If you could pick your future

[gwiddison]

You get to see your own future, and there are two potential paths in front of you. In one, you marry the girl/guy of your dreams. Gorgeous, smart, fun and crazy about you. You stay married the rest of your life, have children (if that's your thing) and grow old together. But you never become really successful in any other aspect of life. You have an okay job, make enough money to live on. You're not really poor, but you have to worry about mortgage rates, retirement, kids college funds. You don't distinguish yourself academically or professionally and you always know you can't get any better than where you are.

In the other path, you become massively successful in your career. You become obscenely rich and get everything you ever wanted. Beautiful house, private plane, big yacht, garage full of cars. You give huge amounts to charities, you do work you love and which makes a big difference and you're known the world over for your achievements. The downside is that you'll never have a romantic relationship, never get married or start a family and you'll be celibate your entire life.

Which do you pick?

(For a fuller analysis, see informationalparalysis.blogspot.com)

 

[Jordi]

I choose the first, because it seems far more likely that that will make me happy. I doubt a life completely without romance would be fulfilling even with all the success.

 

[SilentCom]

Maybe option two because I want to leave behind a legacy for others before I die. I don't really see option one as something that'll ever happen to me whether I want it or not. I guess I'd rather work for a better world than have one exclusively for myself. The wealth from option two I would use to help others with instead of buying a ton of cars or whatever.
frankly I'm not happy because this world isn't a happy place and having a family isn't going to make the world better.

 

[BENZOOKA]

The first option, certainly. Ambition is far from being one of my strongest abilities. And love and happiness are the most important things after all.

And selibacy? That alone would be enough to dismiss the second option completely.

 

[El Poncho]

Well depends, am I powerful rich or, just have a lot of money rich, because I'd rather be powerful rich so I have a better chance of stopping the rich being powerful, making me poorer but happier inside

 

[lee1287]

Option two, then i could pay people to lvoe me. MWAHAHAH.

 

[DuctTapeJedi]

What if neither of those sounds appealing?

As of now, things are falling into place to move to Africa to do mission work. (The building schools and helping people after disasters kind, not the pushing culture on indigenous people kind.)

 

[Lawnmooer]

I'd pick the first option.

I don't want a big house and lots of cars, I want a nice cozy house to share with someone and just the one car. I also don't want to be know worldwide because I'd lose out on privacy and would not be able to do alot of things without appearing on the news...

All I really want from life is to make enough money to live with a job I don't hate and spend most of my life with my significant other.

 

[conflictofinterests]

It's a hard choice for me because I need both fulfillment at work and fulfillment at home to be really happy. I'm not the kind of person who could get my quota of social interaction filled with platonic friends, because I don't tend to work hard enough to keep them. I'm also not the kind of person who can stomach soul-crushing jobs for long (one of the reasons I've never looked into doing art professionally is that, though it is a beloved hobby of mine, I would get sick of it so quickly were I REQUIRED to do it that your head would spin) I don't need to be rich, I just need to be happy. If the first choice could be amended to include that the job was fulfilling, then yeah, that one.

 

[Captain Pirate]

Definately the first option. Since I've already met her, it would kill me to be big and successful with no chance of getting romantically involved with her.

 

[SpartakRB]

First option, definitely. I've learnt lately that material success doesn't matter as much to me as having good friends, enjoying my life and taking every opportunity to live life to its fullest. I would much prefer to have the girl of my dreams to spend my life with and make her as happy as possible - and do a good job of raising a couple of kids.

Oh and I second benzooka's opinion on the celibacy part of option 2 competely

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

Even though option 1 is not entirely my perfect future, it's almost certainly what's going to happen.

And I'm okay with that.
All I could ever truly want in my life is games, music, a loving wife and a kid or two.

That, for me, is true success in life(Y).

 

[Scarecrow]

Pick the future? Don't you know that the future is bulletproof; the aftermath is secondary?