Tell me your daydreams: 2015 edition
October 30, 2015
2000: I was a kid making minimum wage.
I had a high school diploma.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about a career, and happiness, and dogs, and success.
2005: I was a 20-something making an entry-level salary.
I had a college degree and a toehold into my industry.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about being able to afford insurance for Mom, and paying for my Masters / PhD in cash. I dreamed about the day I’d pay off the last of the debt.
Confession: There was some grumbling that my parents should have been more strict and some regretting of my life choices. “Do what you love,” they said. “You should pursue a degree in something you enjoy,” they said. Sure I was glad they weren’t the typical, high-pressure “You’re nothing if you’re not a doctor” immigrant parents but couldn’t they just once have said, “you can do what you love but what you love may not love you back”? I would have taken the hint!
I guess not. We didn’t talk about love.
So instead, after obtaining my hard won degree, I was toiling away, making not-engineering money. (Engineering runs in the family but the bug skipped me.)
2010: I was a 20-something making more than $50K/year.
I had a college degree and enough years of experience in my career field to make it to management. I had been audited by the IRS twice because apparently it’s weird for someone in their 20s to claim both their parents and a sibling as dependents. But it’s all legit. They didn’t hassle me after I submitted all the proper documentation.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about being able to afford full health insurance for Mom, and being able to afford any comfort she could ever want.
2015: I’m in my 30s making more than $50K/year.
I have a degree, years of experience, and the respect of the right people so that for the first time, I made a career transition to a job created for me based on my strengths and potential to grow. Combining incomes with PiC gave our net worths a huge boost, and for once, I could comfortably pay for my own existence as well as my family’s. Comfortably is not the same as easily. Every penny has to be accounted for at the end of the year and I’d like to see 10% more going into savings. It won’t happen while more than $10K/year goes home, though. We’ve had reality-bending and I can’t shake the feeling that my happiness is built on the shambles of my old life.
I’m dreaming about an even more independent career, making real money. I’m dreaming about how to grow our first million, and how that becomes the next few millions. I’m dreaming about how those millions will lay the foundation of a Foundation, to help those in need. I know money isn’t always the answer but sometimes it is. I’m dreaming about how to ease Dad’s later years, but I don’t know how to do that without being dragged down the Brother’s Keeper Lane. Taking care of family is just not the same. Not now that we have a small child. I’m dreaming of building a school that functions how schools should: providing education, safety, and opportunity. A school that pushes every student to excel, not just the chosen few, not just the favored. A monument to education that embraces change and experimentation and doesn’t bow to the almighty standardized testing. I’m dreaming of helping kids stuck in the foster system, that broken system, a system that forces kids to scramble to survive and makes an enemy of those who should be there to help. We live in a culture that will idolize a guy who can hit a ball but social workers who actually help kids are overworked, underpaid, and afforded no respect. Everywhere around me, I see broken systems and something has to change.
::Have your goals and dreams evolved very much over the past several years? What do you want to see change? What do you want to change yourself?
The STEM bug skipped everyone in my family and landed on me. Guess I’m happy about that, but now worried for Baby Bun. LOL.
Loved the review of your past.
Worried that he will or won’t be the same? 🙂
When I was a kid, I really really wanted to be upper middle class like my aunt and uncle were. To never fight about money. To always have my climate controlled.
And I am, and I really like it!
Right now my next money goal is to get my @#$2#$ salary commensurate with the men in my department. But that’s going to have to wait a year so I can ask the chair in person exactly what I need to do to boost my salary up to what the guys (who have not gotten outside offers) are making. (I was feeling pretty good about my salary until I saw that my colleagues who used to make the same amount are now making 20K/year more!)
Most excellent goals! I don’t think I quite knew how to label it but my earliest goals were very much to be upper middle class without money woes. It just took the form of a house – I knew that if I was stable enough (in my opinion, not the bank’s) to buy a house, I’d gotten somewhere.
big scowl at your chair for mysteriously bumping the men up in salary and not you.
I love this review as a means of looking forward. I suppose my salary goals are somewhat predetermined, as I’m a teacher on a salary schedule. In terms of looking ahead, I’d like to build my confidence investing (right now I’m at the click, hope, try not to peek everyday stage) and get rid of our mortgage. I also want to find ways to give back more with kiddos – but that’s probably tied more to time than money. The idea of a foundation is so incredible – you’re absolutely right about money. Sometimes it is the most effective catalyst for change or alleviating a hardship.
There are lots of ways to give back that involves time rather than money if that’s your preference, CASA is a good one. Or Crystal volunteers with Big Brothers / Big Sisters and that’s awesome.