My own future

All this talk about visioning the future is getting me down.

Not only am I concerned about the future of the planet, my children's future, politics, business, and all those things but I've been forced to take a look at my own future.

How can I be 32 years old and still not clear about what I want to do with my life? What am I going to be when I grow up?

I've gotten better at clarifying my needs as far as what resources I feel are important and what minimum standard I would like to/need to keep. I've done poverty and decided that with three kids I need to have food in the house. I hated being poor. I don't think I realized it at the time - I was so idealistic and stupid/immature. There is something to be said for eating. Life is easier when you are not stressed about when you will be able to feed your family again. I never want to be that poor again.

I don't feel (tonight anyway) that the future is a particularly inviting place. Maybe because it's snowing, maybe because I'm unsure how to tackle the next assignment, maybe it's because I'm thinking about choosing courses and a degree and a career. :) I guess that's a pretty tall order.

I'm supposed to be tying this back to mentorship and learning. Hmmm. Well this week's reading is about closure. I'd like some closure on school that's for sure. If I could just commit myself to the four year degree maybe life would be easier instead of trying to hurry up and finish early. In another 2 years my youngest would be six. Maybe it would be possible for me to consider grad school in another city. Maybe Windsor would offer something that I would qualify for. /sigh/ back to this course. right.

Closure with a specific date in mind seems very appealing to me. My life has been such chaos in the past that I seem strongly and strangely attracted to absolutes and logic these days. I don't ever want to run another semester without a computer science or other black-and-white-cut-and-dry course. All these arts/social science courses are completely draining me.

I like spontaneity too - I definitely like changing gears when appropriate. I just find comfort in a basic underlying structure so that I know I don't always have to think on my toes - that I won't always be under pressure to have a great idea on the fly. I'm glad our mentorship course spells that out for us.