What was your goal in life when you were 18?

I was 18 in 1977 and my goal, like a lot of women in my generation was to get married, have a baby and live in the country as a hippie farm girl. lol
I did just that, but divorced 9 years ago, my daughter is now 24 and I still am a hippie woman in the mountains. Life is good. :-)

Get the fuck out of Orange County.
Man, I hated that place.

To survive my freshman year at college and to pass my finals. What a shock, after breezing through high school.

To graduate university and get a good job after.
Fortunately I managed to stay on track and avoid the many pitfalls along the way.
Things have worked out pretty well.

Oh! And to have a wild time with a certain woman. That worked out too.

To determine if having a goal in life was required, and if it was – develop one. 22 years later, and I’m still working on this.

When I was 18 I wanted to be in the Navy, work with electronics, and be married. I accomplished all of those goals before I turned 19.

After a few years in the Navy I had shared goals with my wife. We wanted children (had two girls) and she wanted me out of the Navy. I got out, doubled my income the first year, we bought a house and raised our kids.

With two kids we found that the schools in Southern Virginia weren’t very good so our goals changed to include good schools and return to Pennsylvania. We moved to a small town in North Western Pennsylvania which had good schools and jobs that satisfied my wive a registered nurse and advanced my professional goals.

Now it’s almost 50 years later and we have new goals, or at least discussing them. She wants to retire, I’m ambivalent. Our children are educated, grown, and married so now our goals will include our grandchildren. I’ll let you know when we figure them out.

I have to be honest and say get drunk and/or laid. I didn’t apply myself very seriously at 18. I did learn eventually.

Get a recording contract with the band I was in, have a succession of chart-topping hits and tour the world.

I wanted to be a NASA engineer. I still think that’d be cool as fuck, but I’m no longer willing to devote my entire life to my studies, which seems to be what would be required for that job.

@Mariah I did a stint at NASA, Langley as a lab supervisor. Frankly, its a little disappointing. I worked with people that were part of the space program then ended up with some mundane research.

I was going to be a veterinarian school, become a vet, build a cabin in the country and be completely self-sufficient living off the grid.

I had my heart set on being an Opera singer.

@bkcunningham: How did that turn out?

Hump, hump & hump some more….oh & to run like a bastard whenever their boyfriends, I mean, danger came close. Good life skills children, you take care now ya hear ;¬}

@gailcalled, I like to think it isn’t over yet. lol I got a degree in English and didn’t finish vet school. I married a vet and we lived in a cabin we built (not off the grid, but close) with two babies and lots of animals. One day, my entire world was shaken to its quick. “In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!”

To have my own jewelry making business and be known enough by my designing for my business to support my living. It did happen since my best friend wanted the same thing at the time and we made it happen once we married, for a little while.

To get myself through my final exams so I could head off to uni.

@Adirondackwannabe Yeah, me too. Mostly just the get drunk part though. I didn’t have any goals at 18, in fact, unless it involved something in a video game, my goal was to avoid having any goals lol.

^^ How did that work out?

Well, as @Adirondackwannabe said, I too, learned. I guess you need goals, if only the very basic stuff, like looking for a place and getting a job lol.

@gailcalled it worked out fairly well. I got a good education, good jobs and great family.

Get laid. Get drunk. Get high. I think I accomplished two of those things before I turned 19. Eventually, I accomplished the third. Getting drunk and high was interesting, I found, and I’m glad I had the experience, but it wasn’t worth putting much effort into having a repeat experience.

Getting laid, on the other hand, turned out to be far better than I had been capable of imagining. To this day, it remains a guaranteed peak experience. Miles better than any drug experience. I always look forward to it happening again.

To get an education that would provide me with a career if I needed it, but mostly I wanted to get married and have kids. I had eight years during which I had to provide for myself. I also got another degree for another career. When I finally gave up on the idea of getting married I met the man I married, had 2 kids and went back to work when they were in school.

I’m going to be 18 next year.
My goal is to become a therapist. I want to get married, and have children. I want to publish something that I wrote. I want to go on tour with my band. In no specific order.

It’s so amusing to me that people lurve goals that are the standard, approved ones for life, and leave the hedonistic goals alone. I guess no one approves of feeling good. Just doing good.

Do well in school so i could be self-sufficient, make good friends, make it with ladies.

Check, check, and check.

My goal was to be the best foos ball player in the WORLD!!!

@bkcunningham What happened on that one day?

Being able to see as many foreign countries as possible.