Still not achieved the BIG DREAM ! Have you?

[upandaway]

Life is ticking by and I am still not yet where I want to be.

Have decent Dh,lovely kids,ok home etc but just havent achieved what I had hoped for.
I wanted to be, well, er, I dunno, just somebody I could be proud of.

Everything is just mundane and DULL DULL DULL.

Why aren't I in Africa helping poverty stricken villages, or being self sufficient, or a Professor by now lecturing people on nuclear energy.

I am just a boring old Mum in her thirties who has not achieved anything and I feel crap about it!

Do any of you think the same?

I feel like this a lot! In my life I always felt that I was supossed to achieve something be someone, and i dont mean anyone else made me feel like that, I just had a sense of it iyswim?
I know it's a cliche but that how i feel.

although now I'm in a place I never anticipated, a single mum who's just fallen in to a part time job to put some food on the table. Don't get me wrong I love dd, but 3 years ago I wouldnt have pictured myself here, I would have thought I'd have finished uni, and be startin out in a career.

Now that seems almost unattainable I just dont know what I want to do anymore! I also feel that I have lost most of my brain cells!
maybe I need a life coach or someone to set out a path for me becuase I'm not sure where to start.

Yes but not to achieve anything fantastic other than live my dream of having me wee hoose in the country or near the sea and bringing the kids up with a sense of freedom Don't think I'll be doing anything like this until DH retires and the kids are at college or uni.

Noddy, nope no spiritual side of me at all. Thought I saw my dead grandmother once.
Other than that know nothing about spiritualisms.
What does reiki do for you?

me23 - that partly sums it up - I want(ed) to be someone (not in a celebrite sense - yuck) but to count, to be important... I need outside approval...I have ambition..I just don't know where to channel it....I feel I have so much more to offer..

Yes blackduck! the channeling thing rings true! so what do we do? how do You what you should be doing and how to go about it? lol not particully asking you obv! I wonder will my life go on like this forever? because I will be unhappy if it does, dd is only 16 months and when your a mum everYthing is a lot more effort (well I ve found it is) and a degree (was thinking OU possibly would take six years! and then which one do you do and will it get you anywhere, sorry im rambling on now

i think when i was younger i had lots of big dreams, sort of school age when you dont realise too much about life in general, i left home at 15 and fended for myself, it was a very low point in life i had just lost my dad adn was still trying to grieve over my lost sister along with having a disfunctional family life wasnt great and at that point my big dream was to own a house, have a car, being happily married with lovely children

10 years on and i hav achieved my big dream, there is nothing else i would want out of life and only ask for me and dh to stay truly happy as we are now forever and my kids to be happy oh andprobably a sad thought but i dont want to lose any of them the wy i ahve lost half of my family

I think it is easy to lose your sense of self when you become a mum.Sometimes I find myself thinking "What the hell did I arse about at before I had kids and all that time!!".

I can sort of see where you are coming from but as expat said sometimes life is mundane and tedious,like the washing/ironing/cooking/cleaning etc etc.Then I have times when I am having a laugh with the dcs and I wouldnt swap it for the world.

I have been lucky to travel etc before I had kids and hope someday when they have flown the nest to visit some more exotic locations.I do miss just being able to get up and go without it being a military exercise though.

As far as jobs go,well Im never gonna set the world on fire but am happy with my demanding,stressful but interesting job on a pt basis, (it uses all the brain cells I have at the mo.)

Most importantly my immediate family are healthy and though by no means rich we are not on the poverty line,so I guess things are pretty good (though to most people in the street I would be the harrassed looking mum with no make-up and crazy untidy hair with ever increasing wrinkles pushing two small,muddy,snotty,banana covered children, assorted sticks and leaves,bags of shopping and a very important toy rabbit around my local environs.Whatever happened to my younger,prettier,slimmer self? )

This is a great thread. Enclose an excerpt of 'Tintern Abbey' for you 'upandaway'. Sounds like maybe you have been so busy, you haven't had time to grieve for the life you 'gave away' when you got pg. Even though what you have done is incredibly rewarding too, sometimes you need to grieve too. I love the ending of this poem, as it reflects my belief in God which is the only thing that gives my life meaning (not sure where Wordsworth was on that issue, but that's what it says to me!). I still get bored with life, and dissatisfied with 'only' being a Mum, but these feelings have more perspective in light of my faith.

'Tintern Abbey' (Wordsworth)

That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

ahh - theres the rub me23 I have the degree (and much more besides) - but just haven't worked out what I want to do... Just a feeling I am wasting my abilities

My ambition is to own a luxury b&b in the gorgeous north shore of Blackpool. It's been a dream of mine since I was little and I hope one day I can make my dream a reality. I'm still only 22 though so plenty of time to still make it happen.

lovely , ellieorange

Ah good thread. Thanks for the Wordsworth. I thought also of Blake

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour".

The ability to take pleasure from looking at the grass....

I've done lots. Lovely career. Written quite a lot of books. Done other stuff. Lots of lovely children. Lots of interesting hobbies if I ever get the chance to practise them. A reasonably happy spiritual life (I'm a Catholic). Even bought an island which was an early ambition. I'm very very lucky but I don't have what most of you have any more, a loving marriage so perhaps I'm the worst off of all.

Quick hijack of thread sorry but WOW!!

Where's your island xenia?
And exactly how do you buy an island?
Islands R Us ?
Do people live on it or is it puffins and seals etc.
Gosh that's a magnificent thing to do.
Do you visit it?

Wow I can't believe so many of you are disatisfied with things!
My only dream was to be happy with myself and my life however little or much that entailed.
And im glad to say that im pretty much there!
I have a wonderful partner, a lovely son, an ok job (well it pays the bills and I get to work from home).
My life isn't ideal, but hey it ain't half bad!

i always look at my mum who retired early from teaching and then went on to retrain as a teacher of tefl ,has now lived in the last 5 years in madrid,seville ,prague and phucket and is currently over in thailand organising building houses ,she is 59 . So i dont think it matters at what age you acheive things as long as you dont stop dreaming and eventually get round to doing it

[Complete thread deflectio but I was asked....Where's your island xenia? Panama
And exactly how do you buy an island? - my mother died. I got some money although it did cost less than your average Spanish villa so it's not as expensive as you think.
Islands R Us ? I've been following islands for sale for a long time. I have a folder I made when I was 10 years old with information on it. There are some island companies that sell them.

Do people live on it or is it puffins and seals etc. No, it's rainforest and beach. I want to build on it in the next few years.

Gosh that's a magnificent thing to do.
Do you visit it? - We all went in August and I've been about 3 times in the last year. I bought it without wanting to feel I had to be there all the time and I don't want to live there but it is fun. It's just an example of I suppose an early aim realised so seemed relevant to the thread.

BUT to be content with what you have is more important. I think people who think they have done things well enough, who are satificers (awful word) rather than perfectionists tend to be happier, a good enough mother, a good enough worker. It's probably more to do with chemical balances in the brain rather than particular things achieved. In fact the people who continuously want more are often those who are least happy.

Xenia. That is so cool. How brilliant.

What's your next ambition? I like your style.

That's so much more fun than learning piano or ancient greek.

I play the piano. I sing. Those are good things to do too. The island is just an extra thing. I've always thought we could mostly achieve what we want to achieve and people are more limited by restrictions they place on themselves than anything else. I'd quite like to keep sheep or rare breeds, but haven't quite worked that one out yet. Some things sound fun but in practice aren't.

When I was at uni my best friend wanted to have a partner, children and career. I wanted to be doing some sort of desperately worthwhile work in poverty-stricken parts of Africa. Now we seem to be living each other's dreams. She's been working in African refugee camps for years and I have the settled more boring life she wanted.

Ahhh the island dream! My dad had that dream. Didn't actually buy an island but did buy a house on one in Scotland just before he retired (at 53!!). Beautiful place! Sold it 3 years ago because it got too much for them to care for. That was really sad - a sign that they have had to start to slow down I will always have some really fond memories of that island and that little house...

That's really great. I agree that sometimes people seem to be trapped in a very small world.

You are very lucky you know, to be musical too. I would love to be musical. I'm not, and I won't ever be.

Owning an island is still the best thing I've heard though. Just so liberating.

www.lionesscubshome.com/ hope that link works. I got involved with this orphanage and some others through the Trip Advisor Site, my contact over here is a lovely old lady called Ed who I trust and can send money to. I'm a single parent with two kids and took them to Kenya this summer. We did lots for the orphanage and it gave me such a buzz. We continue to raise money and stay in touch.
It's not the answer to filling up your life, but if it floats your boat, it's easy to do. The kids are gorgeous - my favourite is a beautiful girl called Beattie who was raped before she came to the orphanage as a baby. I think I will take the children again next year - it opened their eyes, sometimes you get fed up with all the materialitic whims of your children, and then
watch them give of themselves in this way - it blew me away and made me even closer to my own kids.
this is a lovely thread and an interesting one. you are in a "needs met" situation, and this can make us hungry for more. Our days can be filled with fiding food/shelter etc etc. when these needs are met, we start to want more. I do feel like you too by the way. Every time I do stuff for the orphanage, it gives me a high and gets me going. Writing down your goals and dreams is great. doing scrapbooks of your future - look what it did for Xenia!
I work from home and support us myself. but I get that exact feeling you describe on an almost daily basis. I eagerly await other responses to your post.