I’ve been thinking about this lately. I wanted to be a doctor, but my family broke apart in my teens, which affected my mental health and, subsequently, my studies. I worked in construction and as a driver on the side for a bit before replacing the former with work as a personal trainer. Now I work as a bodyguard for a rich kid, which is de facto more of a surveillance, driving, and companionship role than a security one, since his dad has hardcore professionals for times when security is really needed. I didn’t expect my life to turn out this way, to be honest.
As a kid: the usual stuff like a pilot or whatever.
Im an accountant now. Long enough that the money is good, but its destroying my soul.
I’m working on switching to something more fulfilling.
I wanted to do IT and I’m doing IT.
Likely related to being neurodivergent. There are also a lot of things I was told I’d change my opinion on later like tastes for food or politics but nope, didn’t change.
I wanted to be a pilot. As a kid I was obsessed with flight simulators and tried to learn as much about aviation on my own in a time before internet access was ubiquitous. In high school I read up on the requirements to get into flight school and tried my best to prepare.
Then my parents bought me a guitar, and I did not become a pilot.
i wanted to be rich when I was a kid, but it turns out you have to be a soulless monster that steps on people to get ahead in the corporate world and I’m not about that.
I also wanted to work in computers or making video games. I learned that making games is a soul crushing job, so I shied away from that and ended up working as a Software Engineer, so yeah, I nailed that dream. I’ll just stick to playing games.
As a child, I wanted to be a zoologist.
Later during my teens I wanted to be an artist. And I did.
I pursued the arts for a very long time. Started as a silversmith while I was still in my teens, a career that lasted about 15 years give or take. Meanwhile I kept studying arts. I managed to get some illustrations published but it wasn’t a lot. As my silversmith era was ending, I got into 3D design/VFX. I managed to work for a small studio for two years. Best job in my whole life, unfortunately it ended too roughly with a mix of industry collapse, burnout and personal relationship problems all entangled.
That was a couple years ago and in spite of my best efforts I couldn’t get a job in 3D ever again. This in turn drove me into depression, of which I’m crawling out of, currently holding a job in retail ( I jumped from one retail place to another until I found a decent work environment) but unfortunately my creative side is not giving any signs of life. The current AI debacle adds insult to injury, discouraging sharing new work at all if I had anything substantial to produce.
It’s shit. But it used to be great. I wonder if there’s something of Phoenix in me or if I’m just a pile of ashes. Only time will tell but the years keep piling up and things don’t improve.
I wanted to be a race car driver. Literally had no other ambitions, that’s all I wanted, and I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be. Well we grew up homeless and I didn’t realise it was something only wealthy families could afford to support.
Turns out I couldn’t be anything I wanted to be.
I work in I.T. now. It’s fine, pays the bils. I built myself a pretty decent sim racing rig so although it’s not the same thing, it somewhat scratches the itch.
As a kid I dead-pan told my mom that I’d like to be a "white-collar office worker. Because I wanted somewhat of a predictable routine without too much unexpected things happening
Considering that this is already my second postdoc (somewhat of a scientist training… intern… thing) “job” (no employment contract btw) within 2 years of my graduation, during which I have moved twice including once across a continent, and once getting work-related anxiety so bad I got sick for a month… I think young me’s plan is preferable at this point
I know this will sound strange, but as a kid I saw the movie Brainstorm and I wanted to be a Tech guy working in a really cool tech building.
Between my childhold and becoming a tech guy working in really cool tech buildigs I tried my hand at bunch of different jobs.
The only thing my current tech job in a cool tech building is lacking from Brainstorm is being located in The Outer Banks.
I wanted to design bridges and/or so something with history. So I went to school, took one year of civil engineering and realized that the last on earth I wanted to do was design bridges.
Switched to chemistry, got a PhD, realized the second-to-last thing I wanted to do was academia, followed closely by lab work.
Unfortunately I finished right in the middle of the housing crash, so I did QA for a factory for a bit (which combined a little policy stuff with a lot of labwork). Then went back to civil engineering, aiming for something chemistry ike asphalt or concrete.
That didn’t really work out, but I did end up being vastly overqualified for my job there. Rolled into safety and compliance by virtue of being the least unqualified person there. They paid for another college level degree during office hours, and then fired me after restructuring (thanks for the free degree guys!) so now I’m self-employed in safety and compliance, I do audits and help people and the environment stay safe and clean.
I do historical reenactment as a hobby, because history is cool!
As a kid, I wanted to be a scientist of some sort. As an adult, I work in retail and live at home with my parents. I hate my life.
Wanted to be a veterinarian. Worked in a vet clinic in high school as…a person who cleaned shit and hated it, decided that field wasn’t for me 😂
Next decided to pursue management, not sure why because I never wanted to manage people. Settled on becoming a licensed professional counselor after receiving counseling myself. Love my job but REALLY over this whole “working” thing.
As a kid I specifically wanted to be a mad scientist. I’m halfway there because, man, I’m fucking pissed.
Proof:
Yeah, me too. Due to an incompatible ADHD-riddled mind and an absolute incapability to study or handle longer projects, I now work in tech service. Not a fan, but as it’s in the medical field I feel I do some good so I’m not bitter. Maybe a little bit 😅
I had three potential career paths I wanted when I was a kid: Masseuse, Meteorologist, or IT
After reading about each career, I decided being a Masseuse would destroy my body and give me carpel tunnel and Meteorologist is too restrictive of a career due to the few number of openings.
I settled on IT and I’m a Network Engineer. I hate it. Pays OK, though.
Turns out a lot of things you enjoy that you have to then do as a job for 18 years, rather than a hobby, makes you grow to no longer enjoy it.
My wife appreciates my personal massage skills, though.
I wanted to be a concept artist for videogames! I got excited at the concept,but had a terrible teacher in computer animation cass that made me feel shitty about my art. Even though it killed my dream, I kept making art and have been a tattoo artist for the past 5 years, as well as a freelance illustrator for 10 I’m really glad I didn’t give up on drawing, it took a different form but it’s so lovely to have gotten to walk the artists path.
Audio engineer as a kid, as an adult, audio engineer along with video editor, everything production and broadcast engineering work.
As a kid i was obsessed with space, i remember sitting hours infront of the computer just watching space flights, i watched every apollo launch, mercury launch, every space shuttle launch (except the ones that blew up), so so much on hubble. I had books lining my shelves explaining the universe, about black holes and stars and how we would conquer them. I loved space. and still do, i wanted to do any job even remotely close to it. NASA was my dream workplace, neil armstrong was my hero.
Now i do programming and play ksp. Close enough.
As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I don’t like people and loved the idea to just have the entire space for myself lol.
I ended up being into Finance and Accounting sector though. I like Finance stuff.
