Are you living your childhood dreams? Am I?

With Steve Jobs dying the other day it was interesting (unnerving?) to witness such an outpouring of public grief over someone who was, essentially, just a very successful businessman - but then I'm not an Apple fan-boy and so maybe I just don't understand? What did make an impression on me though was his commencement address at Stanford University where he talks about following your gut and doing the things in life that you love. Is it that simple? I don't know. Obviously with Steve Jobs we have a very biased sample of one, and perhaps for most people following your gut just leads to a bigger gut, but I get what he's driving at - especially the point about how we only get a limited amount of life and it shouldn't be wasted following someone else's dream.

As is often the case with the internet I then got side-tracked and wound up at a site called The Last Lecture. Now many professors give a final lecture (technically all must if we're being pedantic) but it seems that Randy Pausch's was something special and having watched all 75 minutes of it I would tend to agree. His basic thesis is that we should take our childhood dreams and strive to meet them (in one way or another) since they are the truest mark of who we are. It's a convincing argument made more effective by the fact that Randy really did live out his dreams (or the ones that he's told us about anyway) and he seems pretty chipper for a man with less than a year to live. Judge for yourself:

The obvious question then is what childhood dreams did I have and have I lived them out? That's a tough one. I'm not sure that I really pondered all that deeply as a child and rarely wanted to be 'something' like a football player or an astronaut; I was happy (or unhappy) enough being myself without wanting to be someone else. However I did have real, consuming interests and those were pretty close to being dreams I think; stuff like this:

• Ride my bike and win the Tour de France
• Study the stars and love astronomy
• Learn everything and become a Doctor

So how did it work out? Well I did ride my bike a lot, even across America and Europe, but I was never going to be a professional I think. Even so I've done a lot as an amateur athlete; running marathons, completing an Ironman and even competing in the 70.3 World Championships. Not so bad. Also I did get to study the universe and it was great; I loved doing my first degree and while it might not have had great career potential it was exactly what I wanted to do at the time. In fact I even carried it onto my second degree and while the scales did fall from my eyes a bit I stuck with the program and became the PhD graduate that I'd always wanted to be.

A pretty solid record then but I can't help wondering what childhood dreams I've forgotten. What did I want to do, apart from own Computer Battleships, that defines me and yet has long since faded from memory (or been overwhelmed by the present anyway)? Answers on a postcard please. Also, coming back to Steve Jobs, am I following my heart and doing what I love? In short the answer is no. Don't get me wrong; I'm very happy with my life and how it's panning out but there remains that niggle at the back of my mind. Once upon a time I loved to do astrophysics, and that's what I did, but then I fell out of love with research (although not the subject) - my problem is that I haven't fallen in love with another subject/job/career/destiny since then and I kind of miss the certainty.

Maybe I'll just buy the book and take it from there? Wish me luck!