You Ever Feel Like You're Running Out of Time?

[Xephon0930]

I'm turning 23 after this summer and I am NOT fucking excited at all!!!! Why,you ask!??!!? It's because I know some people here in the VAA who are around my age who's doing what they want in terms of their respective future careers and I feel like I'm losing precious time here.

I don't want to turn 23 this summer unless I have a good plan on my own future and have a good chance of getting into my preferred field at the age of 25-27. Basically,I want to accomplish my life dream before 30 and make my name known.

I've been going back and forth between on being a screen writer onto a director working on anime/videogame adaptation films that don't suck ass to a video game designer of my own video game project I had put up in here in the VAA a year back. I guess most of my anguish is mixed with anxiety,impatience,jealousy and a feeling of inadequacy.

Times like this,I wish I could see the future in a Xenoblade-esque fashion and adjust my actions accordingly. But being this is real life and this being nowhere near as awesome,I have to make due with what I got. I guess I'm unsure of myself and would rush into my career to feel up to speed.

It may come across as immature or selfish to some but I'm sure a lot of people felt this way when their age has finally caught up to them. Add that with people having basically a head-start,it adds to the tension.

Most of all,I needed to vent this out before I go insane.

[JooneX]

I hear ya. I'm 15, and I make Youtube gaming videos as a hobby.
My school starts in 2 weeks, and this will be my last year in High-school. ((9th grade))
This year, my teachers will push me to the limit with tests, studies etc. And I need to decide where I will continue my studies next year.
There are 3 options on where I will continue.

The Engineering school, about 15-30km east of where I live
The music school, about 20km to the north of where I live
The computing ((Computer programming etc.)) school(s) either 123km south of where I live
OR the ATK School 50km west on where I live

I'm handy with the computers, and since I live in a town/go to a school where exercise/engineering is the number 1 class. I get very little studies on computing, donot get me wrong! I am not shunned, I have many friends in the school despite the fact that I like different things.
Well, my best friend. Who shall be called "Unknown" is into computing with me. So, we've made a deal, where we will study computing on our spare time, and we will (most likely) go to the same school.
I also need to start looking for a student apartment. A free apartment for students of the age 16-18, only thing is that you need to follow the rules, and they are open only from Monday to Friday, weekends they are closed and I need to spend the time in my current room.
((Just a notice in-case you've forgotten. I'm 15, and I will turn 16 next summer, so there is no drastic hurry on me. But in Finland, we do either A: Check things early, or B: Ignore them untill the final day.))

That is not all, I need to study for my moped driving license. Since I can't rely on a bike/father to get me to school on time. And that is something that is making me nervous, I have 2 weeks left, I have about 3-5 lessons to go before the exam.
To top it off, my moped has the body of a motor bike, the one where you lean forward. So it's harder to controll.

Then, I have my Youtube videos, wich I make for fun, but they've grown more popular ((NO, not viral, only my first video has 100 views.)) and I wish to give the viewers more footage.

Overall, I have three hobbies.
Youtube ((Voice-acting goes with this one))
Airsoft
Swimming

Um...I had more to add, but it appears that I forgotted what I had to add...I'll edit this when they come to mind.

[silentcomposition]

Some people spend their whole lives pondering, and working day jobs.
Usually halting their dreams to support a family.

Myself at 27 I finally feel like I am on my way to being something, however I doubt by the time I am 30 I will reach a level where I am widely known, nor would I want to be.

You shouldn't judge what you've accomplished based on your age, and looking to your past.
It will more than likely only deter you from giving it your all.


What I like to think is.
What will I be happy I did 1 year from now.

Literally place myself in the exact same room i'm in, and assume that I am still there in the same scenario financially.
What skills am I happy that I learned over the past year?
How much time have I spent towards working towards my goals?


Then do it for 10 years.
Assume you are still exactly where you are now 10 years from now. Nothing has changed, but you are now 10 years older.

What are you angry you didn't do?
Are you angry you didn't start a project that took several years to accomplish, because you thought there was an easier route, or couldn't bring yourself to work on something for that long, because you were worried about Money/Relationships/etc?




Also @ the OP I think you should know that both of your dreams, will require a great deal of hard work , and sacrifice to achieve. You must realize that to be either of those two things while you are still young, then you are going to have to create them yourself.
Honestly with the way the entertainment industry is now in general. If you want something, then you are going to have to create it yourself. then people will hire you if you made something awesome.


The screen writer path, will involve you actually having completed a project to even start working with a company. I don't know the best route to actually making an anime. But i'm pretty sure you will either have to find someone who can draw, who is VERY VERY generous to help you with your project, and not work on their own project. Or you can learn to draw yourself, and make it yourself. (NO IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO LEARN TO DRAW) http://vimeo.com/29510470

The game path, will require you to learn skills in creating games.
Which ultimately requires you to learn coding, or again art. Saying you will be the designer/writer, and trying to hire people to do it for you will not work.
Honestly learning to code isn't that hard what with the insane amount of resources there are on the internet.
Just remember that no-one will help you till the game is playable, and about ~40 of the actual game is complete with placeholder assets.



If it makes you feel any better. I'm just now starting to learn Unity.
http://www.unity3dstudent.com/category/modules/
Because I too would like to make a game or two down the road. While I keep doing what i'm doing now.

So technically if you started now, you would have a 4 year head start on me.

[hadohado319]

My overall life goal is to practice my ass off in martial arts then die young so I'll be in good enough shape to fight Bruce Lee in the afterlife.

-That is, if he hasn't already athiesized himself out of existence. Man, that'd just be a dick move..

Realistically, these next 2 years are the big ones for me. I've pretty much hit the end of the rope when it comes to maintaining an undecided major. At the moment, I'd kinda like to be a therapist, but honestly I'm not sure. I'm actually slightly compelled to burn the next year in an experimental booze-drug soulsearching spree rather than hitting the books hard and learning the trade I may have prematurely made up my mind on.

Should've just smoked weed in highschool like everyone else and got all this philosophical crap off my plate early.

[SheilaMGagne]

I understand how you feel. Quite often I get discouraged when I see female or male voice talents receiving roles (especially paying ones like from Bang Zoom!) and they are a few years younger than me. I feel like I started too late and if I had started sooner I would have more time to focus on improving my craft; less than a year from now I will have to find a full-time job in order to get insurance and that will cut into my voice-over pursuits and that is going to be very stressful.

HOWEVER, while I still feel insecure about it, I also get really motivated to catch up and perhaps even one day surpass my younger rivals. My father says that by simply trying you are 50 percent of the way there to getting what you want. When I think about where I started from to where I am now I feel better and try not to think about how everyone else is doing, just how I am doing and I feel ike I am doing pretty darn good.

[VodkaHaze]

I don't want to turn 23 this summer unless I have a good plan on my own future and have a good chance of getting into my preferred field at the age of 25-27. Basically,I want to accomplish my life dream before 30 and make my name known.

Don't worry too much about it. http://www.cracked.com/article_19655...-bloomers.html

[AmyAnn]

More often than not, it's a bad idea to give yourself a deadline for when you want things to happen in your life because there's more chance that it won't work out like that and it just makes you feel more depressed. I turned 20 this year and, by this time, I wanted to be finishing up university, have my own place, all those kinda things. Unfortunately, I hit a downwards spiral and ended up locking myself away for two years not knowing what I wanted to do. Only took me until a few weeks ago to finally realize what I wanted to do with myself but I'm not seeing targets of "I want to do this by age whatever". Best to just go with the flow of life, do what you can as time goes and just hope for the best. You're still in your early 20s so you have a long while to go yet.

[Ovarku]

Yes, and it's kind of infuriating, when I imagine I have another 50 years+ left in me, which is quite a long time. For me, I always feel like I run out of time in a day, but in all honesty, I wake up late, and I miss the day.
It happens, it's the feeling that hits when you've feel like you haven't done anything worthwhile in your life (ok, that doesn't help), and I had that feeling for a long time. I'm aware of what I want to do now, and I've done many worthwhile things, in what I believe is a short amount of time (3 years), and as soon as that happens, I guess you can feel you have all the time in the world. Honestly, as much as I'd love doing it, I feel video games are making me run out of time, but that's only because I never pace properly, and I get carried away with things.

[Deekay]

That's pretty much how I feel when I'm procrastinating in college....

But on a more serious note, yes I do have that feeling where I'm just running out of time in general. While I was in my last year of highschool I had no clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. Growing up in an Asian family, I was often told/encouraged to go to a university, get a degree, work a well paid job, start a family, etc. So I had that kind of mentality when I decided to go into post secondary to do exactly what I was pretty much told. Ideally that is kinda where I want my life to go seeing as how I never really had any ambitions to begin with. High school was just a place where I did the amount of work required and chilled with my friends. When it came time to choose what to do, I decided to go to university and decided that I'd study psychology because it kinda interested me. 1st year in, I hated psychology because I pretty much either lost interest or didn't like the fact that I wouldn't be able to really get a job with just a degree in it. So I decide that I'd do business instead and kinda changed my courses to some of the pre-reqs so I could transfer into the business program. Turns out I was too late and I was missing a few so I had to take an extra year to just get them done (I was a part time student that year since it was more economically sound).During that same year I applied for the business program. but my application was rejected because I didn't have a high enough GPA (they only take in a limited number of people for this program). As a result, I'm now in a college taking business courses that I could have been taking in my university. I'm in my 1st year of this business program (got 3 more years to go for the degree) while some of my other friends are in their 3rd year... So I pretty much wasted 2 years of my life and now I'm feeling like I'm running out of time

[Jordan_R]

I'm turning twenty-one this year, and five years ago, I saw myself in a totally different place at this age. Living in a house with friends, being a voice actor in Los Angeles, having a freakin' Impala. But here I am, still living with my parents and working a minimum wage job in retail, and driving my dad's old Dodge. Things just don't turn out how you planned, unless you have a million dollars to work with.

When I was younger, my 'deadline' for becoming a professional voice actor was 27. I've scrapped that idea. It's going to happen when it happens. If it's meant to be, it WILL happen, whether I'm 27 or 77. I'm going to keep working at it, practicing and busting my butt to MAKE it happen, because it's what I want. But having the attitude that you're 'too old' and you haven't done things that others have is just spelling out failure.

Don't give up because of how old you are. As they say, age is just a number. Don't get down on yourself, ever. Just keep going-- if this stuff makes you happy, it shouldn't matter 'where you are' in life. Just enjoy it.