Looking Toward the Future

Looking Toward the Future

Darcy Smittenaar

PSY202 Adult Development and Life Assessment

Diana Donovan

December 14, 2013 

Looking Toward the Future

According to Hoppmann and Blanchard-Fields, “young adults prioritize autonomy goals, whereas older adults focus on generative goals” (Hoppmann & Blanchard-Fields, 2010, p. 1433-1434) despite the fact that I am thirty years old, I only just a few years ago began to come out of that stage of young adulthood when I began knitting items of clothing for friends and family—I wanted to give something back to them and show appreciation for the things, both of intrinsic and sentimental value, that they had given me.  However, even though my knitting comes from a feeling of generativity—my desire to leave a mark (Mossler, 2013, Chapter 6: Identity Development and Personality)—the goals I currently have for the future are mostly those of autonomy; they will help me to become more independent, and to support myself should my support system collapse around me.

One of my goals for the future has come out of this love for knitting, but instead of a personal goal, it is professional, which I define as a goal which, in the end, is for profit, or for financial or some other intrinsic gain.  Another goal I have, a personal one—one that will help me to have a more enjoyable life outside of profit and money—is to buy a motorcycle, and an academic goal of mine is to receive my Bachelor of the Arts degree in applied linguistics by New Year’s Eve 2016.

Since I love knitting, it would seem that any goal I could have regarding that craft would be personal, but this is not the case, because I want to be able to make a profit doing something I like to do in my spare time.  I want to start an internet-order “hand-knitted” clothing business.  Specifically, I want to start this venture and be open for business by April 1, 2014.  I will measure my progress by going through the steps of buying a personal knitting machine (which can make clothing that looks hand-knitted, but a lot faster than I can knit by hand), applying for a small business license, deciding on a product line and how people can place orders, setting up a website, and advertising.  Once all those steps are done, being “in business” will just be a matter of waiting for the orders to start coming in.  I do not yet have a name for the business, but that will be decided when I apply for the business license.  I hope that the venture will be successful—that I will have so many orders, and enough profit, that I will have to hire others and buy more knitting machines to fill those orders, but at first just me and a single machine should work just fine.  As I said before, true failure or success will depend on whether or not I receive any orders, but as long as I stick to the plan, just having the business up and running—and the time to contribute toward fulfilling those orders—will be “successful enough” for me in the beginning.  Far in the future, if the business is successful enough, it may become a generative thing in and of itself, for I will be making clothes for people which will last longer than store-bought knitted items, and will also be personalized for them and the people they give them to.  That sentimental value will be something I will be able to provide should I be able to set up an online knitted goods business.

Something I want to do in order to better enjoy life—by saving money on gasoline for my commutes to and from work which can be put toward things like vacations and other improvements to my quality of life—is to buy a motorcycle (and my first suit of appropriate safety gear) by the middle of July 2014.  Sometime in the future, saving money on gasoline by commuting to work by motorcycle may help me to create a better life for my future children, because I will have more money to save for their futures; however, right now, it is one of complete autonomy because the things I will be saving my gas money for will be things that I want in order to be more independent.  Each month, I will save up for a different piece of gear: helmet, pants, jacket, gloves and boots.  These purchases will be complete by April 1, 2014, and I will then save for the motorcycle itself.  Overall, I anticipate the lot to cost no more than $3,000-$5,000.  I also plan on learning to invest in order to earn a bit more money, but I do not know if any of the investments I make will grow in time to buy my motorcycle.  I have never been very good at saving money, but now that I have learned how to make a proper budget each month, I hope that I will be able to stick to that budget and actually save enough money in time to keep up with this goal, since I will need to get used to the bike before I can commute all the way from my home in Mount Airy, Maryland to my work at Washington-Dulles International Airport in Virginia.  I also tend to set long-term goals, and then underestimate the time it will take to achieve them, also getting distracted by more attractive, short-term goals.  Since I will have a line in my budget called “Motorcycle and Gear Savings,” I hope this—as well as the promise of an actual motorcycle at the end of it, which I discovered is really fun to ride this past summer—will encourage me to stick to this goal and resist the temptation to spend whatever savings I may accumulate on shorter-term goals.  I will reassess this goal on February 15, 2014, and if it turns out that I cannot realistically save up enough money in the total amount of time I have allotted, then I will adjust the schedule accordingly.

My final goal is that of academia—school-related tasks.  I want to receive my Bachelor of the Arts degree in Applied Linguistics from Ashford University by December 31, 2016.  Like my goal to purchase a motorcycle, eventually, this goal may contribute to a sense of generativity—I will be able to “give back” to the world at large by helping people learn languages foreign to them and therefore communicate with each other—but for now, it is completely one of autonomy, because it will help me to find a career, instead of just job after job after job.  I have already received an Associate of the Arts Degree from my local community college, and I hope that enough credits will transfer from my first school so that my current 4-year curriculum can be shortened to less than 3 years.  Given that, I will meticulously keep track of my grades in each five-week class, do my homework on time and do each type of assignment at the same general time each week.  For instance, I will read chapters in the textbook the weekend before they are to be discussed for class, I will make my initial discussion posts on the first day of the class week, and do longer writing assignments during the latter part of the week, as well as before or after reading the chapters for the next week.  As long as I do not take more than one 45-day break per year, I believe I can achieve this goal.  I have never had much problem with academic subjects (except for history and chemistry, which I still passed despite my difficulties), so getting the grades for my degree will not be a problem.  Keeping up with my classes and the assignments may become more tedious and tiresome as the months go on, but since I will only have one class at a time (possibly two) on which to focus, I anticipate an easier time of it than I had with my Associate’s Degree.  If it turns out that I need to take more classes than I can in the next three years, I will adjust the end-date of my goal to the end of the last required five-week class.  It took nine years (2004-2013) to finish my 2-year Associate’s Degree, but that is because I was paying for each class whenever I had the money and time concurrently for 7 of those years.  I have since sought financial aid, so money will not be an obstacle—at least not for the first couple of years—in getting my Bachelor’s Degree.  Time might become an issue, but I have dealt with that problem in the past, and overcome it.  I do not anticipate having trouble overcoming it now.

Over all, in my young adult years, my current goals for the future are those of autonomy, like the young adults of which Hoppmann and Blanchard-Fields wrote.  These same goals, once they are achieved and after many years of establishment when I am older, may turn into ways in which I can “give back” to not only those people I care about, but to complete strangers as well.

 

References

Hoppmann, C. A., & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2010). Goals and everyday problem solving: Manipulating goal preferences in young and older adults. Developmental Psychology, 46(6), 1433-1443. doi:10.1037/a0020676

Mossler, R. (2013). Adult Development and Learning. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu