Lately I’ve been thinking about life goals and dreams, whether mine is too small or too big, too boring or too unrealistic. Have I reached them or do they even exist at this point? It seems like it’s in the basic human nature to create goals and dreams for oneself, even from a very early age. Which probably comes from being affected from the people around us. That might be, parents, friends, school, family or others. Who did not hear the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” We actually seem forced from a young age to consider a future career, even though we don’t even have developed a realistic view of what money and work actually is.
Realism is one of the things I definitely lacking when I think back on my childhood goals. When I in the age of 8 years old wanted to become a hairdresser, even though I had no interest in hair or fashion. A few years later my dream was to be a professional handball player, without even having touched a ball before. After that I decided to aim high and my new goal was to become a lawyer, which pretty much clashed with the fact that I disliked studying. I had many childhood dreams and goals, but it seems like that amount slowly disappeared when logic, realism and rationality started to develop and required space. During middle school I realized that I had no idea of what I wanted to do in the future I only had my main point of “interest” to hold on to, Japan. I started to set up goals and dreams around this country, some seemed more realistic that others. My goal became to enter high school in order to go to university and study Japanese, which of course would be doable as long as I studied well. My dream on the other hand, seemed out of reach even to myself, I probably saw it more as a fantasy than a plausible dream. That dream was to meet a Japanese guy, fall in love, get married and live in Japan. Not really something I could actually plan and work towards.
I went to Japan for the first time after having finished my second year in high school and I fell in love with the country even more. The year after I went to Japan three times (Feb, July & Oct.) I graduated high school and applied for university. During my 3rd visit in Japan in July, I even wrote down my wish of getting accepted on a piece of paper during the Tanabata celebrations.
(Me, 2009)
I also had another goal for my future, the only one not involving Japan; I wished to lose weight. In late July a letter from the university told me that I had not made the cut, but was guaranteed entry next year (since my grade average was 0,1 from being accepted). I decided to travel around Japan the following spring, which is when I met the guy who would be my future husband. I started studying Japanese at university in September 2010, have been to Japan 8 times in 3 years and I got married to my Japanese fiancé in April 2011. I have even managed to lose 10 kilos (around 22 lbs) in less than a year.
So, in what feels like a blink of an eye, I managed to reach most of my set goals during my school time, seems like “living” in Japan is the only goal I haven’t reached. But, life is no game, when we reach our goals it doesn’t mean it’s over and we then can celebrate. Then we need to find new goals, which makes us move forward towards the next step. For some reason I didn’t even seem to notice that I had reached my goals and dreams, maybe they were accomplished too easily to feel like an actual victory. Now I feel left at a crossroad in my life, but feel sure that I’m going in a right direction – following steps of a university education, meeting new people and enjoying new experiences and I even found somebody to keep me company during this walk. Though I wonder if I have enough hopes and dreams for what is waiting for me farther down the road. Can we have too few dreams and goals? Is; “living in Japan, having children, but have no idea about future work or such” enough future goals? Well, guess I should not have too high expectations for future goals in the age of 21. Maybe I should just start to focus on the things that are currently visible and imaginable on my current path, follow the stream and have goals such as “having fun at the next university party” and “do not fail your next test”. I guess this is just the ramblings of a girl who suddenly found most of her goals completed faster than she expected.
Understanding Japanese 