Week 1 - Life Plans

In one of our readings this week, we were challenged to plan our life goals. To plan where we wanted to be and how to achieve this goal. Part of the exercise was determining where we would be at certain decades in our lives. We were cautioned not to wait until late in life when we had little time left to start over. I feel a little hopeless at this point as I know I have a few years yet before getting to that point, but do I have the time. I am afraid that my life will not amount to much, that I will not make a difference.

One of the reasons I am grateful to be taking this class, is that I can learn how to adjust my plans. I am learning how to plan my future. I used to just bounce along, like a pebble in the river’s current, settling for a spell, then bouncing off to the next place. I would become overwhelmed by the future, so I just went along with the current, whether I liked the path it took or not. Now I am making plans. Yes some of these questions are difficult to answer, but at least I am carving my own path, I no longer need to rely on outside forces to push me along.

As part of my assignment I have been asked to ponder and answer these questions:

Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams?

It is my opinion that Randy Pausch was able to accomplish these dreams because he was focused, but he was also dynamic. When something didn’t go the way he had it mapped, he changed course. The specific example I am thinking of is when NASA told him that faculty was not permitted to join the team who would fly in the “Vomit Comet”. He did some research and found that faculty was prohibited, but journalist were permitted. He sent NASA his “resignation as the faculty advisor and [his] application as the journalist” (Randy Pausch, Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, given at Carnegie Mellon University, Tuesday, September 18, 2007, McConomy Auditorium, www.randypausch.com)

 

Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not?

Yes I feel that dreaming is very important. Without our dreams, we have nothing to strive toward, we would just be stagnant. If we didn’t have dreams we would move forward, but we wound not progress.

 

Discuss at least one of your childhood dreams. Explain why you believe you can or cannot achieve this dream.

As a little girl I wanted to be a librarian. Every time I was given a new book, I made a “check out card” for it and slipped it into the cover of the book. When I would take the book off the shelf to read to myself or to my dolls, I would pretend to check the book out, and assign the date it was to be returned. When the book went back onto the bookcase, the card was checked off and placed back into the cover. I did not grow up to be a librarian, in fact I dropped out of college the first time I attempted higher education. I am grateful for this second trip into academia and although my priorities have changed, I am pleased to be able to get my education. I am not getting a degree in Library Science, but I am working on a Business Administration degree. So the dream may not be exactly as it was, but the adjustment is going to be great.