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Recently I came across this quite interesting video on Youtube: Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Briefly, it's about how to achieve your childhood dreams, and how to help others achieve theirs. So I ask the question, what are your childhood dreams, and have you achieved them?

• I want to be a pilot. I haven't done this yet, but it's only a matter of a lot of money before I do.
• I wanted to build my own computer from scratch (this is back when I had no idea what they were made of). Well, I've spent a year building computers in a computer shop, and I've designed a CPU instruction set architecture (albeit primitive) so I think I can tick this one off.

I wanted to be a dinosaur, haven't made any progress as of yet.

I wanted to be a programmer. And I have been - for 13 years and counting. Damn, time flies.

I wanted to be a researcher, maybe a chemist or a physicist. In a few months I'll be completing my PhD thesis in theoretical physics.

i wanted to be a spy.
haven't really made much headway, although i do write analyst reports on eastern europe and the CIS sometimes.

before that, i wanted to be an astronaut.
no luck

and after that, i wanted to be a programmer - at a time when i didn't know how to spell 'C'.
sure have made a whole lot of progress there.

so i guess i'll increment the counter!

XenOS wrote:

Code: Select all

number_of_people_who_achieved_their_childhood_dreams++;

Only listing those dreams I actually invested time and effort into.

When I was about twelve or thirteen, I wanted to be a programmer. That was mid-eighties, and "computer" for me meant "C64". That dream died rather soon when I realized (or thought I did) there's no way a boy from a small German town can get a job as a programmer, they're all in the US and much more intelligent than me anyway. (My view of the world was pretty limited. No internet, you know...)

Then I thought I'd become a veterinarian. That dream died at age 14 when it became clear my grades were nowhere good enough, and anyway it's not about petting nice animals but having to deal with silent suffering, illness, and death.

Then I thought I could become a novelist. Harboured that dream for a while, but it's not about the strength of your fantasy but about how well you can live off it, and to earn more you have to care less about what's your story and have to tell what the audience wants to hear. Being a very straight person, I didn't want to betray my stories that way.

At the end of my school time, I thought to become a soldier. (Germany has a conscript army, but you can enlist voluntarily.) I thought I'd do my basic training before actually enlisting, but soon realized army life was nowhere near what I expected. (Don't get me wrong, I thought it would be much harder and stricter. I just didn't want to bet my life on some of the douchebags that served with me.)

I then decided I'd study towards a teacher's post. I did, for some years, but it became obvious those studies wouldn't get me anywhere anytime soon. At age 25, I bailed out from the university and returned to my first dream, which never quite died: Becoming a programmer.

A failed attempt at a correspondence course later, I found a way to get some formal training, and one-and-a-half year later (in 2000) finished my course among the top of my class, and found immediate employment, a lucky streak that hasn't left me since despite two employer changes.

----

My advice, and I know it is probably quite different from what you expected:

Dreams are good, but always check them against reality.

Keep your mind and options open. Don't get tied down to one "masterplan for your future", as the only constant in life is change. Show determination to achieve your goal, but know the difference between determination in the face of opposition and blind stubborness in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Don't "quit" just because the going gets rough, or get sidetracked easily, but don't be afraid to bail out of a chosen path either if new insight convinces you it is the right thing to do. People around you might not be able to tell the difference, but while "quitting" is a weakness, bailing out can be proof of courage and intelligence. Sometimes it takes years of hindsight to tell the difference.

Know your strengths - you have got more than one. You always have options.

It is not as important as to what you achieve, as who you are, as a person. Your dreams might be crushed and shattered, you might fall short of your own expectations, but you can still turn out a great person that people will remember fondly and hold in high esteem. As long as you can look in the mirror (and other people's eyes) unashamed, it doesn't matter whether you achieved your dreams or not.

Reflect on yourself. Don't be afraid to listen to the advice and criticism of friends. Find your road between abiding to advice and ignoring it - both will be important at some point of your life, the trick is to tell which is which.

The skill is not necessarily in persisting, but in doing "the right thing".

The greatest dream to fulfill is, when your time in this life is over, to look back and being able to say, from the bottom of your heart, "I did right."

I wanted to be an inventor. My role model was Gyro Gearloose.

Solar wrote:
The greatest dream to fulfill is, when your time in this life is over, to look back and being able to say, from the bottom of your heart, "I did right."

I like that part.
You know, I dropped out of grad school.
And it was a really turbulent time.
"What now?"
And it doesn't help when you have a dozen people commenting about it, and offering all sorts of advice.

But now - I got real lucky.
I got hired by IBM.
My application to join one of the best universities in India(and Asia as well!), to study Russian part-time got accepted.
And I'm getting my first salary next week.

Looking back, to that day when I decided to leave my studies and work...what Solar just said comes to mind.
Because if I hadn't left - I'd be stuck in that rut. Rotting away to high heaven.

"I did right."

rudimk wrote:And it doesn't help when you have a dozen people commenting about it, and offering all sorts of advice.

Don't get me wrong - it does help. The trick is not getting caught in thinking one of them has to be right. Listen, reflect, then chose a road for yourself (which need not be any of those offered by your advisors). But listening to the advice of others does help to reflect on your motives and goals.

(And unless I am mistaken about your identity, I was among the people offering you advice... we did talk to each other while you were using a different nick, didn't we? Or maybe I'm confusing you with one of the other Indians on this board. No offense intended. )

Solar wrote:
Don't get me wrong - it does help. The trick is not getting caught in thinking one of them has to be right. Listen, reflect, then chose a road for yourself (which need not be any of those offered by your advisors). But listening to the advice of others does help to reflect on your motives and goals.

(And unless I am mistaken about your identity, I was among the people offering you advice... we did talk to each other while you were using a different nick, didn't we? Or maybe I'm confusing you with one of the other Indians on this board. No offense intended. )

See - when it's people who know what they're talking about - it does.
But out here..just about everyone butts in, thinking they've got the perfect solution.


And yes, you're right - You did help me out a lot back then
None taken!

In the end - All is well

PS - I'm just excited right now. Got an office party tonight

rudimk wrote:See - when it's people who know what they're talking about - it does.
But out here..just about everyone butts in, thinking they've got the perfect solution.

It's the same here. The trick is to sort out the signal from among the noise.

Nice way to put it

Childhood dream, be all i can be, and make the best of it. Dont cheat your self and if you dont understand alittle, reread untill you know it from every point of view. Even if you dont create anything, you can say you have learned and understood what most cannon apprehend.


Other then that, it was become a State Trooper

Childhood dream? To be a programmer who specialized in cyber security - firewalls, antiviruses, etc. Ended up getting a job straight out of high school working for a company that contracted to the U.S. Navy writing intelligence/analysis software ... worked there for a little over a year, and then I was laid off. It shook my confidence so much that I retreated into cooking for a career and haven't managed to rebuild my confidence enough to even try to get a software engineering job again - and it's been five years since the layoff.

Then again, there's nothing wrong with being a chef who programs as a hobby, right?

As long as that's where you want to be, then yes, being a chef is awesome.