When you were 20, what did you envision you'd be like at the age you are now? Is the reality anything close to how you thought your life would turn out?

When I was 20, I likely had vague images of happiness, comfort and success – although at that age, the details were probably lacking.

My mind is great at generating predictions about the future. It’s just that these models are wildly inaccurate. Yesterday, my mind produced an image of what today would be like. Fortunately, I don’t believe anything my mind cooks up any longer. Today is entirely different from what was presented. In fact, the past hour looks nothing like what I had imagined that hour to be.

It’s not so far away. I probably didn’t imagine I’d be living in New Jersey still but I did imagine I would have a professional career and a family. I never imagined I would get divorced – I’m a stick-it-out kind of person – but getting divorced has had its benefits for me. I hope I would be financially stable and I am. I’m not entirely happy with how my life has turned out – I still would like to write and to experience love again – but I’m fairly content.

My life is actually much better. My marriage is strong and happy, my husband has fulfilling employment, I a doing work that I love, I love where we live.

Edit: “hoped” not “hope”

At 20, about the only thing I recall thinking or at least hoping I would be doing in the future was having a wife and making my living writing. I blew the first goal, achieved the second. But as far as thinking about what/where I’d be now, my 20-year old brain could not conceive of senior citizenship.

Yeah so far, I wanted to drive big rigs since I was about six , at twenty I still wanted to be a truck driver and marry a rich beautiful lady,then met Mrs Squeeky, well it all worked out except for the rich part,what I failed to see at that age is how much one has to work to keep it all together.
What bothers me ,is I could picture all that at twenty, but I can’t see myself as a real old senior citizen I never have.

Dead. I never imagined I’d live to 40. Never much wanted to. Still have doubts at 53.

Other than being married, having cats and being involved in theater….not even close.

I didn’t. At 20, I don’t think I imagined my life past 25.

I envisioned I would be fit, healthy and very much into some physical sport that I would enjoy playing with my spouse and children and even going out at least once a month to a club. Reality, I try to stay as healthy as possible, and my bones are crappy, and the only child I have that likes to go out and do physical stuff is across the globe and the other one is always busy. My spouse gave up being physical when they made over 100 tv channels. So now I go out for long walks with my dog.
Thought I would like to be dead by 65 because I didn’t want to spend the remainder of my life ill and bedridden and maybe forgotten or seen as a burden.

I also thought I would be widowed by now. A palm reader told me once I would come into a lot of money by now and I would have 2 great lovers. Being I only have had my husband, I assumed he would die and I would get his insurance money and I would find another guy to marry. Either he was wrong or I did such a bang up job of curing all his ailments that I rewrote my destiny. LOL
He said I would be very happy. At least he got that right.

I’ve never thought beyond the next five years, live for the now & the future will, no doubt, take care of itself.

Thought I would have worked it all out by now but far from it. Probably becsuse I never made any plans or ever set even short-term goals. Just waited for the wind to blow me any direction, a by-stander of life watching it all go by.

Back then I rarely thought about it, and just stumbled along from bumper to flipper like the big steely marble in a pinball machine.

I am almost 55. Next month.

I dreamed of being married and having a family and living in the country with lots of animals.
I did attain all of that, but divorced after almost 22 years of marriage 12 years ago. I adore my 27 yr. old daughter, still live in the country with lots of animals but….the dream didn’t play out ideally at all. I am now facing my older age financially compromised and while I have managed a return to a peaceful living situation on a 10 acre ranchette, the dreams of growing old with someone, buying a pony for the grandkids ( my daughter doesn’t want kids haha ) and achieving financial security are far from the original.

My health is starting to act up this year too, a gallbladder attack, arthritis and tendonitis in my fingers and wrists, I keep coming up lame from a foot issue and limp around for the first 30 minutes of the morning, and I need about 10 hours sleep to feel decent these days. heh!

Gettin’ old is not for wussies, but hey, I do have 2 ponies ( horses ) just no little kids to teach horsemanship and riding to. Oh well. Soldier on. Wheres my Happy Brownie? lol

What about you @jca? How has your life turned out compared to your 20 yr. old dreams?

At twenty I had a very vague idea that I would be married and happily settled down. My ship went sailing passed that port and I now face the stormy geriatric seas alone.

I never imagined I’d be where I am now when I was 20. Everything I thought at 20 changed very drastically due to a divorce and being a single mom in my early 20’s. I’m no where that I thought I would be back then, but it all worked out for the best in the long run.

When I was 20 years old, which was 20 years ago, I was in the middle of a college semester in London and may even have been on the 10-day trip that I took to St.Petersburg and Moscow. I had given up the idea of being a psychologist, and had switched to an English major with the idea of becoming a writer.

I was also in the midst of the my deepest depression, which was probably more significant in terms of my ideations about the future than any of the details above. I was just beginning to lose my religion (Catholicism) due to a crisis of faith. Much of the time found living to be horribly burdensome, but on the flip side, I also wanted to change the world and how people thought about things. I was just starting to learn about Critical Theory and was influenced by that and how it informed artistic and political manifestations in the world. I wanted that, and I wanted to be dead, which one might consider two sides of the same coin. My guess is that was my best effort at envisioning a future self.

I would say that things did turn out—more in underlying principle than in form. I couldn’t have known or imagined the form until I was ready to encounter it. In short and in a manner of speaking, it was coming to a fundamental realization in the last year or so “that life is but a dream.”

Now, I get to “play dead” in a way by being less of a participant in life and more of an observer of it. As a result, I am at peace much of the time—much more than in the past, especially. Life isn’t burdensome, because I can see now how every moment is taking care of itself without my help.

In addition, there’s no world-fixing that needs to be done. Everything is playing out as it is being dreamed up and life persists in spite of the appearance that the sky is often falling.

I’m not perfect at being seated in this sensibility, but I’ve definitely crossed over (ha!).And I would say the end result could be counted as a “yes.”

At 20 I was studying Geology, living in a shit-hole apartment, playing in rock bands and not considering the future. If it was not for an awesome girlfriend at the time I probably would be doing something very different now. At 38 I’m generally happy, in a good career and enjoying an average life. There are some issues in my life that need to be resolved but nothing major. About as good as it gets as far as I’m concerned. I’m in a much better place than I would have envisioned at 20.

Not exactly. At twenty, I was ready to move out of my parents house and study children’s literature in Australia. The plan was that I would attend conferences, publish some papers, adventure with dashing strangers, become someone’s dashing stranger, and then move back to the United States a completely new person.

I didn’t do any of that. Because I fell in love heh. So I stayed in California, earned my MA in Literature, lived at my parents house, worked for a year, and then applied for my PhD and finally moved house. I didn’t go off on the adventures that I had planned, but there’s plenty of time for that after my dissertation…

And we’re still in love.

IT’s better than I imagined actually. Other than deciding not to have kids, I made my dream into reality thru hard work.

When I was 20, I thought that the age that I am now, 48, was really old. I knew that “old” was over 60, but I felt like 48 was pretty damn close. I remember when I was in high school, my best friend and I were both depressed about our moms turning 40. We felt like 40 was really old, even though my mom was a youthful 40, it was still old.

I also remember when I was about 20 (this is the thought that prompted this question), I had a friend who was in her early 30’s and she liked heavy metal. I thought it was so cool that here she was in her 30’s (old LOL) and liked heavy metal. Here I am now, 48, and I still listen to all kinds of music.

When I was 20, I knew I would have a college degree, I knew I would probably have one or two children, and I thought I would be married. I have the degree, I have the child, I have never been married. When I was 20, I didn’t know what I would end up doing for a living. My career path has kind of meandered and with some persistence and some luck, I am where I am now. I am comfortable financially, neither rich nor poor. I think I always felt I would not end up poor, but I could not envision myself being rich. Rich being living in a mansion with fancy cars in the garage. I guess my salary now would be incredible to some, but to me, in the area I live in, and being a single parent, it’s comfortable but not affluent.

I was a mess when I was 20. Any life I envisioned had to be better than what I was experiencing at the time. I spent the first half of my 20th year living far from family on the central California coast. I was attending college, but I rarely went to classes. I spent most of my time on the beach or at parties. During this time I was also arrested and spent 36 hours in jail. Since my life was so peachy I’m sure you can all understand why I ended up moving back to Illinois to live with my parents (with 5 years probation hanging over me) after the first half of my 20th year.

The second half of my 20th year was spent living with my parents, working as an assistant manager in training for a clothing store and spending time with my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I were inseparable. We met the day after I moved back to Illinois for CA. He happened to be the roommate of a good high school friend of mine. I then became pregnant after five months of dating this man. (Blondesjon and I are still going strong after 23 years.)

I do know that I had envisioned a life living in a large city and I did not want children. I envisioned a life working, loving and traveling.

I’m 43 now. I’m a stay-at-home mom living on a rural farm. My life is the opposite of what I had envisioned. I’m not disappointed.

I planned on being dead by the age of 30. So I guess things are very different.

No, my life is much better. I have had a good career both in the corporate world and as a free lance writer and editor. My marriage has lasted more than 30 years and is very happy and fulfilling. I love where I am living, and we are planning for the future.