My future.
I sometimes get asked the question, "Where do you see yourself in five years." Usually this is at work, where I don't particularly want to answer truthfully. It's a bad look when your answer isn't, "Working my way up the corporate ladder."
But honestly, I don't want to be in an office my whole life. Unless it's my own office, surrounded by bookshelves full of books, a cat or two sleeping beside the keyboard. This office would be in a small-ish cottage-like home in the middle of the woods on a piece of land that has a stream babbling through it. Also on this land, which is large enough to ensure that no neighbours are anywhere near, will be a two-story shed which will be my workshop and art studio. Another building will be my home gym; a place where I can practice all my martial arts when it's raining or snowing out (otherwise, I'd be training outside).
My writing will support me financially, and I will be able to set my own hours, answering to no one but myself... and my editor.
I will also own my own martial arts studio, where I can continue to teach my women's only martial arts classes. Martial arts is the place I turn when I need to take a break. It works the brain, but in a way that is vastly different to my writing, and I really love the people at Wutan Canada. They're very accepting of my weirdness, and that is quite rare. Teaching martial arts has been a unique pleasure, and remains one of my passions.
Nowhere in this dream of mine are the words 'gainfully employed.'
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate my job. I just don't want to be in an office, selling my time when I feel it could be used for things that truly light me up instead.
I want my own house in the woods. My own martial arts studio. And for my writing to fully support my life.
Not a unique dream, to be sure. Well, maybe except for my own personal dojo on my property.
What about you? What dreams stop you in your tracks sometimes? When you envision the future you would like, what is it?
Let me know!