I remember being in kindergarten and two kids coming into my classroom and taking a survey. The one question they asked every student was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Every kid in the class had an answer. Some said doctors, teachers, astronauts, actors, the list goes on and on. Now, I am stuck here asking myself what I want to do with my life, basically every day.
I am 100% guilty of letting my newest obsessions cause me to want to pick a career choice. I watched Grey's Anatomy and wanted to become a brain surgeon better than Dr. Shepard himself. I watched Criminal Minds and Dexter which made me think I was destined to solve murders. I watched amazing transformations on YouTube and thought I needed to be the next great special fx make-up artist. I read Harry Potter, and I'm guessing you know where I'm going to go with this. It made me want to write a book better than J.K Rowling did.
Eventually, the time came when I had to try to have a practical idea of what I wanted to do. That time came and passed. If that kindergarten survey were to happen within the last six years I would have gave a definite answer. (Nothing close to my answer in kindergarten.) To keep my answer short, I'd say I wanted to be the real life version of Doctor Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds. For the last six years I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to be.
Time has passed and a full school year of studying for criminal justice classes has also passed. It's just about everyday that I get asked what I want to be and everyday it feels like I give a different answer. Most of the time I like to keep the answer short, so I say something along the lines of "I'm not sure, yet." I have many different ideas bouncing around in my head but nothing that seems to be calling for me.
I don't know what I want to be when I grow up (and depending on who you might ask, I'm grown up) and that is perfectly ok. I'll continue to sit over and brainstorm some of the coolest jobs like I'm back in kindergarten. I might even have ask the little kids in the neighborhood what they want to be so I can get some new ideas.