How do you view yourself in the future?

[ShyBeliever]

Hi everybody. Do you still believe in your goals and dreams, despite of your phobia? How do you view yourselves in the next 10 or 15 years? Well, I´m 19 and I still believe that someday in the recent future I will be a completely different person. In the future, I view myself completing my college course and getting an average and decent job. I still believe in seeing myself getting married and having two little nice kids with all my family and friends around. Is this a possible future for a social phobic? Or are we doomed to live in loneliness and misery? Please tell me your beliefs!!

 

[black_mamba]

I believe that social phobia won't hold us back, as long as we always continue to fight it and be determined throughout. It is hard, but worth it.

I imagine myself has having a nice job based on my degree (engineering) and maybe I'll even get to work with my favourite machines (rollercoasters!) I can totally see my garage - motorbikes, cars, planes, speedboats...oh and a mini zoo in my back garden.

Ok thats a bit fat fetched but I am totally serious about getting a good job, earning lots and lots and helping my family financially (so my mother doesnt have to work etc).

 

[magda74]

That's a really great question!!! My hopes are that someday soon there'll be little difference between who I am on the inside and how I act outwardly. Everything that I'm passionate about requires me to take risks and be brave and I really want to live that way.

We all seem to have in common a desire to overcome our fears and live fuller lives. I believe as long as someone doesn't give up on their dreams, keeps moving and doesn't become stagnant you will eventually get there.

I just finished watching the Aviator which confirmed a long held belief that creative people have always been individualists & have more naysayers than supporters. I'm so concerned with what everyone thinks, only becuz i haven't truly accepted my own differences. There's this great quote from this book on Buddhism that I've been reading, it goes, "When you accept yourself, the whole world accepts you." I love that, cuz it means that I just have to be mindful of my perspective, not anyone elses.

 

[FaymeLevy]

You know, i have never seriously considered a future without SP...or at least not one worth having...in my dreams, when I don't have SP anymore, I have some other problem that makes me miserable....Of course, im a pessimest.

 

[Scrabbl]

I can never imagine myself without sp either. I might get better but without sp I'm not myself. :?

I'm still in highschool but for years I have a really silly dream. I want to get the Loebner prize. It's a prize for making a really intelligent ai (robot entity) that can fool a human into thinking it's another human. I'm pretty sure nobody is going to get that prize in 50 years although today's technology is advancing at an increasingly fast pace. Anyway, the prize itself is not much money tho but it's still cool. yes, I'm ambitious lol :lol: It's hard to imagine myself getting that prize but it'll always be my dream and goal. Meanwhile I'll get a job with computer engineering - those circuit board designing jobs because that's what my parents do and if I can't find a job with that I'll get a programmer job...
But I think wife and kids - a family is something I'll never get. Not even in my dreams.

 

[young]

Well for me, I'm not exactly where I thought I would be at the age of 26. I also thought that I would never be able to do a job where I would have to drive alot. And be on the road constantly. Since there was so much travel involved. I wanted to pass on the job. I've been working there for 5 years now. Driving constantly. I've also gone back to school. I have just finished up 18 months of school.

So goals can be accomplished. If you believe you can achieve them. Then anything is possible. It may take longer, or the road maybe full of problems and adversity. But you can achieve them.

 

[paul]

Wow -- great topic idea

ShyBeliever - for somebody without SA, that might be considered an average life, but with social phobia it seems perfect strange how it can do that to you huh? I don't know you that well -- you do seem like somebody who is not overly negative or hopeless so I think that this goal may be easier to achieve than you think! We are not doomed to lonliness and misery, SA is a defeatable disorder, even when it might not seem like it.

black_mamba - rollercoasters are great! I do love them. I've always wanted to go to Cedar Point (in Ohio) and go on that Millenium Force ride that goes 96mph hey there's one of my goals. You're a smart person mamba, your future looks bright, and I can't say that about everybody.

magda - great quote there. Getting over our fears seems like such an amazing achievement, isn't it so strange to think people go confidently to social things and don't have any fears to get over! Not that having SA is a character flaw or anything, I mean it's not a good thing, but it doesn't make a person bad, infact it can have quite the opposite effect.

FaymeLevy - you negative person :lol: I feel negative a lot of the time but don't feel like you'll never get over SA! I know sometimes trying seems like it's for nothing but it's going to be a lot harder if you're negative about it or don't think you can do it. I could picture you getting over SA

Scrabbl - I don't know you but has anybody won that Loebner prize? Sounds like something I could never ever ever ever do. A robot that tricks humans into thinking it's human would be very amazing if dangerous

young - do you like driving? I've never driven before but I always think it would be fun of course many things seem less fun when you actually do them. Congratulations on finishing those 18 months of school!


As for me, I would like to be really rich Getting over SA would also be nice but I don't think I'd like to become a social butterfly. Just a quiet person, but not afraid that people are going to hate me. I'd like to have a penthouse in New York City and drive a Bentley. :| More realistically maybe at least have a nice house and drive an Audi.
I've never really been interested in getting married and there is no way I would ever have kids. 8O Just too much annoyance involved (yes I know I am being a hypocrite as I'm saying this).
More than being rich though is I'd like to have a lot of good friends. Not the "come and go" type, but some who I could really relate to and connect with. I think that would be great.

 

[young]

Paul- Driving has it's ups and downs. Well the normal one. Would be that it takes you places. Faster than it would take you to walk. Tho I don't like to in a car that takes me far from where I started. I get antsy. Plus when you drive so much. You listen to a lot of music. So you tend to hear the same song over and over. Plus then their is road rage. Or being stuck in traffic. But for the most part. I like to drive it lets me get away from it all. I can just cruise while listening to my fav song, saying F- The World.

 

[Scrabbl]

paul,
Check this out if you've never chatted with a bot before: http://www.jabberwacky.com/
These bots may seem smart but they understand nothing so there's still a long way to go for them.
Yea loebner prize sounds like something I probably will never get as well. But this dream has always kept me going. It's like even if there's a very slight chance I'll keep living and fighting for it.
With the loebner prize, I probably didn't explain it clearly. I'll explain it again so you can understand. It's a prize given to someone who has made a very smart chatting bot. They measure its intelligence by comparing it to a human. If the entity is smart enough that a person can't distinguish it from a human, then the person who made it wins the silver prize. It may seem impossible to make this kind of bots but it's not. The underlying theory of today's bots are really easy to understand. So far no one's ever won the silver metal of loebner prize, and as I said no one probably will in 50 years. The prize itself is 25,000 us dollars and a silver metal. It's not much if you want to get rich but selling these bots probably can make you a billionaire. Yea I'd like to be really rich too :wink: Back in the 80's I think (when I wasn't born) they used to sell these bots as psychiatrists, probably for social phobics. I found that really interesting.
Srry for this long post, you just can't stop me when I start with this topic tho.

[edit] broken link fixed

 

[IcanDoIt]

I believe that social phobia won't hold us back, as long as we always continue to fight it and be determined throughout. It is hard, but worth it.

I imagine myself has having a nice job based on my degree (engineering) and maybe I'll even get to work with my favourite machines (rollercoasters!) I can totally see my garage - motorbikes, cars, planes, speedboats...oh and a mini zoo in my back garden.

Ok thats a bit fat fetched but I am totally serious about getting a good job, earning lots and lots and helping my family financially (so my mother doesnt have to work etc).

WAO! hopefully more posts are like yours, totally positive!

 

[black_mamba]

WAO! hopefully more posts are like yours, totally positive!

Oh my, so unlike me to be 100% positive isn't it. :lol:

That jabberwacky chat bot ... I'm addicted now. :x Thanks for the link Scrabbl.