In 10 years...

I'm 28, in 10 years I hope to have a family, I hope to be settled down with some financial stability, I hope to continue coaching hockey as a hobby, although I'm sure parents will ruin this for me at some point. I hope to be see my parents happily retired in the mountains and I hope to see my nieces graduating 5th grade. 10 years seems a long way off, and it some ways it is, but fuck, time flies.

Focus Where do you hope to be in 10 years? Are you looking for financial stability or are you just looking to carve out your own place in the world? Are you hoping to find the love of your life or do you hope just to keep things as they are?

UnFocus Where were you 10 years ago? Did you have any idea you'd be where you are now or were you just along for the ride?

 

I keep being surprised how many of us are in New England.

Anyway, ten years ago I was in college, puttering along. Nothing too terribly interesting save having a girlfriend and being pretty terrible at it. I think I would have been pretty surprised then to learn about the married career shift me of today.

Ten years from now is tough to guess career-wise as it depends if I want to go partner or not. But either way, I'll have a stable self-sustaining career and near financial independence without significant debt. I should have at least one child by then, possibly two, but I'll probably be living in the same general area. I suspect I will have undergone a couple of major shifts in friends groups and have a core group of cool people as the rest shake out of my life.

So nothing terribly dramatic, but rather idyllic I think.

 

10 years ago I was in the midst of the toughest times in my life, to that point. I had just finished my freshman year of college, which was, socially and emotionally, the best thing to ever happen to me, made me so much more confident and secure, etc... However, academically wasn't the same sort of growth and I was 0.1 GPA points away from being placed on academic probation by my alma mater. My parents said "naw, fuck this" and pulled me out of school for the semester. So I was working a terrible summer landscaping and completely missing out on the excitement of going back. It was pretty rough, I was down on myself, but in retrospect it was a brilliant wake up call and forced me to change somethings and realize what is truly important.

10 years from now, I frankly don't have any idea. I'd like to think I'd be married and I likely will be moving towards taking over my Dad's company, which if it happened today would constitute me moving back to Milwaukee, but the odds of the company staying there for another decade are probably 50/50 given a variety of factors. I know for almost certain that I won't be at a large Fortune 100 company like I am now. Where I'm living is up for debate as well. I will still be relatively young (38) so short of obvious differences like marriage or kids, I don't see myself slowing or shutting anything down all too much, that I can help.

 

Ten years ago -
Texas. Dating my second husband.

During that time - marriage, being a bit of a trophy wife/sahm for awhile, basically being a generally useless though functional human being. Then ExH2 started pounding the drinks and the pills and life got stressful so I got a job. Built a gym. Built a world and support network and made friends I never expected.
Things tailspinned at home, and made the rest of life move even faster.

Divorced.

Dated The Husband for quite some time. Hawaii. The Army. South Carolina. We got married. California...Big Sur and Napa and San Francisco and Santa Cruz and Monastery Beach and Tahoe and the Grand Canyon and big fluffy beds and pillows in the NPS and Carmel and brunch and shopping and...so on.

Spent nearly two years in Texas with him gone in training.
Moved to Maryland.

In ten years -

No. Freaking. Idea. I'd love to be in Colorado though.

 

10 years ago I was working a silly job and going to college. Took courses just because I needed to be in college. So, in other words, fairly typical 20-something with little direction. Despite that, things looked good. They were cheery, had a lot of friends, good weekends out, was finally becoming extroverted, started reading a shitload.

The 10 years between then and now is when everything went to shit.

A decade from now I hope to have a brewery and distillery going. Small output, consistent, good. Hell, I'd settle for a pot dispensary. Vice is where the dollars are, dammit. I will no doubt be in the stock market and probably have a couple income properties. Beyond that who knows. Probably be starting a family. We breed late in this family, mainly because we're immature. Wife? Yeah, maybe. I'm open to just about anything that won't deviate my financial goals.

I assume life only has the worst in store for me. So, we'll plan for that.

 

10 years ago, I was 15 years old and about to start my freshman year of high school. Holy shit is that crazy to think about. So much can be said about what has happened between now and then, but needless to say times have changed. Back then I'd be surprised to learn I managed to score a decent girlfriend (miracles happen) and somehow live and work in the Twin Cities now. I knew I didn't want to stay in my hometown but was very unsure about the big city.

I'll probably be married within the next 2-3 years, so 10 years from now I'll likely have switched from practicing making babies to actually producing some too. If my small business isn't my sole occupation yet, I'll probably (hopefully) be plotting how to make that happen before another 10 years passes by, but who knows. I can see myself moving out of this area in the middle of the Twin Cities at some point, but definitely not Minnesota.

 

10 years ago I was benefitting from the good mortgage market in Arizona and was making bank without really trying, I had just started dating my now wife and she was in the same industry and making a lot as well so I of course I was buying lots of fishing shit, traveling a lot and partying a lot, all the while congratulating myself for how successful I was, (bad move on my part) luckily I was saving some money too because there was trouble on the horizon.

10 years from know who knows, I like to work and I like to kill shit, except billfish, so as long as I have the means to hunt and fish I will be good.

 

10 years ago I had just finished my first year of high school and had recently discovered the joys of smoking weed and sneaking out of my parents house. I was still a good student and spent a big chunk of my summer volunteering, babysitting and fantasizing about going to college and getting the fuck out of my hometown. I never would have guessed, after a measly 3 years away, that I'd be back.

10 years from now, I suspect boyfriend and I will be married, and I'll have to figure out a new name to call him. If I decide to have kids, I should probably have at least one of them by then so I'm not an old mom, because in my mind, the options are 0 or 2 kids. I should've gone back to get a masters (or 2) by then, and hopefully have a pertinent job that doesn't drive me crazy. And I want a cute tiny house. That sounds like all of the things, I think.

 

10 years ago I was at University with the high school girlfriend(ex) taking my B.Sc. in computer science. If I could go back I would slap the shit out of myself, for taking my gf with me(she took classes too) and I also would tell myself to look at a trade instead of school. Fuck me do i ever regret taking her. I would laugh at you 10 years ago if you would of told me I wold be married with a kid, working the job I am now.

10 years from now I will probably be either at the same job I am at or in a foremen's position. I will more then likely have one more kid. Life will be good if it continues they way it has been.\

edit: why would I ever want to leave this job. Great pay, good benefits, as long as my job gets done, it really doesn't matter what I do, I am typing this from work.

 

10 years ago, I was about to start my senior year of high school. I was 20 pounds heavier, applying for colleges, and hanging out with my friends when I wasn't working as a hostess. I also had a much more manageable level of anxiety.

10 years from now, I will have a full-time job that pays enough to live out of my parents house. I hope to be married and maybe have a kid or two. Anything beyond that, I haven't put too much thought into. Maybe I'll have figured out how to be a writer. Maybe I'll be a full-time teacher who continues to write for myself. As long as I have a full-time job and maybe a family, I will be happy.

 

Heh, 10 years ago I was in the height of my raver phase. I was working graveyard shift Monday to Thursday night and making about $70k a year for it as a 23 year old. I would get home Friday morning, sleep all day, get up, get high, hit a club Friday night at about 10pm and stay until 5 am, hit an after party Saturday morning from 6 until Midday, then maybe grab a nap, maybe grab some dinner, then hit a rave Saturday night by 10:30 and be there until 5 am, then hit an afterparty until midday and often catch a friend's DJ session Sunday afternoon. Sometime Sunday night, I'd come down enough to sleep, sleep from 9 or 10pm Sunday night, through till 8pm Monday night, then I'd cruise to work for a 10pm start - work through the week, rinse and repeat.

Every now and then we'd head to a beach town near where we lived for the clubs there. We had a fairly regular 'game' called "take your medicine" while we were raving, where we had to drop a pill every hour on the hour. It wasn't uncommon to hit the beach at like 3 or 4 AM when we went to this beach town where the clubs died a bit earlier, before the sun was up or the lifesavers were started. I used to semi regularly swim out past the break on a surf beach high as balls, and them swim back in the dark. I have no idea how I didn't die from that swim even if I wasn't high.

I was reviewing gigs for a street press magazine in those days and doing some press photography as well - almost all of it while high as balls. It meant that I had a press pass at most gigs, so I got to meet a bunch of mediocre DJ's and some washed up famous people (Public Enemy, Public Domain, Jungle Brothers, all musicians who I loved, all way past their prime).I also got to meet a lot of legit criminals - one of my suppliers was a debt collector for several local drug dealing heavyweights, and he was paid in product - so he had drugs to sell. He remains one of the nicest and most terrifying people I've ever met. The club circuit is largely crooked - almost every venue here is off books "managed" by some criminal group or other, mostly bikies. I knew a lot of bikies and knew the protocols to stay off their shitlist - but I was adopted by some fucking mental croatian coke heads at one point who apparently knew me from my review writing and photography of their venue which thank fuck they approved of, who would give me free cocaine - often in full view of the street they'd just hand me a plate of racked up lines and they thought it was adorable that I worried about the cops as they assured me that they had cops under control - do a line!

I hated my job - but I was fucking a lot of very hot strangers and wearing giant bell bottoms covered in fur and reflectors and my weekends were intense. I met a lot of people who I thought were famous (DJ's and musicians) and some of my cult artistic heroes like Miss Kitten and the Hacker and Amon Tobin.

Over the last 10 years, I followed the chemical rainbow to the point that I finally had to get clean or die high. Got married and divorced, traveled, got my kicks from kink instead of pills and powder, finally hated my IT job (even though my income had more than doubled and I was working normal person hours) enough to go back to school.

In 10 years? I'm hoping to be a Doctor of Psychology and practicing clinical psychology and doing a job where I actually help people and feel good about what I do for a living and look forward to getting up to go to work. At that point I hope I'll have a practice established enough that I can either be travelling fairly regularly and working with patients over skype or something while I write, or if I'm much more successful than I anticipate, tour around signing my book (for the friends who's couches I'm crashing on).

 

10 years ago I was headed into my last year of college and still dating my high school girlfriend. In past ten years, I have married said high school girlfriend, graduated college, worked 4 years as a social worker before going back to school and getting my teaching license, worked 3 years at a video store (which remains the most fun job I've ever had, sadly, because it paid dick and the place won't be open in 10 years), had 1 kid and now the wife is pregnant with number 2.

In 10 years I hope to be still teaching (I have zero desire to move into administration), still coaching football, ONLY have 2 kids, which means I'll have had a vasectomy by then. I hope to still live in this home, but with the basement done up the way we want (fireplace, play area for the kids), with the yard finally finished and landscaped how we've wanted, and a new, less shitty fence. My wife should be back to working full time, meaning our income will go from "above average" to "I can actually send my kids to college." It would be awesome if I still had time to play video games and were still a gamer in 10 years, but I'm not hopeful for that particular hobby.

Basically, just a normal, boring-ass family life.

 

Ten years ago I was working in bars, sleeping on friends' sofas/floors and just barely getting by really. Things were tough for a while, and I've still only ever had one job which paid more than minimum wage, but I've managed to haul my ass through seventy countries since then, seeing some pretty amazing/shitty things and meeting some pretty amazing/shitty people along the way. I'm still friends with a few folk from those days, though I don't see them much past weddings any more.

In ten years' time I'll hopefully have had a small handful of books published. Travel-wise I should be over the 100 country mark by then though I plan on travelling less broad and more deep starting in about a year or two's time. Perhaps be living in Copenhagen with my current girlfriend and our future dog and generally be happy. No doubt, in ten years time I'll think back to this and laugh. Possibly from the afterlife.

 

Focus: Ten years ago I was entering my sophomore year of high school. I spent most of my time playing music and trying to buy weed. My cousins and I traded insane amounts of porn via p2p networks. My goal for the year was to lose my virginity...I failed. Life was pretty boring.

Ten years from now I hope to be a practicing tax lawyer with an accounting firm or in-house for a company. I hope to have accumulated a nice little nest egg and I hope to own a house with a pool. I hope to have travelled extensively and live closer to my parents.

 

A decade ago I was flat-roofing and DJ'ing and/or doing drugs on the weekend. Looking back, I most definitely regret all of the roofing that I did.

Ten years from now I'll be well out of school, out of debt and finally have hopefully by then a slightly larger house with a pool. By then my daughter will be 15 and going to bed every night wishing I'd die in my sleep for no reason.

My fantasy ten years from now is to have a cottage. Nothing special, they usually never are but both my wife and I eventually want some sort of weekend warm weather escape. A place you can get to in less than four hours on the road so no doubt be on Lake Huron. This is a pipe dream and nothing more so wishful thinking, but one day...

 

I was going into grade 11 in a new school. Switching schools was actually a surprisingly good decision for me, and if I'm honest, probably one of the bigger reasons as to why I've been as successful as I've been up until now. 15 year old me was only marginally lamer than I am now, but he'd be pretty pleased to discover that 25 year old him would be financially independent with a good job, have lived abroad (if only briefly), travelled, and still found enough time in between to get laid somehow.

35 year old me is going to be a bit of a crapshoot. Maybe I'll pull a Rick Blaine and be a dark, brooding expat with a sentimental side and war stories that I don't really talk about.

 

10 years ago I was in university, going into my last year. I was sick of school, sick of studying and writing papers, all I wanted to do was get a job and be a grownup. I had just started dating the guy I'd eventually marry and everything was hunky dory.

I don't know about 10 years from now, but I do know that in about six months, I'm going to be up to my ass in diapers and spit up cloths.

 

10 Years ago I was 26, fed up with factory work (even as a supervisor) and busting my ass to lose weight. I was thinking about going back to college to finish my degree so that I could hopefully find more meaningful work or at least something more rewarding. I was single, dating a bit but nothing serious and had no plans to change that situation. My life was low stress and mostly a party with my friends and neighbors.

Now at 36, I finished my degree several years ago, lost 150 lbs (put 100 back on, currently reversing the trend again), and I am 2 years into running my own business. I actually just signed the papers two weeks ago to buy the business from my mom. Long story but its our family business, I've been working there since 1985 with a few other jobs sprinkled in. My dad had always hoped that my brother and I would take over the business together but life had other plans. My brother died unexpectedly 5 years ago and dad followed 2 years ago. I was kind of thrown into a lot of work but I think it actually helped me cope with their deaths and while I've certainly made mistakes I have managed to grow the business this year. That may have more to do with market conditions than with my decisions but I'll take it either way. Still single, and now that my friends are pretty much all married with kids I have more time to devote to work and at some point a gf/wife.

At 46? I'd like to be alive for starters. Blood work is good but I'm overweight and my family history isn't fabulous. My brother was 43, Dad 68. I don't see the potential to make millions at work but I can do well enough for where I live. Assuming I'm alive, I would like to get married and maybe knock out a kidlet or two. If not that, or in conjunction with that, I'd like to travel more. I read about some of the travels of other board members and the world seems to be a really cool place to check out. I've been to Spain, Morrocco (same trip), Canada several times, Mexico, and pretty much every state east of the Mississippi along with some West. There is so much out there I haven't done or seen that I could learn much and see places I've never been.