As part of reviewing old content from my first personal website, which, back then was hosted on our Internet service provider’s member pages, I stumbled across the following page which was originally written on 09/11/02 but had been updated three times: 08/01/03, 11/03/03 and 14/01/04.
I had actually created a framework which had a one-year forecast, and also articulated a 5-year and 10-year plan. Interestingly, this page, along with the entire website got archived along the way and I never came back to it… that is until now (2017). The following is preserved as-is, without any editing so as to provide the best comparison and opportunity for comparison/analysis. My future can be viewed in terms of different time frames – the year ahead, 5 years & 10 years.
5 Years Ahead ~ 2008
By 2008 I would have completed my graduate contract (2 years) and moved into a permanent full-time position (possibly still with CML). After 2-3 years of full-time work, I would like to spend some time overseas (at this stage – Singapore sounds good) – for a year or so… only short term! During this time, I will be exploring the possibility of becoming a project manager and gaining PMI certification. Family/relationship-wise, I should be progressing in my relationship with *that special someone*… ?engagement? 0_o
10 Years Ahead ~ 2014
By the time I reach 31, I would like to either me close to marriage or married with a kid on the way! (Am I a little ambitious – there’s a good chance for my Dad to get to see his grand-kid, right?). I would have attained a position of management within the multinational/national company that I would have been working for. I should have experienced at least 3 different roles within the company, including exposure to mainframe technologies. I will also be contemplating an MBA (requires 10 years industry experience).
The Ultimate Dream
My ultimate dream is to be my own boss, running a successful IT consulting/multimedia/education business, with investments in property in Melbourne and possibly Singapore/Malaysia. Ideally, the ability to work from home would allow for more freedom in raising a family. Perhaps a partnership will some friends? I would live in my dream house which would have cost ~$450K to build at the time of these initial dreams – designed for entertaining and a family of 2-3 kids. Having bought the property next-door (no. 3 of my street) would have provided more living space. My Dad would live with me (instead of I living at home with my Dad), I’d own a dog… I’d win the Tattslotto and a 4WD in a charity raffle… =P mmm… but it’s only a dream… life could be a dream… =P
Making Dreams a Reality
To complement this content migration, I will attempt, as best as possible, given it is now 2017, to review each year since 2003 up until 2013 at the very least – using the start of XBOP powered by WordPress as a reasonable end-point to delineate these “modern” times.
As a whole, the period of 15 years has marked my adulthood. There were the initial university education years, followed by the regular transition that we all go through in starting full-time work. The dreams above were just that – dreams of a hypothetical future. The reality of my life has played out very differently for various reasons. The complexity of reflecting back on such a vast period of time/my life shall be dealt with by breaking the season down into annual segments, where I can intersperse reflective thoughts throughout.
In short summary, God has been good and faithful to me all throughout this period; I have been incredibly blessed and He has continually refined by heart, character and personality. I would not have accomplished or gotten to where I am today without God in my life – so a large part of this reflective writing is also about God.
Watch this space as I create separate posts for each respective year. The earliest years here are the result of migrating the aforementioned content from the period 2001~2004.
- The Year 2001, re-published 23 August 2016
- The Year 2002, re-published 25 August 2016
- The Year 2003, re-published 13 October 2016
- 2004: The Year Ahead & Reviewed
- 2005
- 2006
- 2007
- 2008
- 2009
- 2010
- 2011
- 2012
- 2013: A Year In Review, published 14 September 2016
- 2014: Highlights, published 5 January 2015
- 2015: A Year in Review, published 1 January 2016
- 2016: A Year in Review, published 13 June 2017
