[BLOG] The Five Year Plan

KoreishKoreish I'm a penguin, deal with it.KCMO Icrontian
edited November -1 in Community
I have spent nearly two hours of my life planning and writing about the next 5 years of my life. This is what I came up with:
*Note: For full reading experience listen to Uranus: The Magician*


For the past year or so I’ve felt that I have hit a low point in my life. I feel that I haven’t been making progress towards any of my life’s goals, and that has had me bummed out. Until recently I thought that this slump started after failing out of Mizzou, but after taking a closer look at how I’ve lived my life I realized that, I’ve been in a downward spiral since junior year of high school. Good grades throughout high school had breed overconfidence, which in turn breed laziness. So I entered college with two strikes against me, and as we all know that third strike means you’re out. After being thrown three balls I was finally thrown my third strike, and so I left Mizzou and all the friends I had made there.
With my dreams of being a programmer all but crushed, I made an almost 180° turn and decided on becoming a Chef. I had always enjoyed cooking so I figured “Why not?” So I started working in a real kitchen, under a real Chef for the first time. One month later I had quit after a long series of abuses from the Chef and my fellow line cooks. I was determined to never work in a kitchen again after being warned that what I had suffered there was light compared to other restaurants. After 4 months unemployment I was desperate for work and took another job as a line cook. While not as bad as my last experience I realized that I just didn’t have the “balls to the wall” mentality necessary to work as a line cook. While I still enjoy cooking the rewards of working in a kitchen do not come close to matching the physical and mental stresses needed to earn said reward.
With 2/5 of my dream jobs shattered and a third offered by less than a thousand people worldwide I’m currently left with teaching and becoming a vagabond. In a moment of clarity, inspiration, or insight I came up with a way to climb out of the proverbial grave I had been digging myself. This first year will be spent getting back up on my feet and setting some ground work for the next four years. It starts this upcoming semester by earning the remaining 15 credit hours needed to reach the 60 hour requirement to become a substitute teacher. During this semester I’ll be working as much as I can, and hopefully spend unnecessarily only for my birthday and Christmas. Although I initially planned to move out this year it appears I’ll continue to live with my parents through the remainder. It’s all a set up for the New Year though.
The first semester of the new year will be three steps forward by taking a step back. The plan is to retake many of the classes in which my grades are poor, so that I may rebuild and strengthen a suffering GPA. During this time of rebuilding I’ll be adding to the foundation so that I can build more later; this is when I’ll start shying away from my current job in favor of substitute teaching thanks to the now 60 hours of college credit. With a new source of income and all the money I saved from the fall semester I’ll start looking for an apartment with one of the four potential roommates I know.
The following summer will be a bit of a slowdown compared to the break neck pace of the last year; nothing but a summer spent earning money and maybe a weeklong trip somewhere nice. Of course since my GPA will be up I’ll be applying for scholarships like it was my job too. After Summer I’ll spend one last semester at the local community college finishing up a teacher’s course block they offer. Hopefully all the effort will have set me up to transfer to a Four Year college to finish the education I started. After I transfer I will spend the next 1-2 years on cruise control: school and work in the Fall and Spring, work in the Summer, chillax in the Winter.
Upon graduation I’ll have job opportunities because of the substitute teaching I did during the last 3 years. School districts will be like “Hey, we remember you. You did some good work for us in the past.” I will apply, I will accept offers but not before I go on one last epic adventure. With my schooling behind me and the schooling of so many of our youths ahead, I would like to take a trip to some faraway place; preferably Australia/New Zealand or Japan. After my travels I’ll settle down into the career and life that I planned and worked towards for 5 years. Maybe I’ll have met a nice lady friend along the way that would like to settle down with me too.
This is my five year plan, I expect bumps and bends, highs and lows, but if I follow this plan, this general guideline I think I’ll have achieved many of the goals I’ve set for myself. Should I find myself derailed however… well, I hear being a vagabond isn’t so bad.
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