As I age every year I am finding more and more that my thoughts turn to the future and how exactly that future will play out for me.

At the moment I have been obsessively contemplating how I can save up for a down payment on a house. I check mortgage calculators, current prices of homes in areas that I'm interested in, and I even went so far as to create an excel spreadsheet that shows me how much I can afford to spend on a mortgage depending on my income. All these efforts seem small as I still don't know how to make the most of my savings. How to make my savings work for me?

What is particularly annoying to me is the lack of sources to tell you how to save the money. There is always the traditional savings account of course and investing as well. However, I want to know should I just keep my entire savings in a regular savings account, a CD? Should I split some of the dollars in traditional savings and invest others. I have no idea and according to Google the Internet does not either.

For now I have stuck with my current method of saving a specific amount each month - having it automatically deducted from my paycheck. In the future I have decided the best approach is to take any incremental earnings I may receive - through a raise or otherwise - and simply send it to my savings. This limits my ability to buy the Marc Jacobs bag I've been coveting or taking that fabulous vacation to Belize I've been thinking of, but hopefully it will get me to the dream of owning my own home faster and with less debt.

I am spending more time on things i don't care about and can't seem to find 5 minutes to work on what I love, even given the opportunity.

I feel like I"m wasting the opportunities I have by being in a job that I care less and less about each day. But the fear, my ultimate fear, is that no job will work for me. That no matter what I do, inevitably, 3 months will go by and I will be over it.

I'm freaking out, freaking out because I'm turning 26 in about a month. Turning 25 was pretty bad and I thought I would do better this time around but it seems to be worse. I think its because every year I get older, I feel like I let in the possibility that my dreams won't become a reality.

When I was in college everything seemed so possible, a great career that was challenging and fun at the same time. But now that seems unattainable, for me at least.

I don't think I've ever had a greater moment of satisfaction then the day I got my college acceptance to UCLA. It felt that everything worked, everything I had worked for in my life had been worth it. And when the big envelope came from Berkeley, I was overwhelmed. I didn't even let myself dream that it would be a possibility, yet here it was, the big envelopes.

What is it like to lie to yourself, trick yourself into believing the life you created for yourself is the life you wanted.

How different is it from simply lying to others. When you lie to others and know the truth does that make a difference then when you life to yourself and believe it. When your whole life is a fictitious set of emotions and memories.

What must it have been like for him, age 5, the weight of his family on his shoulders. What it must have been like to be engulfed by celebrity for the majority of your life. What must it have been like to have no childhood and to spend your adult life trying to capture it again.

You can't go back again, you can't recapture what you've lost, but you can live in memory through your music.

The life of a Financial Analyst - who never thought she would be one


I never knew what I was really going to do, perhaps it is because what I truly dreamed of was never an acceptable carrer path, writer. It is only now that I realize I could have chosen to become a journalist, perhaps majoring in Political Science or even going to Law School. However, I don't regret my past choices.