Help Me Plan Out My Life

Well dang, when you put it like that..

Is it fair for me to ask what you do with your time, Captain Optimism?

I'm fairly motivated. So realistically, I think it'd be fair to give it a 7%-15% chance of working out. I'm not particularly worried about great education. I just want to do enough throughout life to get by. Being rich isn't a huge concern of mine.

The thing about the being-apart isn't as much me being concerned that we won't be able to be apart and still stay in love. It's more that when life is as short as it is, it seems awfully dumb to spend your time away from the people that bring you the most happiness. I know that there's the chance that I could find someone that makes me even happier or whatever, but I'm pretty skeptical about that.

So as foolish as I am, I'm going to be sticking with her. I won't say that every one of you didn't warn me about how dumb of a decision it is/was.

I don't see why we both couldn't get a good education, even if we were both down there or whatever and had to go to different places. It seems like there'd be a lot of different options and opportunities, especially somewhere like California...

All that dream-crushing must really take a lot out of you, eh?

 

I smoke, drink, do drugs, and try fuck as many people as possible

Like D'uh!

 

It's four years, man.

 

Only one year if she goes to the same university as him next year. Four years is a pretty long time to do the long-distance things. One year is pretty doable if you're both committed.

 

yeah so i read your original post and here's what i think...

the girl:stick it out for as long as you can... learn something about yourself. dont sacrifice a proper education for a girl.

the college:go to community college and work your butt off. they're cheap and you can get your general ed. requirements that will apply to any other school. even if you're grades aren't great from HS then going to community college and buckling down will improve your chances of getting into a good school. you may figure out exactly what field you are interested in which will be a great help in choosing a 4 year college. also, the courses are easier so you can take extra courses and be done in half the time.

the house/career/california plan:youve idealized a plan in which you settle for something completely mediocre.


sticking to this plan will doom you to a life of mediocrity. if you wanna live by the social clock(HS, college, wifey, kids, career, retire, die;albeit thats simplified) then do it, but its not all its cracked up to be.



i realize youre a naive 17 year old. you will likely change your "plan" a hundred times before you decide to live without a plan. so do what you will

 

Good answer, that's what I like to see =)

Where do you live? Is it a small town, is it in/near a major metropolitan area? etc.

 

That's what I figured. I thought I'd better make sure though.

Do you understand how long that is? Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but for how long we have to live, that's an extraordinary amount of time.

Yeah. I don't doubt this. Things are just far far less joyous when you don't get to see the other person much at all. Sure, you get to talk online or on the phone, but that's really not the same. Even on days (Mondays through Friday) when I didn't get to see her because I was doing dual-enrollment classes, I still missed her an agonizing amount, even after a day or two of not seeing her at all. I can't imagine doing that for weeks/months at a time.

I'm glad that you finally deemed me worthy of the time that it required to read this obnoxiously long post.

My grades aren't bad in high school (A's, B's, and occasional C's), just nothing exceptional, but they'll still be sufficient for a lot of places. And so I'm not super worried about getting accepted. I'll probably go to a community college first anyways though, mainly for the cheaper tuition, as you mentioned.

I don't see how you'd call it mediocre. It's absolutely not. It's a plan designed where the focus is taken more away from excessive time spent working and is instead directed towards being able to spend as much time together as possible. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to have a nice house or a cool car or anything like that. But I think I'll have everything that it takes to make me happy.

And yeah, I know you're right about the plan-changing thing. We first planned to go to California together. And then we changed that to just going here, on account of convenience and whatnot. And then we changed back to going to California again. I'm sure lots more ideas will get tossed around before it all comes down to it.

I didn't expect that gaining your approval would feel as good as it did.

I live in the country, right between two towns; one with a population of 15,000 people, and one with a population of 7,000. I go to school in the smaller of the two though, so that's where 90% of my time is spent..

 

Moving off's fine, but you need a real plan first. Buying a plot of land in California, which has about the highest real estate of anywhere, and building your own house (I build houses, you shouldn't do this with no knowledge) Isn't pragmatic.

Save up money and go to college for a real job if you want to stay with this girl. Or take off on a wild roadtrip with her and see how you feel after a few weeks of living in a tent with her.

If you two are okay with that, more power to ya.

 

It only seems that way because you're 17.

 

This is the kind of response that I was looking for. Thank you

I know that this plan isn't very well thought out yet. And yeah. You present the two most glaring flaws. I also figured that'd there'd be a lot of cost for stuff like zoning permits, etc. where it wouldn't be as simple as just throwing up a house.

I looked up a few land plots in California, and the prices didn't seem outlandish. I've never really looked into land purchase though, so I guess I'm wrong to make an opinion on all that.

I've thought about the road trip thing. I don't know the first thing about taking one though, and I've never really seen too many successful ones. They seem pretty hard to get right..

I guess the big thing that scares me about the standard 'go to college and get a job' thing is that I'm going to get stuck in a cycle where I get stuck to that job and can't really do anything because of that fact. And next thing I know, I'm old and senile.

I don't mean it feels like a super long time. Four years will fly by. It has a few times for me already. I mean there's so much you can do and so much you'll change and so many things that you could experience in four years. It's just a long time to miss.

 

if the plot of land in california isn't priced outlandishly, then usually it's a place where you will HATE living.

 

If you build totally out in the boondocks, you won't have to worry about inspections and that'll save you a lot of money. But you'll need someone to pour your slab and level the ground for you. If you don't have experience don't try to do your own plumbing and electrical... and most things about building a house are at least a two man job. And that's a slow job right there.

No problem. The problem with getting tied down to a girl, is that unless she's completely a free spirit, she will want to settle down. It's in female nature. Not all the time, but usually. It's worth settling down if you're in love.

The only way to avoid the rat race is to find something you love doing, be somewhere you love to be, and be with someone you love being there with.

If you've got two of those three things, you'll be content. If you find all three, you've won life.It sounds like your main concern is 'what do I love doing.'

I can't answer that for ya. :biggrin:

 

Yaehhh, that's what I was afraid of. Is there any cheap land in beautiful spots anymore? (My definition of beautiful being something similar to the Redwood Forest or that kind of thing)

 

The 'totally out in the boondocks' thing wouldn't be too bad. Except then it'll make travel to college a big hassle. And as you mentioned, it'll be hard to get someone back there to pour a foundation. I know a bit about building and whatever as my family just had a house built a couple years ago, and I've had experience prior to that too with construction. I was thinking I might be able to bring a friend or two down that could help with the two man work. As you said, I would definitely need someone to install the plumbing and electricity for me as I know next to nothing about either.

The cool thing about is that she's very atypical. She's quite freespirited, and we've already talked about all these plans. She's not as intent on settling as I expected. We just thought having our own place throughout college and everything would be a good experience. And once we got done with the four years, we'd be able to see where we were at. If we liked it, we could continue to build on what we'd started, but if we wanted something else, we wouldn't be putting a ton of time and money to waste.

As you mentioned, my problem is in finding out what I want to do. This has always been my problem. I used to think that I wanted to technology, but with every day that passes, I become more and more fond of nature and less and less fond of technology and staying inside. So I'm scared that even if a tech job is enticing, I'll put 5-15 years into the field and then realize that it's really not what I want to be doing with my life. But by this point, it'll be pretty late and turning around will be a much less feasible option.

It's really scary stuff, this future planning business.

 

might wanna look into california a bit more. they're in more debt than most states combined and i think they have the highest tuition costs in the country.

 

They're are a lot of cool places with beautiful scenery that are much more bearable in terms of costs... especially if you're thinking about buying land. Denver, Austin, and Madison were my favorites.

 

I'm moving to New York.

 

Rural New York? Or the New York, New York type of deal?

I guess Cali was good because of the scenery, and also the climate. I really like the warmer-temperature thing without the sacrifice of beauty and whatnot. The more liberal atmosphere also seemed like it'd be a nice perk.

How do you suggest I go about finding a place?

 

i agree. i've spent quite a bit of time around austin and madison and i'll be moving to austin in a couple months. i was really surprised when i started looking for places to live, for the most part its cheaper than where i'm at now. on top of that, austin and the surrounding area has nearly everything i could ever want in one place.

 

ask people who have been around. when you find a place you like, see what the schools in the area are like. aside from the ocean and the redwoods there are a lot of places in america that look like california and have a similar atmosphere.