How do you see yourself 5 years from now?

That’s probably the most overused interview question which requires such a very superficial answer to impress the interviewer who’s got nothing better to ask. However, if you take that question out of a job interview context and someone asks you randomly what would you answer?

I was talking to a friend of mine earlier over Yahoo Messenger (yeah, I’m not really crazy about Skype) and she asked me that question to which I just blankly stared at the screen and waited for some sort of spiritual intervention to make me realize what I want to be in 5 years. I realized then that I really have no idea what I will be in 5 years and that’s really not me because I’m a big planner. I’ve got an obsessive compulsive disorder to plan everything ahead of time. No matter how small or big the plan is, everything will be in order down to the smallest detail. I do believe that I am currently living here in Dubai because I basically planned everything since when I was a kid. (More on that later) However now, I haven’t planned anything for my future and somehow, I am fine with it. Should I be worried? Do all of you have some sort of a game plan in your life right now that you’re living by? Do you know where you will be in 5 years? Because I don’t.

Then tonight during dinner, the boyfriend asked me about Dumaguete which is a place in the Central part of the Philippines. There’s nothing wrong about asking me questions like that but the thing is, this is probably the 5th city in the Philippines he asked. He’s been mentioning even before that his plan is for us to move to the Philippines and he will put up a sports bar while I will get myself employed as a cashier in a grocery store (the last part is to tease me but maybe he’s also serious about it, I don’t know). I brushed it off several times as if to think that he’s just saying it now maybe because he’s bored and he’s got nothing better else to do but I found out that he is actually weighing the pros and cons already. He’s been researching about the cities in the Philippines, reading some articles or blogs of people who are currently living there and he practically already has an idea of where these cities are located in our map. The odd thing is, I’ve no idea if I will go back to the Philippines anytime soon. I mean yeah, maybe for vacation or maybe after 20 years (maybe!) but I can’t see myself living there right about now and I don’t also see myself still living in Dubai in 20 years. So basically, I’m screwed because I don’t even know where I will be in that span of time. I do admire the boyfriend for having a plan. He knows what he wants and he’s already planning to get it. I also love the fact that I’m part of that plan (tee hee). Maybe I can just live my life out of his plan?

Two people in one night making me realize that I’ve got no clue of what I’ll be doing in the future somehow made me panic. Am I living a life without purpose? Is it too late for me to make plans? Where do I even start? How do I even start planning? I’m not getting any younger, in fact I’m hitting the big 3-0 (I can’t write those numbers together, no not yet) in about 3 months and I’ve got no freaking clue what I want in my life (I do know what I want for my birthday though). This idea literally drove me nuts for some time. I have just lived out one of the plans that I’ve had for myself when I was younger and that is to be able to live a very independent life in which I no longer ask my parental units for financial aid whenever life throws me out of balance. I will have to admit that the first 2 years of my life here in Dubai, I was still very dependent to my parental units. If I get sick and needs to go to the hospital (which is quite often), my mother will have to send me money to pay for the bills. Yes, that’s how immature and useless I was that time. Now that I’ve finally managed to live independently which is a part of my longterm plans when I was in my teenage years, I’ll have to plan again? Can we just stop planning and just see where life brings us? Isn’t it better to live a life full of surprises? Good surprises that is. Am I going through what they call the quarter-life crisis? But I’m no longer in my quarter-life, does it mean I’m going through a mid-life crisis? Am I that old?? Dafuq????

I tried. Really, I did try to think about how I see myself 5 years from now but all I can see is this:

Well who knows? Maybe that’s me in my own private island. :p

What about you? How do you see yourself 5 years from now? Do you have any plans for yourself? Please say no so that I won’t feel so bad.