I’m Still Figuring Out What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

When you’re a kid, adults love asking you what you want to be when you grow up.

The question makes sense when you’re seven.

Teacher.

Doctor.

Writer.

Veterinarian.

Astronaut.

Princess.

Nobody expects a detailed five-year plan.

Nobody asks the seven-year-old aspiring veterinarian whether she’s considered the benefits package.

You just pick something.

Then you grow up.

And at some point, apparently, you’re supposed to stop asking the question.

You’re supposed to have answered it.

Except I haven’t.

I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

Which would be considerably less concerning if I weren’t already grown.

I’ve had jobs.

I’ve learned things.

I’ve developed skills.

I’ve discovered things I’m good at and things I absolutely never want to do again.

And somehow I still haven’t arrived at the mythical point where I look around and think:

Yes. This is it. This is what I am going to do forever.

Maybe that point doesn’t exist.

I’m starting to suspect we’ve been sold a strange version of adulthood where choosing a career is treated like choosing a Hogwarts house.

You pick one.

That’s who you are now.

Please enjoy your matching scarf.

Except people change.

Lives change.

Priorities change.

Things that once seemed tolerable become exhausting.

Things that once felt impossible suddenly start looking interesting.

And sometimes you find yourself standing in the middle of a perfectly respectable life thinking:

I don’t know if I want this.

That’s a terrifying sentence.

Because knowing you don’t want something is not the same thing as knowing what you want instead.

I wish it were.

I wish dissatisfaction arrived carrying a folder labeled NEXT STEPS.

Instead it usually arrives at an inconvenient time, sits down beside you, and says:

“So…are we going to talk about this?”

Rude.

The truth is, I don’t know what comes next.

There are things I know.

I know I like creating.

I know I like writing.

I know I like turning ideas into actual things.

I know I can disappear into a project for hours when something catches hold of me.

I know there are parts of my current work that matter to me.

I also know there are parts that leave me wondering how long I can keep doing this.

Both things can be true.

Maybe that’s the part of career conversations we don’t talk about enough.

You don’t have to hate something for it to not be forever.

You don’t have to declare your entire life a mistake before you’re allowed to imagine something different.

And you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going before admitting you’d like to move.

So I’m asking the childhood question again.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

I don’t know.

Maybe a writer.

Maybe a creator.

Maybe something I haven’t found the name for yet.

Maybe several things.

Maybe the whole problem is thinking there has to be one answer.

For now, I’m paying attention.

To what exhausts me.

To what excites me.

To the things I keep returning to when nobody is telling me what I should be doing.

To the ideas that won’t leave me alone.

Maybe those things are breadcrumbs.

Maybe they’re just hobbies.

Maybe they’re both.

I don’t need to know yet.

Which might be the most grown-up answer I’ve ever given.

I’m still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

And apparently, growing up doesn’t disqualify me from asking.