If You Can’t Find Your Purpose, You Might be a Multipotentialite
Living life by following curiosity, not by chasing labels
What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?
As children, grownups would ask us: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And kids would shout out: Nurse! Veterinarian! Mom! Firefighter!
My stomach would churn, and I would remain in the back—small, quiet, hidden. I had no idea what I wanted to be. The only label that seemed to fit me was the one that hurt the most: Outsider.
Or, perhaps, Professional Observer. Because I was that kid who modeled my behavior—how to stand, how to laugh, how to smile for the school pictures (teeth or no teeth?)—by watching others. I did it because I wanted to belong, to fit in, to find my place.
I was intensely self-conscious. I was curious about human nature as if I wasn’t human myself. This manifested in me watching adults with a combination of fascination and fear—how will I ever become one of those? And which one would I want to be? I studied my peers to the point that I got teased for staring. I sometimes forgot that if I could see others, they could see me, too. I just wanted to know their secret: how did they know who they were and where they wanted to go in life?
