I wanted to be a story board artist. I wanted to work in Animation. I just never could get work (and to be fair, I’m not the best artist). It broke my heart. I regret choosing a creative field for school. My lack of talent and forethought is something I regret. I live with the reprocussions of that choice every day. I cried when I watch Arcane. Not because of the story, but I so wished I could have been apart of that quality of artistry. Now I’m doomed to the same job I wanted to avoid because that’s a I can do (customer service based). I’ve had multiple breakdowns since college and probably will until I die 😂

I didn’t think animation would be easy, or even fun, all the time. But I wonder nearly every day how it would of panned out if I made different choices, if I was smarter, more talented, more motivated, just a better human being. Since I’llikely be working until I die, I often think do “skipping” to the end.

I’m still in the process of letting mine die (hope is a stubborn thing), but sometimes you need to accept your lot in life. Not everyone gets to do everything they want to.

now, I just don’t know what else to dream for instead. As it is, I’m just existing and waiting to die.

I wanted to be a big shot IT guy with my own company. Started doing a bunch of plastic surgeon offices and hanging out with celebrities. I hated driving to the city at 6am and staying till 11pm, didn’t really enjoy the work, and just ended up in the socialite party crowd.

I left when the question “Do you want to go to the bathroom?” was ambiguous beteeen cocaine or a sexual advance. Neither of which ever appealed to me.

I disconnected from the field which included cutting orthodontal work half way through that I had exchanged for my expertise.

Drank heavily and even alone for a few months in the comedown and no longer drink at all.

Bouncers in the city will remember your name and let you into just about any club when they see you with a big name they want to get back. I remember walking into one place and it filled with Victoria’s Secret models out of nowhere. Got to hang with some playboy photographers and handle some hip-hop star interviews.

Some of the people I couldn’t figure out how they made their money ended up being nothing but glorified drug dealers, but their IT and SEO was top notch.

Don’t regret it, but don’t wish for it back.

I’m 30 but I haven’t given up yet. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

My dream was to live in a log cabin in the wilderness somewhere in Canada.
I’ve then spent one year living that lifestyle, as a hunting and hiking guide in Northern BC.
After that I gave up that dream, or rather I realized all the downsides of it in the real world.

Now I work as an IT sysadmin in Southern Germany, and am pretty happy with my life.

I’m happy it finally ended. I’ve been able to move on to a completely different life that I actually like much better. Not everything works out and that’s ok. We all think we know what our “dream” is until it’s a nightmare.

I’m not getting a Nobel. It’s mostly a political prize.

I’m not getting a second house in the Northern Hemisphere, somewhere around the Alps, so I’d get two autumns + winters per year. It sounds fancy but eventually it would become a chore.

I’m not marrying and having children. I simply don’t see the point any more; I don’t even care about romantic relationships any more.

I’m not going to make “the final” reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the one that will solve all issues with the current ones. It’s fun to do some “backyard science” here and there, but other people are better skilled at this than I am.

I never found “the dream” qnd honestly

I dont know if i regret that more

I got convinced to “be realistic” and accept a shitty life because achieving greatness is impossible. I regret it every day, being in an environment I don’t belong to, faking it because I need to survive somehow. The worst thing is once you stop “surfing the wave” (of your own thing whatever it is) it’s almost impossible to recover and get back on the track.

I wanted to be a filmmaker but was forced to choose a different path when my grandfather (who had set up a small college fund for me) refused to pay for school unless I chose something more practical. I caved and majored in journalism (my mom was a photojournalist before I was born) but was so heartbroken I dropped out in my first year. I tried a second time to go to school but I couldn’t stay engaged after learning the thing I had been working towards since middle school was no longer an option.

I ended up going to work in tech instead. In my late 20’s I thought I would figure out making short films on my own wrote a script, bought some gear, but when I looked at how bad I was at social media and how much I wanted someone to see my work, I thought the odds were against it.

A few years ago some unrelated mental health issues made it impossible for me to work and I am writing a script for an audio drama which is hopefully cheaper to produce and a zine about Utopia while I recover.

Bailing on my dream wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Most of my problems and regrets are related to the undiagnosed and untreated mental illness that destroyed my already struggling career a few years ago. Not making the elder millennial version of Point Break sucks, but maybe if the audio drama works I can parley that success into a streaming series (Archive 81 style).

My dream was to work as a game developer. This was nearly 20 years ago. I actually got an offer in that field at one point, and the salary was like $20k less than what I was already being paid. I was the main bread-winner in what was a (mostly) single-income household at that time, with my partner pursuing her PhD. Gave up the dream, and I’m glad I did based on what I later learned about that industry. If I went into the game industry I’d be making far less money and have far less free time to do the things I enjoy, like playing the games other people make.

My dream was to have a wife and family. Once I realized that wasn’t going to happen I gave up… long ago.

I wanted to work for NASA one day. I realized I was a dumb motherfucker so now I’m a cybersec drone.

But my job is extremely chill WFH, so i get to explore my other interests so much more. It was never meant to be, that’s okay.

Now I just want to get good at something and use that to do stuff that I can be proud of, that I can show to other people and they can be impressed by.

I feel like all my life people just do things so much more easily than what comes to me and I don’t have any talent, so that doesn’t help, I don’t want to be some schmuck that just watches TV or scrolls social media poisoning herself with alcohol all her life.

What exactly it’s “the dream”?

I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. Somehow ended up running a small AI company. Money is nice but I still think of persuing my dream once I have enough saved up.