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What do you want to be when you grow up? Still Confused?

You should be. After all, the confusion has been building from the time you picked up your first plastic mixing bowl or fire truck. Chef or dancer? Firefighter, circus clown or police officer? Gendered even before you start? And then, the question every child is asked by some smarmy adult, a question that roils our subconscious for the next 40-50 years – " So, little lady/man, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

Next stop – high school. This time your interrogator is your parents, peers and your high school guidance councilor: " Sooooooo, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Defined by the limits of the high school curriculum, great marks or the lack thereof, possibly assisted by a short form personality of aptitude test, influenced by parents, peers, the herd and the media, you begin your adult educational/work experience odyssey – destination often still hazy.

So you get your B.A. or BSC or other letters in the educational alphabet soup. Then comes real test, the big leagues – preparing for the GMAT, the LSAT, MCAT, DAT, NCLEX-RN, PCAT, GRE, OAT, the doormat. Spending a summer with Mr. Kaplan studying the strategies you need to ace for what were initially called "aptitude" tests but in the face of evidence that there may not be a correlation between performance and the tests, are now termed "assessments". You’re still not sure what you want to do, but at least you have a direction, or at the very least, a decent score.

If you ever had any idea of what your dream was, it now firmly lost in the veils of time. You might not even remember how to dream your dreams or what makes your heart thump. Or you dismiss it as kid stuff. Perhaps, you’re Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. You’ve reached the fork in the road, you’ve asked for advice and the scarecrow is pointing you in opposite directions. You’re totally confused. But feeling snug in your ruby slippers you soldier on. More education/training. Then 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 or 10 years later, you’re let loose on the public.

You’re committed. You hold your degree/license/resume in sweaty palms. You’ve chosen your path. No turning back now.

Poised on the bottom rung, the realization that you may have taken the wrong turn at the fork in the road now strikes you. But you look up, grit your teeth and start climbing.

As it’s natural and encouraged to continue looking up, not down and rarely sideways, the journey continues until you can’t climb anymore. Or maybe this ladder was the right ladder at 20. Or 30. But maybe by 40, it’s getting stale. Or perhaps at some stage in the race to the top, you pause to take a breath, reflect, perhaps weep a little. But the opportunity to choose seems as stale as yesterday’s coffee and donuts. You have a partner, a child or two, and your spending is off the charts – for the house, the cars, the orthodontics, the tutors, sports equipment and college.

So here’s a radical idea. How about asking at any point in the journey: Not what, do I want to be when I grow up, but who do I want to be when I grow up?

And at the risk of sounding owlish: Who do you really want to be in the now or tomorrow or the next day? Who is your Everybody? Who gets you and gets your need to change and will support your growth as a person? And, what the heck is stopping you?

08.11.2007

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