When I was 21... It was a very good year....

man, i'll get back to you in a year and a half, but my goal for the next two years, and it's realistic, is to own a ferrari.

 

Letsee, when I was 21 I wanted to be a photojournalist, and I did that, but got out of it. Back then, getting decent jobs in that industry involved the most backstabbing cut-throat crap you could imagine - all for a job that paid like 15K a year. Decent money back then.

 

Wow. When I was 21, geeze, I don't remember having any goals. Somehow those years all seem so hazy...

Dale

 

I'm 22 right now.

My goals: Graduate college next semester (May 2007), move back to California: either northern or southern. Find a great job doing something I can tolerate...I still don't know exactly what I want to do.

My dreams: Buy a 2002-2004 Maserati Coupe CambioCorsa in roughly 2 years. Buy a house big enough to grow into. That means for my girlfriend (soon to be fiance), a guitar/music room, and extra rooms for possible kids in the future.

My Timeline

Summer 2007 - travel to Italy after I graduate. Take at least a month off before I start working. Obtain a real estate license.
2008 - buy a house
2009 - Maserati Coupe CC (may come sooner...see below)
2011 - begin to think about having kids (I'll be 27). I want to have a happy life first.


The Maserati coming sooner all depends on my job. I want a professional job, thus I need a professional car. Whether this becomes a Maserati, Mercedes, or Porsche. I kind of want to get involved in real estate, perhaps as a second profession. The car I get depends on how much I can afford to put down, monthly payments, and depreciation on used models. The Maserati is the only one I am more than willing to buy used.

I know some of this is ambitious and I might be "dreaming," but anything can happen. When I was 4 years old I wanted to be Slash from Guns N Roses. It has been nearly 19 years since then and I now have long hair, play guitar, still dream of being Slash, and WILL have a band once I move back to California.

 

Im still a year away from the 4-0 ..but close enough...

Lets see ..21. Just moved to los angeles a couple years earlier with $ 800 in my pocket and no job or friends or family here. At 21 I think I was renting a room in a friends house and driving my beat Honda CRX.

I had two dreams.. first to make my special effects company ( which was just some benches in my friends garage ) a success and second to date a porn star. Or maybe it was the reverse knowing my normal priorities...hehheh

By ~24 my special effects company was #2 in its field I had dated a few porn stars and I had a new BMW M3. Truthfully at that point I had everything I wanted and didnt think about the future much.

By ~32 I had sold the FX company and started a toy manufacturer. I had now been engaged to a porn star and instead of a BMW M3 I had a Viper. But really life was not much different. I guess I owned my house instead of renting one.

By ~40 Ive now sold the toy manufacturer. I broke up with the fiance/porn star. I had a Ferrari. I had a bigger house. Again life isnt really much different.

I figure there are more companies...porn stars...cars and houses in my future but I dont see things changing all that much.. I like to say I peaked in my mid 20s :-D

Thats kind of pathetic aint it ? lol

 

Two years away from the big 4-0

21: My 5th year in college, after having decided to go to grad school, so was making it up by taking extra chemistry and bio classes. Lived in an a big old crappy house off-campus with 7 of my buddies. We had a bar built in one of the extra rooms. Lots of parties.

I wanted to become a scientist, and spent an extra year in college doing it. Actually was good for me, because I knew what I wanted, and therefore was serious about my classes. I found that simply attending class and paying attention to the lectures was 90% of the job. Actually got a 4.0 GPA, taking advanced chem and bio classes.

Afterwards, started grad school, got my Ph.D. Somewhere in-between also managed to get married. Eventually graduated, got a job, and have been working ever since.

 

Same here, but some ideas were beginning to emerge from the fog around then.

 

Im going to be 6 years away from 21 this november. As far as dreams go, I really dont know what I want to be doing exactly, I deffinitly want to get my Private Pilots License by 21. I dont see kids in my future, or getting married. I want a big house, a big garage and my own race track in my back yard. Maybe a huge tunnel underground that I can drive through.

 

I turned 19 in 1971. They changed the draft lottery so that you were only up for the year you turned 19. I don't remember, but my draft number was something like 350. So I ended up winning the lottery.

Things were very different back then. Some of you may recall that Nixon's plan for winning the war was to invade Cambodia. I don't want to make light of the situation in Iraq. But, during the early 70s, Vietnam dominated everybody's thinking. By 1973, I was just glad that I wasn't fresh meat for the system.

Dale

Update: I just checked on Google (ain't it great). My draft number was 308. The highest they got that year was 96. I ducked a big one and knew it.

 

The goals I set for 40 at around 20 were all met in my late 20's and early 30's.

Time to raise the bar again...

 

As I recall through the martini fog, you said something about wanting to be a poet?

Dale

 

I've never been that drunk. Well, there was that one time in Seoul...

As I said, time to move the bar...

 

I turned 22 about 6 months ago. I'm not a financial wizard, but I am pretty intelligent in some areas I feel. As far as me, I am just looking to enjoy life. My goals: find a great partner, start (another) business, and see the world. Ten years from now I'll grab this out of the archives and update to see what ended up happening.

 

I remember it all too well. I "won" that lottery too, but by a razor slim margin.

Vietnam was a senseless bloodbath and permanently imprinted into the consciousness of people our age...hence the fast national reaction to the Iraq mess.

 

I am 11 years away from 40 as of tommorrow. My only unresolved goal is to start a company that makes "something". Something tangible.

After years of writing software, buying and selling stocks and options with never seeing anything I really want to manufacture something in the traditional sense.

I'm sure I'll find an unfilled need eventually.
Maybe even have an infomercial.

 

I'm 21 right now and I'll let you know if anything important comes up.

 

21, eh? That's a year I'll never remember.

 

I was a $5 cross dressing male prostitute working Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago to pay for my crack habit. Best year of my life.

 

25 now...

When I was 21, I was still in school and had just ended a really bad relationship, so I wanted the following by the time I was 40:

1. 6 Figure Salary and a good job.
2. Good Wife and Kids
3. Nice House
4. Various Toys (Watches / Cars)

So looking back now that I'm 25:

1. Did that a few years ago. Now have two good careers
2. Have a great girlfriend who I know I'll end up marrying. We have a puppy now
3. Still leasing, but I really need to buy something.
4. Have all the watches I could ever want. Still need to pay for my (and gf's) cars.

In the next 1-3 years, I do want to have a house. I want to OWN a tourbillon, and move from the S4 to a 911 Turbo or M5. I could do that all now, but besides the house, my girlfriend would kill me

So When I'm 40, revised:

1. Want enough money to never have to worry about money. Should be fine at my current rate.
2. Want to be able to not work nearly as much as I do now. 2 full time jobs really gets old after a while.
3. Want to own a house that I really enjoy, a dream house if you will. Nothing crazy, just enough space with a good view
4. Cars / Toys come along with 1

 

I will be 40 in 5 months..... and I dont mind telling you its looming like a dark cloud! I am NOT happy about it. But still beats the alternative!

It has been motivational though. I have lost 64 pounds since July 10th and am really in great shape for the first time in 15 years.

Goals and dreams from when I was 21???????

Hmmmmmm lets see now.... At 21 I was still in school at UGA and in advanced studies for a degree in HARD CORE PARTY. I had already earned a doctorate in recreational drug use, was deep in love with a hot granola chick (though I had no clue what love really was at the time), absolutely convinced that Jerry Garcia was capable of telepathic communications during concerts (see the part about my doctorate), I was running a business trading in old european sportscars, I drove a Ecurie Eccose blue 1963 Jaguar E-type roadster as a daily car and other than getting laid, high or in general having fun my focus was on HOW AM I GOING TO GET RICH?????

This focus wasnt so popular with granola girl and it certainly wasnt a big hit when we went on tour with the Grateful Dead. But in every city we visited I managed to find a couple of old cars that could be flipped for a buck and granola chick never complained about my paying for everything.....

Now I am getting old, and getting/being wealthy holds far less of an appeal. In fact, more and more a very simple but adventurous and rewarding lifestyle is become my real dream. This has advanced to the point where we are making firm plans at this point to dump the consumerism dominated lifestyle, sell up and move aboard a blue water cruising boat and sail around the world.

My dream now is to spend all my time with my kids during their formative years, teach them about life through experience and really show them the world. We're planning to depart in January of 2011. In the meantime its SAVE SAVE SAVE to fund this dream!

Longer term my wife and I want to own/operate an adventure crewed charter sailing yacht and spend half the year taking folks on adventure cruises and the other half voyaging as we wish. The Marshall Islands seem REAL attractive.... 75-85 degree weather year round, out of the cyclone belt, US dollar is the currency, US postal service runs there, regular airline service direct to the continental US, no visa requirement or immigration restrictions on Americans, HUGE amount of WWII history and relics, among the best diving on the planet not only on prestine reefs but on Bikini atoll...... sounds like paradise to me!

Yup, my goals and perspective today are totally different from when I was 21!




Terry

 

Well, I'm 22 right now...

I have the car I've wanted since I saw it, an NSX. So far, that's covered.

Now I just gotta work my butt into shape to train and train for the physical aspect of a Police Officer physical so I can get on.

Do that for 25 years, retire and find something else.