What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up
What do you want to be when you grow up? This question starts when we are toddlers. It seems like we are expected to know the answer by the time we hit middle school. Career aptitude tests, meetings with guidance counselors, four-year plans…they all hit us around the time we are 13 or 14. Can we really be expected to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives — at 14? What about 18? 40? We don’t have to know. And we are allowed to change our minds.
Kids are expected to lay out their four year plan for high school in 8th grade. The purpose of this is to have them ready for the course of study they want to pursue in college. What if they don’t want to go to college? By the time they get to college, they’re expected to know what they want to do. Why waste money taking classes that aren’t going to apply to your major? Imagine having to make a decision (other than education) at 18 that you’ll have to stick with for the next 50 years. Most people’s interest change as they grow, mature, move, meet new people. Unexpected events come into people’s lives that shift our trajectory: babies, marriages, divorces, deaths. Life is not a straight line from graduation to retirement. Its road has many branches, many paths that lead to the end. Life tangles, it twists, and sometimes the best stuff is off the beaten path.
Originally published at www.thefemmeoasis.com.

