# 50 (2013) Acquisition

What are your material aspirations? What are the things that you wanted to have gathered around you by certain milestone points in your life? Did you have any milestones in the first place or were you content to drift and just enjoy life.

Traditionally (and still for many) aspiration involves progressing up the ladder - owning a house, a car, finding a lifetime partner, having children and job security whilst hopefully squeezing in a few personal indulgences along the way.

But what if you don't want the traditional things? What if home ownership, marriage and children don't figure in your long term plan? What then is the focus of your overall aim. Where do you want to be? You might want a life of indulgence, but how are you going to fund it?

(source)

If you're planning to remain relatively single, income is going to feature pretty high on your list since you won't have the opportunities that joint incomes provide. On that basis and depending on your career plans (if you're planning to stay independent you need one right?) you may never have the option to own your own house or car. That may not be a problem for you. Being independent may also mean you can go where work is without having to uproot your nearest and dearest in your quest for careerdom.

I won't deny I tend to do everything in a roundabout way. I went to Uni late and whilst I had lucrative work for many years I am only now taking the early steps into what I would describe as the career I always wanted. But it's taking its time getting off the ground and I feel like I am cutting things a little fine. I have reached a frustrating point in my life where I am having to take two steps back in order to keep on the right track whilst trying my best not to lose sight of my original aim. Because as I very well know you can get very caught up in the heat of the moment and forget what it was you were supposed to be doing.

I am a rolling stone. I have always lived in other people's houses and am generally very happy not putting down roots anywhere for long. For the last 4 and a half years I have been in house shares and not had the option to acquire any significant personal possessions. And I am about to down size yet again in probably my most spectacular de-cluttering exercise to date. By the end of the month everything I own will fit into one very average sized double bedroom except for my car and 3 hens. Yes, the hens have been spared adoption.

A month ago I didn't even own any cutlery since it was unceremoniously snatched out from under me. I do have a limited but practical set of kitchen equipment. But that's pretty much it. And it seems very paltry considering the number of years I have been on this earth.

I am scared that my life is not going to amount to much if I don't get my aspirations on track. My goal since I was a child was to be 'somebody'. I've had to accept temporary defeat yet again just in order to remain in a static position and that doesn't seem very satisfactory at all.