What if?

I was on this great stretch of blogging (one per week, which is all I’m capable of at the moment) for a few weeks, and then it paused. Not for any real reason except that things are uneventful. It’s not even that big a deal because, to be honest, no one is reading this. That’s not a dig at me or you (if you happen to be reading this), but it’s simply because my marketing efforts are nonexistent.

At some point, I may be screaming from the mountaintops, “Read my blog, blog, blog (once I have a lot of great content, or a little bit of good content, or just some average content, I think there will be an echo), but not today. Instead, I’m going to share something that I wrote in college (a few years ago, not 30+ years ago). I wrote this because I’ve never known what I want to do with my life. I fell into accounting, and that was a safe choice, so I didn’t stray from it. I probably should have because it’s not really what I want to do. Disclaimer: If you work with me and you’re reading this (I know, it’s highly unlikely), it’s not you, it’s me (although I don’t like that phrase, I mean it because my coworkers are pretty amazing).

Anyway, introducing something I wrote a million years ago.

What if?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I was often asked this question when I was five, and I was in full-blown make-believe with my collection of toy cars and dolls. Then out of nowhere, I was brought back to Earth with: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I slowly took my eyes off the magical world that I was creating, looked up with pinched lips and wide eyes to see a grown-up towering over me. We locked eyes as they awaited my reply. I responded with the first thing that came to mind, and they laughed. Why wouldn’t they?

Even at the age of five, I knew that “I want to be beautiful with a large pink horn and purple wings” was an unacceptable answer.

This charade continued through middle school when I was an adventurous fourteen-year-old who still struggled to answer the question. As a teen, my response was much more deliberate: “I’ve always dreamt of being an astronaut and walking on the moon.” Then suddenly, fourteen-year-old me became five again. This seemingly innocent question brought a flurry of anxiety into my otherwise carefree life. My worries were only prolonged by the fact that many of my peers had their career goals set. They wanted to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to grow up, but if I had to, I just wanted to be a person. Specifically, I wanted to be a fun person. A kind person. A curious person. The same person I was then, just older.

When it became clear that being a person or an astronaut were still comical, I started playing the game. I forced myself to jump in and find excitement in that one thing. I tried every avenue, walked every road, and then I got lost because I wasn’t that person with one true passion. I found joy in so many things, and this truth made my career goals puzzling. How do you follow one road when it could lead to a dead-end? How do you focus on one thing when you feel like an artist one minute and a scientist the next?

How do you choose one path when it may not be the one you’re good at? And when I say good, I mean great! I needed to be great, or I dropped it like a pebble in the ocean, and it was never found again. Because in my adolescent eyes, being great at something far outweighed my joy of anything. Sometimes, I wonder what if someone tried to convince me that I could do something simply because I loved it, not because I was great at it or less than great at it.

Sometimes, I wonder what if my array of interests were welcomed with excitement rather than uncertainty. Sometimes, I wonder what if I was invited to the guidance office to talk about my life at that moment, not my life in four years. And sometimes, I wonder what if, instead of making me feel like I wasn’t prepared to be an adult because my lifelong ambition was to be a unicorn, I was encouraged to be me and just keep dreaming.