I enjoyed Lloyd Davis’s post Stick your five-year plan, in which he argues the futility of long-term planning when it comes to one’s own life. I think in some respects he’s absolutely right. While it’s useful to have some structure, some framework to life, anything beyond a couple of years is likely to be wildly inaccurate. Even in my relatively short life so far I’ve changed my tack quite dramatically. Taking a few five-year leaps backwards:

1993: Aged 14. Shrewsbury, puberty, spots, awkwardness. The usual. Also choosing my GCSEs. At my school there was a heavy sense of trajectory to this – GCSEs were chosen very much with A-Levels in mind, which in turn were chosen to optimise Oxbridge entrance. Therefore I was already on a science path, that being where my teenage tendencies lay.

1998: Aged 19. Nottingham – got into Oxford, but missed the grades. About to start second year of Physics degree after a pretty dismal first year. I’d already lost almost all interest in the subject, and spent a lot of time lingering on the web and publishing my first public website. Frames, tables and all.

2003: Aged 24. Nottingham still, but recently graduated from an IT MSc I’d entered with expectations of being a programmer. However, I became absorbed by HCI modules along the route, and therefore was trying to convince the a government agency I worked for that they needed me to become a full-time Information Architect. Permanently skint, single after four years, still never been on a plane, and feeling abject pity towards uni mates now living in London.

2008: Aged 29. Brighton, after a year in London. Still single, less hair, less skint. I’m living on my own, working for a web agency, doing some pretty cutting edge stuff and beginning to make a name for myself. Travelling regularly, wearing glasses, developing quite a taste for expensive gin.

The way I’ve made this transformation from left-brained science kid to this apparently quite creative and visually-focused adult is puzzling and, from my present viewpoint, quite wonderful. There’s a whole blog post in how that happened, and whether my science background has helped or hindered me as a designer. Once dConstruct is done I’ll write it.

I’m also a lot happier now I’ve relaxed my attitude towards my destiny. There comes a point at which too much self-drive causes you to miss the serendipitous little currents that come when you go with the flow.

As for the next five years? 2013: Aged 34. No idea. Hopefully Brighton. Hopefully not single. Probably not a father. Hopefully still working in user experience. But given the U-turns I’ve made so far I’m not going to rule anything out.