be nice to just get jobs by knowledge and intelligence, without being required to have a piece of paper. I'll go anyways- plenty of fun to be had Im told, and I can use or fall back on the degree I earn. I suppose my life goals at this point are to make friends and have fun, you know- the tyical experience life to the fullest routine... ;)