Are you where you want to be (a thread about Ambition ! )

28 more years until I own my home. should be 25 but eh, I took out what I'd paid off to buy my Ranger truck. It's funny I say that, I own units too but I don't really feel like I own them. I went into major stupid life threatening debt for them and it paid off, but had they not shiiiit. Who knows where I would be right now. That was sheer determination and will. Buy an apartment package, get the complex built, sell the things for more than I paid and we did that for years then we had a enough money to pay all the loans off and then just buy a place without a bank, we did that. Sold it for more.

Though I got very lucky once, we bought a townhouse and not long after, the owner of the land decided to bulldoze them all down to make way for units on the land. There were 7 town houses, now he could have 30+ units. His pay out to get everyone to move was roughly double what we paid for the place. So we were able to then, buy another three places with the money.

And that's how I started my own realistic monopoly. Although I have the properties, I don't actually feel like they are mine but it's where a lot of out income comes from, tennents.

The first place we bought after payout now my sister lives in. I'm going to sign it over to her one of these days as a surprise. My family means a lot to me and she's my youngest and the most in need of help. I'm waiting for her to finally want to save money for her own house before I give it to her though.

Now I have my proper house I live in but the bank owns it still. If I sold all others off I'd clear it, but I don't want to do that right now.

As for a job, shit, I threw that good one away last year as I wasn't happy with it. Now I've got not much else on. Taking a break. Thinking about going back to the hostel part time. Might wait until winter season is over, I never worked winter season. I still have a part ownership in it so it is an investment of sorts.

My family farm I don't think I'll ever have full ownership of which is cool, I have a large extended family and my cousins and all, we all have shares in it I guess. It would probably cost a lot to buy them all out.

Although I love my house now, I do dream of a property towards the woods, couple hundred acres, some horses and goats, dogs running around. it's achievable.

 

Damn

 

In some ways, I am happy.

I grew up in a very poor and abusive household, and managed to put myself through school and graduate school, working 80 or more hours a week for years. I am debt-free. I have a good job with a decent income where I can spend and save, I have escaped the paycheck to paycheck cycle, and I know where my meals are going to come from. I work a job that really really helps people. I still work a lot, but less so now. I get to travel a lot and I have a few great friends. Many of these things are luck, some are the result of ambition, though.

I do have a lack of fulfillment somewhere though--I think it comes from the fact that I have accomplished all of the goals I set for myself, and now I feel aimless. Not sure what to do next, and that has been bothering me quite a lot.

 

Am I where I want to be? Yes and no. On the yes side I am enormously grateful for the things I have: my family, a good job, my own house, reasonable health and so forth. I'm quite aware that it didn't have to be this way for me. So at this point in my life I'd say I'm where I want to be.

On the other hand, I'm no where near where I envisioned myself being 30 years ago. I was originally a math major with plans on becoming a teacher, either high school or college. I also saw myself living in the Northwest, married and maybe with a couple of kids. What I didn't see coming is how destructive alcohol would be to my plans. I won't go into details but what really happened is I ended up broke and damn near homeless. The end result is that by now, at 50 years of age, it is too late for me to make up for all that lost time.

I'm cool with it though. I eventually went back to school at 40 years of age and landed a job back in my hometown that I'm quite happy with. I hate this small ass little town I call home but at least I'm not in some war torn part of the planet. All things considered I've been quite lucky. And honestly, all that partying I did as a kid was fun as hell. It just came with a high price.

 

It's good for me to read this as I've had some problems with alcohol the past few years. I don't know what it is but in the midst of it, there almost seems like some type of subliminal beauty in self destruction.

But your post makes me realize that time wasted is wasted time and I'm definitely attempting to get better this year. I'm not sure my ambition has really changed but my concentration and focus has increased drastically for my ambitions.

 

I will be waiting ! Some great answers Guys ! your cool each and every one of you

 

Yes.

There is only one thing that has always eluded me.

 

Not really. I think my childhood self would be rather disappointed with how he turned out. He would be disappointed in me for following the dreams of other people, but not my own. For that, I have a lot of regrets I can't seem to get over; I wish I would've stuck to my drum playing, my art, my classic car rebuilding. I worked crappy jobs that I wasted my time doing after college because I stopped caring, and now I feel like a lot of time was wasted because of my stubbornness to better myself. That, and i regretted the pointless fields of study I took while in college.

In 2018 I saw a lot of improvements to my life of mediocrity. I overcame depression that was eating at me for the last 3-4 years. About 3 months after my layoff, I was able to land a more enjoyable job that I like doing. It pays less than my old job, and the hours are not quite full time, but I get to use my creativity by designing some really cool one-of-a-kind products for musicians. When I don't have enough work hours in that job, I am farming and processing marijuana.

I have a house, but I don't feel like it's something I earned, because some of my relatives are co-owners who helped make the down payments and assist in the bills, and they get to come and go when they please since they are investors in this estate. It's a really nice house, but I would've been much happier settling for less. Because of this, I don't feel like this is a home that I got myself, and the satisfaction level of everything in my life is lacking.

 

I think lots of people get help from family though, so I wouldn't let that burden you. You have a house. I'm only 31 and I'm well aware that might be young to have property already but at the same time I don't think so either. I know people younger than with houses, I knew people at my age when I didn't have any that were buying. Some landed good jobs straight from college, invest wisely. Some didn't and family helped to cover loans or insurances, no big deal. Hey for me it helps when your missus can back all your decisions too, it was basically family and my dad put a guarantee on his house that if I didn't pay they'd take his, or his money, So that helped too.

Renting is good for other people too. At least when you rent you aren't tied down you can just pack up and move if you don't like it anymore. I guess the annoyance there though is you inevitably pay off someone else's mortgage. I will admit that I was a lot more outgoing while I was renting it seemed every other weekend I would travel to the city for concerts and always go out. Buying a house stopped that almost immediately dead in its tracks. I enjoy looking forward to annual events now, things I know I can save and get ready for.

Sometimes people will act shocked or surprise when you say you have a house. Like the banks owns it technically etc. I know that lol and sometimes I wonder what is a 31yo supposed to have? I mean I'm halfway toward 62 that's a very dieable age, if I'm half way there, is it wrong of me to have a place? Am I monopoly genius or spoiled brat? Well I know I did all the hard work so I wasn't spoiled, determined maybe. I worked two and three jobs back then too, for my plan to work, I needed a deposit and I worked for all of that.

So I think I should be allowed to be happy and not guilty and I think so with you too. You had the people around you that cared, those important people that helped you get there. even if they do pop over all the time lol, Trust me you'd think my uncle owns this place when he comes over with his head full of ideas of what to do with our house.

 

Working 80 hours seems really steep but I think I could take some cues from you as well and if I land some work I really enjoy, make the most out of it.

I've never really ventured beyond 45 hours or so a week and that was doing fairly rigorous manual labor, but perhaps if I found something in another field, that might be more appealing.

 

WOW......Can't Say Iv'e Ever Seen A Thread Like This One......The Heartfelt Honesty Of

The Posters Here...... Has Really Surprised ......And Delighted Me.....



Cheers Glen.

 

Well......Not Sure Where To Start So Why Not .....As They Say......Start At The Beginning...........

Left School At 17 With Ambitions Of Being A Farmer.....And Working With My Father Running

The Farm Of 800 Acres That Had Been In Our Family Since 1852......Worked Several Part Time Jobs When

Things Were Quiet On The Farm......Mainly Driving Bus's And Delivering Furniture......In 1986

Dad Died And I Continued To Run The Farm On My Own......Sometimes Working 20 Hours

A Day.......In 2000 A Broad Acre Farmer Approached Me To Lease The Whole Farm And

Crop It......I Jumped At It And This Arrangement Continued For About 11 Years......Then The Farm

Started To Fall Into Disrepair......Finally In October 2014 It Was Sold And I Bought This Block

Of 5 Acres.....In An Upmarket Neighborhood......On A Hill.....On A No Through Road......

Beautiful Home (even if it is bloody huge)......And I Can Honestly Say I Am Very Happy Here.....

Took Nearly 2 Years Before I Called It A "Home" Rather Than Just A House.

But Back To The Original Question.......Yes I Feel I Did Achieve My Ambition.......And Can Honestly

Say If I Had My Time Over Again......There Would Be Very Few Things I Would Change.....



Cheers Glen.

 

I'm happy with where I am. If I could do it all again I think I would like to not waste time in my early twenties, but everything that has happened was important to getting me here, so I won't dwell on that anymore.
This year I am going to self-publish the book I've spent the last ten years writing, and this is really my only big ambition. If I can be successful with it, wonderful; if not, I'm happy for it just to exist, and that will be enough. This has been my only "ambition", so it was the only thing that could fail... every other part of my life I've just made up as I went along, and it's turned out okay.

 

(Current ambition is not to spend as long as ten years on book two)

 

Story time eh? Sure sure.......

Born the son of a crackwhore with the mental ability of a 12 year ol', adopted at 5 so as to escape vicious abuse by that mother, to a fairly well off middle aged Christian pastor & his wife. Grew up learning that the only way to achieve happiness in life is by believing in Jesus as my Lord & savior, & knowin' that I, like all people, am a born sinner & that evil is all I know. From this I learned that blood ain't thicker than water & that I can't accept the idea that all people are inherently bad.

At 13 I went on a trip with my school choir to NYC, to sing on the CBS mornin' show. Stopped off at strawberry fields & it was there that I first met hippies & smoked weed for the first time. It was these hippies who first introduced me to the concepts of Zen & reincarnation, by declaring me to be John Lennon reincarnate. From this point forward I adopted the values of peace & free love.

At 18 I went to jail after a string of petty crime over a 4 year period. While in there I met all different types of cats & began to realize what sort of damage the rat race can do to a person. This was also when I began studyin' Taoism, Judaism, Buddhism, & Islam, at least extensively.

At 20 I found myself married, after attendin' a job corps & gettin' my GED. Yes I dropped out of HS. I truly believed that this course would lead me to happiness. I was wrong.

At 21 we had our first child, at 23 our second, & at 25 our third. (To be honest I don't remember my age for 2nd & 3rd. Life became one massive blur after well) 2 of the 3 died & I found myself in a horrifying rage, depression, & unfathomable sorrow fueled tailspin. I'll leave that part there cause most have witnessed the echoes of the crash which ensued. In going down I took my marriage with me & very nearly killed that ageless idealism which had blossomed so long before. I learned that the Buddha was right & that sufferin' is the rule of life. I am thankful that my sufferin' was so monumental that I couldn't ignore this truth & fall yet further down the rabbit hole, like so many I've known.

Now I am a homeless vagabond, who can't bring himself to conform to societal norms (I tried) & therefore am doomed to the life of an outcast & pariah.

In closing what I know now, for me, is that happiness only leads to yet more sufferin' & therefore I never strive for it, only for contentment with what & where I am.

Peace
RH

 

Whats it about ? Your book I would love to know ( I could write a book about carpet looms but no fucker would read it )

 

I like this thread
You guys are pretty inspirational and have overcome some harsh obstacles in life

 

You Gonna tell us ?

 

Damn Irm I'm 62 and I hope you're wrong. I have lots of things I want to do yet!

 

Get busy living, or get busy dying buddy.