What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

It's a question that we are all familiar with and it's a lofty one at that. So why is it so often only asked of small children. I have a problem with how we approach this question. We ask children, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and we get responses like "a doctor", "a movie star", "a teacher", "a firefighter", "the president", "an astronaut", or "an athlete". Then we say to them, "good for you, you can be anything you want when you grow up! : )" Let's face it, I don't mean to be cynical or negative, but that's not entirely true. A lot of what goes in to what you do when you grow up is based on luck, connections, and sometimes raw talent or understanding for something. I'm not saying we should respond with "well, to be a doctor you have to go thew lots of very expensive schooling; everyone wants to be famous so there will be a lot of competition so start practicing and take care of your appearance because thats 90% of the job; teachers don't make any money; firefighters have to be in great shape so put down that burger and go run outside; start making a lot of rich friends and learning how to manipulate people if you want to be president and know that you have a better chance to be struck by lightning twice; the government shut down NASA so pick something else; and by the time you become old enough to be a professional athlete the odds that you'll either be completely burned out on it, have been injured, or simply are just not that good are very high." Maybe we can find some middle ground between those two answers. To not give children complete false hope, but not crush their dreams all together. We need to work on that.

But how we respond to the answers to the question is not really the problem I have with it. The problem I have is that there is never a follow up where the question is asked of you again at a time when it would actually matter. When you are a child, the only things you want to be are professions that you know of, that you admire, that are usually in movies or books. No child answers that question by saying they want to be a plumber, or accountant, or a manager of a restaurant. The question should be asked of people in high school and in college. I feel like I was not given a lot of guidance during those times. I felt like i had to just figure it out and since no one had ever asked me again, I assumed that I had grown up and that I should know by now. That isn't the case. Those are the times when you have the most information at your finger tips to really explore what you want to be when you grow up and you should. You should use that time to learn new things and talk to others about what is out there and find your place. I personally think our school system is very flawed in this area. In high school, most teachers and faculty just care about you passing. Very few are interested in helping to mold you in to the person you will become. When you get to college, its even worse, or at least this was my experience. You have an advisor but they are really only there to help you with what you should already know. They expect you to pick a major and stick with it. You are discouraged from taking classes outside of your major because that would be "a waste of time". More people than ever are going to college these days and so schools want you in, they want your money, and then they want you out. But if you are not allowed to explore other avenues how will you know you're really doing what you love, or what you're good at?

This is when you should be asked, many times, what do you want to be when you grow up? and there should be someone there to help. Parents, a mentor, a teacher, your advisor, a friend, anyone. I believe that we don't really talk enough to other about what we want to do because most of us don't know and we don't want to seem weak. So we pick something and go with it until you discover...is this really what I want to do? Is this where my interests and passion lies? Will I be happy doing this for the rest of my life? These are all questions I am asking myself now, which are really adding to my quarter-life crisis, that I should have been asking myself years ago.

I made a list recently with the title "What Do I Want To Do When I Grow Up" and this is exactly what I wrote:

1. UN Ambassator

2. Hummanitarian aid worker, maybe with a non-profit or UN

3. Secretary of State or State Department worker

4. Work with animals? I love animals...

5. CIA??

6.$$$$

7. Lots of travel and working abroad

8. Curator for a major museum

9. Photographer

10. Political or Personal PR and image consultant

11. Super Model...too late...

12. Teach english in France

Can you see now why I'm having this quarter-life crisis? I'm kind of all over the place with what I want to do and I believe that this is the case for many people my age. We have a vague direction that was given to us by our degree but beyond that, we may be directionless. There are always those other random things that have nothing to do with what we went to school for but are some of our main passions. Do we follow our dreams like we were told to do when we were young, or since we've already in a way picked something...are we stuck? It makes for a confusing time. I should have made this list while I was in high school but you don't think about it then. You think everything will just work out later, and I'm realizing too late that it doesn't.

So back to my original point, why are we so encouraged to follow our dreams and told we can do anything so early in life but then sort of abandoned later when we actually have to decide? Why are we expected to figure it all out on our own? For a long time people would jokingly ask me that question, but with the connotation that I was already grown up and that I should already know. But recently a friend of my fathers asked me that question while I was talking to him about my current job struggle and if he knew of any openings in government in Ausitn. I just sort of laughed it off not considering it to be a real question. I'm 22, I thought, I have a degree and I've started on this path...I cant just change it now. But he asked me again and this time adding, "Really, Ally...you're 22, you don't have it figured out yet and you shouldn't. You have a long way to go to be stuck going in this direction if its not what you want, so what do you want to be when you grow up?" And with that, I finally realized, I don't have it figured out, I'm not totally grown up, I do need to think about this question and stop floating down this path that I made for myself when I was 17 with out stopping to make sure I was going the right way. Maybe this isn't going to be the right path, maybe it is, but that's why I'm sitting here evaluating my life and figuring out the answer to that question.

So now, since it really helped me (well, I mean it did send me in to a state of crisis, self-doubt and evaluation and unemployment but I believe that all of this will help in the long run) I ask you, what do you want to be when you grow up?