What do you want to do?

Originally posted Sept 13 2006 on my Friendster blog.

Did you ever have a "things to do in this lifetime" list? I mean, it you don't actually have to have one written down and stored away somewhere. Maybe just a few things you thought you would do someday, once you move out of home/ get a girlfriend (boyfriend) / graduate / get a job / get married / saved enough money / buy your first car etc etc.. Or maybe you aren't the sort that thinks much about these kind of things.

I used to have a list. Not in written form anymore though. I remember being 14 and writing down all these things I wanted to do, experience or achieve. For the life of me though, I don't know where it is or what happened to it. And I can't remember all the items that I wrote down. Here are some of what at I do remember.

I wanted to ride in the Concorde at least once - it was retired some years ago.

I wanted to be a millionaire by the age of 30 - at the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky to have graduated by then.

I wanted to be the first Malaysian to climb the Everest - that's taken, just check the Malaysian book of records.. But I still want to climb it someday.

I wanted to live for a year in each of all the countries in the world - guess what? there are more countries than I have years left to live. I have done Malaysia and Australia though( yay! 2 out of 193!!).

I wanted to speak 5 languages fluently (besides English and Mandarin which I already do very well, thank you very much). French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Italian - Well, I'm in the midst of picking up conversational Japanese but beyond that, nada.

I wanted to visit Antartica - After LIVING in Melbourne, I've realised that I don't do so well in the cold (understatement of the year!). So... we'll see.

I wanted to have 3 homes, one in the city, one by the sea and one in the mountains - At the age I am now, I can't stand living in KL (or any big, smoggy, noisy, smelly, stressful city). Living by the sea is not such a smart idea with global warming and all (not to mention tsunamis). As for the mountains, that's romantic but where am I going to buy my groceries from? Besides, there seems to be a lot of earthquakes nowadays.

So, have I changed from when I was a kid? Or has the world changed around me?

What do you do when your dreams cannot come true?