It’s taken me 24 years, but I’ve finally decided what I want to be when I grow up…
I want to be happy.
I always struggled growing up knowing what to be. Which was a frustrating experience as the question of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” seemed to be a regular question at family get-togethers along with other talking points such as “Look how tall you’ve grown”, “How’s school?” and “Eat up! You’re a growing boy!”
But it didn’t matter how many times I was asked the question… I always struggled for an answer.
I think part of the problem is we’re conditioned to believe that what we do is the important factor. We get swept up in well meant career advice based on report cards and test results, rankings and scores, that we forget what it is we actually want to be deep down inside… happy.
The problem is we have other people’s ideas of what success looks like pressed upon us. We’re pushed to be better than the person standing next us, that the aim of the game is to strive for wealth and power. What people think about our careers becomes more important for us than our own desires.
But it doesn’t need to be this way.
Instead we should teach our youth to explore and discover what it is that makes them happy. Help them to learn something that they love to do. Something they’ll be happy doing day after day after day. Ultimately, that’s going to be more important than long division.
In summary, it’s not the physical appearance of the future, but the emotional appearance that should matter most. The way we feel about what we’re doing should be the driving force of work. We have the freedom to choose what we do with our life. We should do what we enjoy, enjoy what we do, and strive for personal happiness and success according to our own definition and not that of others.
What makes you happy? Share with me what you want to do more of when you grow up.