What Did You Want to be When You Were Growing Up?

[RazzmaTazz]

A friend of mine and I were talking about this last night, so I figured I would ask you all as well. What did you dream about being when you were younger, and how close are you now to what that was? Did you want to be a fireman, or a policeman? Maybe an astronaut?

When I was younger I wanted to be a semi truck driver. Yea I was a weird kid if you haven't yet figured that out. I thought it would be great fun to be on the road all day long, going somewhere different every day. But then because of a medical condition I have (I'm diabetic) I wont be able to pursue that career. Doesn't mean that I'm not going to travel and see the world at some point, I just wont be driving professionally.

Then when I was 16 I had a pretty tragic experience happen that kind of led me to the field that I am slowly working on getting into. One of my best friends dad was killed in a driving accident. This alone is pretty tragic, but it wasn't the worst thing. He had worked for an electric company and made some pretty decent money so my friend and his mom and dad lived in a pretty nice house, had some nice cars, and lived a pretty decent life. But my friends father didn't have much in the way of life insurance. Not even enough to pay off the house. So when he died there was pretty much no income since his mom only worked a small part time job.

His mom ended up having to sell the house, and get a full time job making not nearly close to what his dad was making. They moved into a decent enough apartment, and sold one of the cars. He was really looking forward to going to college (which didn't happen) and ended up joining the Army instead. At least now he is going to college with their help.

The incident got me curious and I asked my folks if they had enough insurance if something were to happen to them so we didn't have to go through the same thing. Turns out that they were close but ended up getting some more to keep everything on pace if one were to have an accident.

It nearly killed me for the rest of high school to know that he was once living in a bigger house, and drove a nicer car than I did, and then it was me with the big house and the nice car. And I could see that it affected him too, and it wasn't nice, but he got through it.

So though it sounds stupid, "what kid would want to do that for a living", my goal was to become an insurance guy. Personally, I think it is a fascinating field. But it is hard to convince people to pay for something that the whole point of it is not to use. You pay for car insurance hoping you don't get into an accident, and life insurance hoping you wont die.

And there are many different kinds of insurance out there too that I've found. There is phone insurance (highly recommended now that phones cost $1000), legal insurance, home maintenance insurance, and credit insurance to name a few.

The goal of insurance though is to get you back into a position that you were in before what ever incident happened. You want to have enough life insurance so that your kids can go to college, your bills are paid off, your house is paid for, and your heirs have enough income to live on. I think it is a noble cause even if it is a hard sell.

So that is my "what do you want to be", what was yours?

 

[wardell]

I want to be an archaeologist. form the age of 3 I studded all the history of Egypt knew all the Gods and Goddess and I could read and write hieroglyphics but people got in the way telling me I was not good enough and that that dream was stupid and unrealistic and so I stared to believe them and never became anything I did not even get a chance to finish high school

Ps. I also wanted to be Batman lol

 

[W!nston]

I wanted to be a criminal defense attorney. Specifically ... Perry Mason. Don't laugh. I still wish I had followed that path but life had other plans for me and I'm happy with the path I followed. It was meant to be. I would not have found the man I've been in love with for 37 years otherwise. Our paths may have crossed but who can say if we would have fallen in love on that day we met. Who's to say out paths would have ever crossed. I'm happy with the wonderful life this is.

 

[haiducii]

When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now that I'm older, I want to be a kid again.

Ok, seriously. I dreamed of becoming a chef. Even today I still think that cooking is an art. If you have the right equipment and ingredients, the possibilities of what you can make are endless!

Not once did I think of becoming a teacher…but then life happened...

 

[brmstn69]

An architect...

I was taking all the drafting classes and shit in school, but then my senior year they dropped all the classes in favor of computer aided drafting. However I had not taken any of the intro computer classes and was not eligible for it.

@RazzmaTazz...
If insurance work interest you, then you should consider becoming a claims adjuster. It's much less education and easier to get a license, pays more, and there are many more job openings available. And when I say pays more, I mean a shit load of money. After disasters like Harvey and Irma there's so much work and so few willing to be away from home long enough to do the job, that many claims adjusters are making between $10,000 to $30,000 a month right now....

 

[lhardwick69]

school teacher here--

 

[Shelter]

LOL - me too. My first wish was to be a school teacher. But "then life happened", as Haiducii so wonderful has said - and I served an apprenticeship at a Bank. When I was ready with it (after 3 years) I hated this job and I got a job in a big property management - and HEAVEN that was what I wanted to do. So I worked there for further 3 years and then I decided to make it by my own. Now 5 years later I'm my own boss and I'm happy with my job - well there will be much more work than as an employed person. You have a great responsibility for your employees. You have no fixed working hours. But believe me - since I first started I have never regret one day.

 

[Jonny]

Actor/Singer

 

[trencherman]

Life is funny like that, it happens without your intentional participation.

Besides turning out to be a pastry cook which is my acknowledged talent, I became an accountant along the way. But to answer the question, I wanted to be an architect. I still enjoy visiting well known and obscure architectural sites, looking at pictures of them as well as endlessly rearranging the layout of my imaginary dream house.

 

[Stonecold]

I wanted to be an attorney, but when my father died with no life insurance when I was a senior in high school there was no way I could afford to go to college. My draft lottery number was low so I had to run around the country moving from city to city even visiting Canada for a short while to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. I finally went to community college and then a Uni and become a teacher for thirty years before I got into animal charity work. I can relate to what RazzmaTazz said because my family went from upper middle class to barely above poverty because of sickness and a death in the span of about one year. Life insurance is the best investment one can make if you have loved ones. I also relate to Winston and am very happy that things worked out as they did because of meeting my hubby of 30 plus years. I am sure if I had become an attorney we would never have met.