Where Do You Think You Will Be In Five Years?

As you may or may not know my birthday is comin up this Sunday. I'm gonna be 25, a quarter of a century spent on this earth. As I drove to school today where I am currently typing this a comedian named Mitch Hedberg popped into my head. One of his bits was about a job interview, and the interviewer asked him "What do you see yourself doing 5 years from now?" He responds with "Celebrating the 5 year anniversary, of you asking me this question."

Thinking about this I realized that just a few months ago (Oct 6th to be exact) it would have been my 5 year anniversary at IKEA had I stuck around for another 10 months. I remember my interview there and they asked me that exact question. I believe my answer was that I would be in 1 of 2 possible scenarios: 1) some sort of management level within the company had I not yet attained my degree or 2) teaching, coaching, being a family man. Call it a quarter life crisis I guess, but its dawned on me that I haven't really done much with myself since that question was asked of me. Granted I didn't get dealt the best hand in life since I graduated high school with high aspirations of things to come. Having a kid at 19, having the mother die when he's barely 3 and being forced into the single father statistic, being forced to move back in with my parents after 5 years of being on my own. All of these things have severely stunted my personal and professional growth. Don't get me wrong, I love my son and wouldn't trade him for anything in the world, but there are times in my life when I can't help but think about how my life would be had he never come along. From speaking with friends that are in semi-similair situations I've found this isn't that uncommon, which i guess is a good thing for me cause it shows I'm not as messed up as I sometimes think I am.

When I look back at my answer to the question I'm happy that the first scenario didn't unfold that way, cause after being at the company for 4+ years I've seen several of my one time coworkers get promoted to the managerial plateu and almost every one of them has changed for the worst, fitting the mold that is the IKEA manager. I wouldn't want to be like those people, from my experience the large majority of them are not decent human beings. I believe the only reason I really said that at the time was to look like I was going to be there for awhile and they should let me collect their carts for them, wherein reality I figured I would be done with school by then. 6 years and 6 schools later I'm almost there.

I guess the point of this rant is I haven't accomplished nearly as much by the age of 25 as I thought I would have coming out of high school. An ideal world would have had me graduate college 3 years ago, been teaching for 2 and in some sort of a progressing relationship. As we can all plainly see this ideal has not come close to being a reality. When I whine about this to people they tell me to buck up, I'm doing well for what I've had to go through. On one level I understand that, but on another level I know I'm better than that and that I should have been able to rise above the adversity that's been thrust my way to attain my goals. The fact that I haven't done that worries me, maybe I'm not as strong and determined as I once thought I was.

I am, however, a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. What I've missed out on in terms of my youth, career, and love life I've gained in "valuable" life experience. They say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so I guess the fact that I'm putting everything else on the back burner to concentrate on finishing school as quickly as possible is a result of everything thats happened. I don't want to live in my parents living room anymore. I want to have my own place again. I want to have a stable career, a happy home. Once I prove to myself that I can make it and provide for myself and my son I believe that everything else should fall into place. So hopefully instead of having a quarter life crisis I'm having a quarter life awakening. This has all been building on something, and I'm eager to see what it is.


On a lighter note, I'm celebrating the big 2-5 by going to Vegas! so woo hoo to me, I'm gonna try to have a blast. I think I will.