You Can(not) Be Anything You Want When You Grow Up

"What do you want to be when you grow up? You know, you can be anything you want to. An astronaut, the Prime Minister...anything. If you work hard, you can make your dreams come true."

What if you don't know what your dreams are?

What if you don't value yourself enough to truly believe that your dreams are attainable, if you have any at all?

The truth is, even if you know what you want, even if you dream, you might not achieve it no matter how hard you work... and you might not work at all. There are so many things people don't tell you. There are so many things no one would even think to tell you that matter when you're having to adult. Sometimes, you cannot be anything you want when you grow up.

When you're 15 you think you're totally an adult. What's the big deal, right? YOU ARE SO MATURE. Like, the most mature 15 year old ever. You have older friends. Older guys like you. People are constantly telling you how mature you are, how they can't believe you're only 15, 16, 17, 18. And neither can you.

But you are. You are every 18 year old ever. The same but different.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you mean you don't know?

Oh, you already know, aren't you too young?

That's a hard job, you know.

You won't make enough money to support yourself.

That's a lot of schooling, aren't you going to take time off?

You aren't taking time off are you? You have a lot of school ahead of you.

You want to go to university? Did you do well enough to go there? Can you afford it? How will you pay for it?

DO YOU HAVE THE PREREQUISITES?

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How little you know.

Make a decision. Or don't.

Make one decision and never make another again. Life will make your decisions for you. Or make only easy ones, and still, life will make the hard decisions for you. They won't always be the best choices but in not making a choice, you're making a choice.

Now you're 28 and you've only made a few real decisions and the last 15 years kind of spilled out like ink from an overturned jar onto the unrolling scroll that is your life, so swiftly and simultaneously tediously, creating inkblots that you try to make sense of.

Is it a tree or a crab? A demon or two elephants kissing? A face, two faeries or something else? What is it? What am I doing? WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING? It feels like everything...and nothing.

Do you have the prerequisites?