@missrogue posed the question, “Now, if you were to look into the future and see your success, what would that look like?” and also, “Feel free to actually write blog posts about this topic, too. 😉 ”
I’ve read somewhere that humans are only truly capable of looking ahead about three years. If these last three years are any indication, I’d say that’s completely true. I’d never have guessed I’d be where I am now, doing what I’m doing now, except in the vaguest sense.
So what would my success look like? It depends on how long that would take!
Lately, time seems to go fast, and progress is slow. And yet, when I look back on each month, I see that I have made progress. It was only a month ago that I got my cozycabbage.com domain, created and printed my business card, and basically decided on my branding.
Even then, I only truly became a web designer/developer in mid-February when, on a whim, I looked at the CSS Zen Garden again, and actually read all that stuff around it. I found Doug Bowman’s article about his Garden entry, and found myself at his site. I can hardly remember what I felt, back then, but I was inspired. I don’t think I had ever made a PNG with an alpha layer, at that point, and stole that giant pencil on his site to do some experiments.
From there, I found his articles on A List Apart, tried the Sliding Doors of CSS on the site I was making, and the rest is history.
Events like that come on a whim, and change the entire course of your life. You can’t prepare for them, and you can’t predict them.
If I was to look at my future and see my success, then, I suppose it would be after another of these moments, or maybe two — because it’s not just me, and my success, that truly makes my success. Tara made a great point about her son: “Third part of my success is to see my son go on and want to make the world a better place, too.”
I’m only 22 (I swear, I have to do some math everytime I try to remember that), and I’ve got years and years to raise a family.
So, time for some bullet points:
- Find true love(s)
- Raise children who go on to make a difference
- Learn the basics of each of the technologies of the web
- Work with some of the brightest minds
- Advance the web to new heights
- Make that crazy house I’ve been planning since high-school
- Finish writing my books
- Make it somewhere on the best-seller list
- Help technological progress by implementing new things (computer clothing: It’s about time, isn’t it?)
Of course, not all of that is completely important, but they’re all markers. We’ll see how far I’ll get.
One more thing:
When I turned twenty, I wrote a lengthy letter to myself, to be opened when I turn 40. The letter contains my hopes, dreams, and current ambitions, and asks some questions of my future self. I have no doubt I’ll read it with no small amount of embarrassment at how naive I was. I’ve already forgotten what I wrote in that letter.
Tags: me