An Inquiry on Decisions

‘What do you want to be when you are older?’

I find it funny when someone asks me what I want be when I’m older.
Because it was the same question asked when I was 8, and it is the same question I was asked by a friend, and it was the same question asked by my 7th grade Math teacher.

I find it funny because all those times I’ve been asked, I have answered differently. When I was 8, I was endlessly captivated by the professionalism of a doctor. The way they entered a room with their white lab robes, saving people’s lives through the use of immense scientific intellect. The want to gain such intellect charged through my little 8 year old self; so at 8 I wanted to be a Doctor. And my parents, they were more than fine with that idea.
In 7th grade when I was asked again I answered “an engineer in the Navy”. That answer can be derived from both a biased past and engaging present. My dad was in the military, and I being a “navy brat”, at the time lived in Japan inside a military base 45 minutes away from Tokyo. So my normal day-to-day routine consisted of a military view of life. I fell in love with the way the military worked. Honoring America, fighting for a right, dealing in situations for the greater good. I wanted to be an engineer strictly because I was, at the time, really good at math and came to the conclusion that just maybe I can do that for a living. And so at 13, I wanted to go into the Navy and specialize in engineering. Returning to the states, after a good 3 years inside a military base, I was confused, to say the least. After a year of unstable living environments, we settled down in Jacksonville and I was immediately interested in Stanton. Stanton changed me completely. Before Stanton, I was always exclusively interested in the sciences and especially in math. This was mainly true because I was horrible at reading, I never could be engaged in a story so much that I would be convinced that reading is my “hobby” or my “thing”. Starting off at new schools was never really my strong suit, and it impacted me the most moving to Florida because I spent a large amount of time missing my life in Japan. So, during my time alone I was left to delve into the company of books and literature. And slowly I fell in love with it. With help from Stanton, my whole idea of reading and writing changed. I started to become less ignorant towards this platform of knowledge.
So when my friends asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, I honestly had no answer. And as a result, up to this day I still honestly have no answer. I don’t have an answer because:

I don’t want to be just one thing.I want to know that I can be lots of things. I am not just interested in more than one thing, I am passionate about more than one thing. How can one possibly decide what they want to be for the rest of their lives? I don’t understand why I have a limitation to what I want to be. What I mean by ‘limitation(s)’ is, obstacles in the most modern context of the word in relation to “freedoms”. Why can’t I be both a Doctor and a Lawyer? I am free to be both, but I can’t be both because I don’t have enough money to pay for a Doctorate in both cases. Why can’t Billy do what he loves — to travel the world and help people — He is free to what he pleases, but because he has responsibilities, that freedom is limited, and would therefore accommodate to the circumstance in which he is in. Adults may say, “Billy needs to grow up and accept the way life works.” Teenagers might say , “Billy should do what he loves and keep with that.” Adults, unlike teenagers, seem to have lost any hope in pursuing any of their “passions” because they were always limited. This limit therefore identifies the “reality” to any passion. The real question now is,
Should it be me who decides the reality to my passion(s), or the ‘limitation’?
Ideally, I would like to decide; however, as easy as the question might sound, the answers are debatable.

I don’t have an answer because I don’t want to make my decision based on “How much I will make”. I know that financial circumstance matters. I have had hours of lectures explaining how I should decide on a career that can get me money. But if that means doing something I absolutely have no faint interest in then I won’t do it. I have passions, I have hobbies, I have interests, and I am certain about one thing; I do not want to waste my life doing something I hate to make money.
Realists would say , “ Deal with it, it’s life.” Idealists would say, “ Go for it, it is your life.” Most people would disagree with me, and I don’t mind. I have met people who know how to work around this systematic hierarchy of labor. People who find a way to do what they love and sustain themselves financially. But for the majority of the working class, the sad truth is that happiness is only obtained if you convince yourself enough that you have achieved happiness. And I don’t think anyone should need convincing.
I am not saying this because I want to change something, I know that this is how “responsibility” works. But I believe it’s also my responsibility to allow myself the simple pleasures of life, and I can’t help but think that at some point people neglect that, and later on regret it.

In the end, I am not sure why I wrote this. Maybe I wrote this in the hopes that it will solve some question I have about my future. Maybe I wrote this because to some extent I know that at some point I will become neglectful, and to compensate for my neglect I will look back at the memory of once thinking like I am thinking now. I’m not sure.
But for right now, all I want to know is that everyone is doing what they love. I want to know that we all respect what we ‘want’ just as equally as what we ‘need’. And I want to know that everyone understands the relationship between the two.

And as confusing as the road may be to figure out a way to construct your future, I believe that as long as you keep with what you love, you will never have to worry about a thing.

“ What do you want to be when you are older?”

My response, for now, would be, “I want to be the person that doesn’t regret anything”