What I should be doing... or what I want to be doing
Lately I've been evaluating the goals that I have in my life and lately have been analyzing the role that my family has played in those goals. I grew up in a family of workaholics. My dad has done very well for himself with only 2 years of education. He rose through the ranks of a very large corporation only to be forced into early retirement once one of his projects was completed. He has since started his only consulting company and is doing very well with that. My younger sister is completing her masters of Psychology and has managed to get a number of her articles published in various journals. She's also done very well with her schooling, and should do well in the future. My mom did very well in her career until she started having kids. Her and my dad graduated from the same course in '68, and she actually started with a company making a good deal more than my dad did. This is pretty significant given that women were just starting to have a place in the workforce at that time.
I have known for a long time that I was the black sheep of my immediate family. At the age of 28 I still have not been able to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. It's taken a while, but I'm close to completing my university degree, and have a diploma in computer programming as well. The companies that I've worked for have been very happy with my work, and it shows by the constant promotions that I have received at those jobs. It's quite obvious that I'm a hard worker and quite intelligent, but I'm just not happy with my life. I'm happy with the person that I am, but not with the direction that my life has taken.
So, what's the problem? I think I've been trying to live my parent's life because that's how I grew up. I don't mean to sound like I've been living my life how they wanted me to, because it's obvious that I'm not. It's more that I've been trying to compare my life to theirs, which is almost impossible to do because things are very different now compared to when my parents were my age. I have been led to believe that success is defined by your career accomplishments and your ability to properly plan for the future. In their minds, today is not as important as tomorrow is. But what happens when tomorrow becomes today?
This brings me to the title of this entry. The difference between what I should be doing and what I want to be doing. I have discovered there is a very big difference in these 2 things. According to my parents, I should be saving for the future, I should be working on developing a career, I should be planning to make sure that if anything happens to my health I can still survive. This is the kind of stuff that has been haunting me most of my life. The interesting thing is that something has happened to my health, and I'm still surviving. I will note that I am surviving with a lot of my parent's help, but they want me to be able to pursue every option towards recovery that happens to become available. They volunteered, and they understand the things that I need to keep my spirits high through these times. I do love them for this.
So, what do I want to be doing? This is not such an easy question for me to answer. What do I want to do? I am extremely quick to pick up anything computer related to the point where it often doesn't challenge me anymore, but I'm not sure this is the right direction for me. I know that business analysis and process enhancement is something that I find very interesting, mostly because of the constant learning that is involved. I'm close to finishing my finance and accounting degree, but I don't actually intend on pursuing work in these specific fields. It's too bad that they force you to choose your major prior to giving you a lot of real experience in those fields. The education is a great base for entrepreneurial ventures that I have planned for the future, and is beneficial in most positions in a company. I have done a good amount of accounting based work in the past, and know that is not the area that I want to actually work in, which is why it's my minor. I'm a self taught mechanic, and have been pretty good at diagnosing and fixing a lot of my car problems in the past. I have also developed a great interest in electronics, specifically audio, and probably know more than I should about audio and consumer electronics in general (way more than most sales people). I have started learning about woodworking as a craft, and have decided that I would like to design and build some of my own furniture. This also relates to my audio interest as I would love to get into building home audio speakers from scratch by building the cabinets, the electronic crossovers and properly finishing everything. I have worked for a construction company, and while I was more of a gopher, I still learned the proper way to build things, and how developed some fantastic project planning and management experience. I am very interested in bartending. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but have never pursued it. I think that experience would benefit me in at least one of the ventures that I have in mind for the future. Yet, strangely enough, I'm not sure what I want to do.
The more that I think about it, the more that I want to see the world. I don't just want to travel, I actually want to live and work in other countries in order to better experience the various cultures. I would also like to possibly do some classes overseas as well. I think that I can take much more from those experiences than trying to develop a career here. There is plenty of time in my life to make a career out of things after I get some of this other stuff out of the way. I have decided that I want to make this happen sometime in 2006. I don't have much in the way of a plan at this time, but I am going to work on developing a draft plan in next couple of weeks.
This entry was spawned by the fact that there are certain things happening right now in my brain. It's tough to explain but I think I'm coming out of my mental block. I still have a lot of troubles with memories. I still struggle to remain on a certain task. I still need to keep things journalized. My self awareness is still very fuzzy. I'm still struggling with my highs and lows as well and some of the anti-social behavior that goes along with this stuff. And, naturally, I'm still not sleeping. However, I have noticed that I want to do more things.
I am getting to the point where I'm ready to install the stereo in my car. This is something that I've been looking forward to doing for a while now. I love a great sounding audio system, but I also enjoy the creation of that system. I mean, it involves electronics, music, and woodworking/handcrafting things... what more could I ask for based on my interests above. I have sat around thinking about this and have always been afraid that I would start it and not be able to finish it properly. I've decided that I'll be starting slow and getting the stuff I have right now installed. I see this as a very good sign, because I'm at least starting to want to do the things that I love to do again, which hasn't always been the case lately.
Today my therapist asked me where I see myself in 5 years. It was a tough question for me to answer right now because I have no actual direction as most of my energy is directed towards my health issues. I can't tell you what I see myself doing. I can't tell you where I see myself living. I can't tell you if I see myself married or seriously dating anyone. I honestly couldn't create any sort of mental image at all. The only thing that I could provide as an answer is that I see myself being happy.
So, after an entire day of thinking about where I see myself in 5 years, I haven't really developed more of an answer yet. I will end this entry with this thought though. I fully believe that this experience right now will allow me to point myself in the right direction and allow me to figure out what I want to be doing. On the bright side of things, at least I can honestly say that I am happy with myself, and believe I do have a positive effect on the world that I interact with.
I have known for a long time that I was the black sheep of my immediate family. At the age of 28 I still have not been able to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. It's taken a while, but I'm close to completing my university degree, and have a diploma in computer programming as well. The companies that I've worked for have been very happy with my work, and it shows by the constant promotions that I have received at those jobs. It's quite obvious that I'm a hard worker and quite intelligent, but I'm just not happy with my life. I'm happy with the person that I am, but not with the direction that my life has taken.
So, what's the problem? I think I've been trying to live my parent's life because that's how I grew up. I don't mean to sound like I've been living my life how they wanted me to, because it's obvious that I'm not. It's more that I've been trying to compare my life to theirs, which is almost impossible to do because things are very different now compared to when my parents were my age. I have been led to believe that success is defined by your career accomplishments and your ability to properly plan for the future. In their minds, today is not as important as tomorrow is. But what happens when tomorrow becomes today?
This brings me to the title of this entry. The difference between what I should be doing and what I want to be doing. I have discovered there is a very big difference in these 2 things. According to my parents, I should be saving for the future, I should be working on developing a career, I should be planning to make sure that if anything happens to my health I can still survive. This is the kind of stuff that has been haunting me most of my life. The interesting thing is that something has happened to my health, and I'm still surviving. I will note that I am surviving with a lot of my parent's help, but they want me to be able to pursue every option towards recovery that happens to become available. They volunteered, and they understand the things that I need to keep my spirits high through these times. I do love them for this.
So, what do I want to be doing? This is not such an easy question for me to answer. What do I want to do? I am extremely quick to pick up anything computer related to the point where it often doesn't challenge me anymore, but I'm not sure this is the right direction for me. I know that business analysis and process enhancement is something that I find very interesting, mostly because of the constant learning that is involved. I'm close to finishing my finance and accounting degree, but I don't actually intend on pursuing work in these specific fields. It's too bad that they force you to choose your major prior to giving you a lot of real experience in those fields. The education is a great base for entrepreneurial ventures that I have planned for the future, and is beneficial in most positions in a company. I have done a good amount of accounting based work in the past, and know that is not the area that I want to actually work in, which is why it's my minor. I'm a self taught mechanic, and have been pretty good at diagnosing and fixing a lot of my car problems in the past. I have also developed a great interest in electronics, specifically audio, and probably know more than I should about audio and consumer electronics in general (way more than most sales people). I have started learning about woodworking as a craft, and have decided that I would like to design and build some of my own furniture. This also relates to my audio interest as I would love to get into building home audio speakers from scratch by building the cabinets, the electronic crossovers and properly finishing everything. I have worked for a construction company, and while I was more of a gopher, I still learned the proper way to build things, and how developed some fantastic project planning and management experience. I am very interested in bartending. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but have never pursued it. I think that experience would benefit me in at least one of the ventures that I have in mind for the future. Yet, strangely enough, I'm not sure what I want to do.
The more that I think about it, the more that I want to see the world. I don't just want to travel, I actually want to live and work in other countries in order to better experience the various cultures. I would also like to possibly do some classes overseas as well. I think that I can take much more from those experiences than trying to develop a career here. There is plenty of time in my life to make a career out of things after I get some of this other stuff out of the way. I have decided that I want to make this happen sometime in 2006. I don't have much in the way of a plan at this time, but I am going to work on developing a draft plan in next couple of weeks.
This entry was spawned by the fact that there are certain things happening right now in my brain. It's tough to explain but I think I'm coming out of my mental block. I still have a lot of troubles with memories. I still struggle to remain on a certain task. I still need to keep things journalized. My self awareness is still very fuzzy. I'm still struggling with my highs and lows as well and some of the anti-social behavior that goes along with this stuff. And, naturally, I'm still not sleeping. However, I have noticed that I want to do more things.
I am getting to the point where I'm ready to install the stereo in my car. This is something that I've been looking forward to doing for a while now. I love a great sounding audio system, but I also enjoy the creation of that system. I mean, it involves electronics, music, and woodworking/handcrafting things... what more could I ask for based on my interests above. I have sat around thinking about this and have always been afraid that I would start it and not be able to finish it properly. I've decided that I'll be starting slow and getting the stuff I have right now installed. I see this as a very good sign, because I'm at least starting to want to do the things that I love to do again, which hasn't always been the case lately.
Today my therapist asked me where I see myself in 5 years. It was a tough question for me to answer right now because I have no actual direction as most of my energy is directed towards my health issues. I can't tell you what I see myself doing. I can't tell you where I see myself living. I can't tell you if I see myself married or seriously dating anyone. I honestly couldn't create any sort of mental image at all. The only thing that I could provide as an answer is that I see myself being happy.
So, after an entire day of thinking about where I see myself in 5 years, I haven't really developed more of an answer yet. I will end this entry with this thought though. I fully believe that this experience right now will allow me to point myself in the right direction and allow me to figure out what I want to be doing. On the bright side of things, at least I can honestly say that I am happy with myself, and believe I do have a positive effect on the world that I interact with.
posted by Kelly at 11:28 PM
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