What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Embracing the feedback life offers on your journey.

We contemplate this question actively, passively, and regularly — at least I do. I’d like to tell you I’ve reached some highly elevated state of being where I rise above temptation — resist the seemingly greener grass on the other side of a romantic prospect, career path, educational goal, side hustle, or whatever else there is to be dissatisfied with at any given point in time.

I’d like to say I’m perfectly content with where I am and where I’m going, but I can’t do that. I’m not. I’m figuring this whole thing out just like everyone else.

I remember when I was a teenager, I planned to become a physician. First, a psychiatrist, then I decided people didn’t take psychiatrists seriously and they don’t make enough money.

So I said I’ll become a pediatric neurosurgeon. Eventually, I talked myself out of that profession altogether when I learned that air traffic controllers made great money, didn’t have to go to medical school or complete a residency, and effectively, play god with $300 million machines.

It also bears mentioning that I saw the movie Pushing Tin, and for whatever reason, my adolescent mind told me it was a good idea before I knew anything else about the job.

So without boring you with the rest of my career vacillations, I went to school for music. I was smart, and I did well in school, but it turns out I was also talented. Even talented enough to get a full-ride, an advanced degree, and have a pretty successful career as a performer and teacher.

I had zero desire to be a singer. None. I’m just good on stage and I sing well, so that’s what I was told I should do.

Retrospectively, making the realization that I didn’t choose music was a huge “mind-blown” moment: I didn’t choose the career I was fortunate enough to have. It chose me. Some would say that’s a calling. Others would call it God, serendipity, or something along those lines. Everyone has an opinion about how and why things happen, but there was a lot of growing up during the intervening years.

In any event, I’m sure just about everyone reading this has or had a professional title they either didn’t know existed or never saw themself holding.

2nd Grade Teacher: Timmy, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Timmy: I want to be the senior vice president of sales and marketing for a Fortune 100 company!

That conversation has never happened. Ever. Timmy wants to be a firefighter. Timmy wants to be a doctor, lawyer, policeman, or teacher. Timmy doesn’t want to be a professor of forensic epidemiology, at least not yet.

Timmy keeps it simple, but Timmy is still exploring, learning, and growing. He takes his experiences, adds them together, and develops interests. He turns those interests into competencies and proficiencies.

Sometimes Timmy’s exploration leads him to discover something new, exciting and different, and he goes for it. Other times Timmy gets frustrated or disillusioned and goes back to an old love.

The point is we never truly “grow up” in the sense that we have all the answers about the world or ourselves. There’s always some latent or unearthed desire we’ve never explored and may finally get the opportunity to pursue. At the same time, we have the sum of our experiences and interests to urge us in directions we may not have previously considered.

One of the most fallacious perceptions of personal and professional development is its linearity. We don’t live in a world where a single defined path is the only route to purpose or fulfillment. Sometimes there’s no metric on progress in that regard, and that’s okay.

The term “grow up” has a certain finality to it. It’s almost as though we’re taught that growing up stops when you reach a certain age, level of success, marital status, or net worth. The reality is it never stops. We are constantly growing, developing, exploring, and connecting.

What growing up means to you can only be determined by you. My hope is I never stop growing up.

I hope I can continue to live in the space between my successes and my failures at the intersection of my interests and my potential.

The world is always changing, so even stagnation eventually equals regression, which is why I challenge anyone who cares to listen to strive for progress, not perfection.