When we were 10 years old, we used to play all those games.  You know the ones.  One, for example, was where you’d draw four blocks.  In one block would be the names of 4 girls – Prospective wives.  The other blocks would be filled with cars, cities and house-types.  Other games included preferred ages you’d be married at, number of children and career choices.  Of course, we were all married to the girl of our dreams, two children in arms, in a house on the beach in California, with 17 different sports cars in the driveway, the company that runs itself, all by the time we were 23.

When I was 17, I had a plan.  I knew what I was going to study.  Where, how and why.  I was going to finish my A Levels at school, head off to UCT to study electrical engineering and take life on.  But life is constantly throwing curve balls.  Not all the balls are big enough to be able to see and avoid.  I didn’t get the physics mark I needed to be admitted into the engineering faculty, yet the science faculty would take me to, and get this, study physics.  More strange small curve balls were thrown and I had to leave UCT at the end of 2005.  It hit me as a bit of a shock, and I spent most of 2006 doing nothing but getting back onto my feet.

2007 started with a new gusto.  I started afresh at UNISA, and I landed a small job in a startup company that a friend had founded.  This year, I moved from Project Manager to Operations Manager in the same company, where I now manage a small team.  It’s strange how things happen.  I love it, and I think I’m fairly good at what I do.  I started my own blog nearly a year ago.  I write/wrote (I will write more) for nerdmag.  I recently started blogging and tweeting for Standard Bank Cricket.  And I’ve just realised I can add all of these items to my CV.  This is as far from engineering and the science faculty as you can go, and it really surprises me.  A lot.

Thinking about it all today, I’ve become conscience to the fact that I no longer have a plan.  People have their aspirations to work as hard as they can in order to be able to move to a new place.  Or that they’re know where they’re going, or where they want to be going, in their company.  I don’t know any of that.  I see me not having my degree has a huge hinderance, and it will be.  I can’t apply for a job without one, and will be very lucky to get this type of opportunity again.  Talking to a friend about her new job, and she tells me how she thinks it’s prefect for me.  It is.  It makes me think about how I might not get that second chance…

Last night i was doing maths equations with another good friend, and I missed it.  I missed the Applied Maths I was doing through Unisa before work took over.  I miss using my brain in that way.  I often feel that it’s not being used enough.  I regret one thing in this whole situation, and that is not having my BSc by now, but I do not regret where I am.  It just means I don’t have that one real speciality, and that bothers me a little bit too.  I think I might have a bit more experience than some some of my friends, even if I’m earning less, but I am happy.  I love that I’ve had this chance now.

I think this is all part of why I’ve been so restless in my mind of late.  I’ve started my new position, and there is just so much happening, that there has been very little time to take it all in and reflect and settle.  I know some of you are living that dreamed up lifestyle, and good for you.  If it makes you happy, then what more should you need.  But as we grow and mature, our dreams are still there, they just change to be what we want and need them to be.  So, where do I see myself in 10 years? I have no frickin’ idea.  I don’t know if it’s bad that I don’t have a plan, but I will keep doing what I enjoy doing and see where it takes me…