The “When I Grow Up” Question

April 27th 2018

Growing old doesn’t mean you have to grow up~

Throughout life, I had a lot of things I wanted to be when I was a grown up. I wanted to be a vet, a lawyer, a detective, an author, a singer, a zookeeper, an actress, a scientist and at one point that I don’t remember, I even wrote that I wanted to be a firefighter. However, I never really wanted to be a social media marketer until college rolled around and I chose practicality over passion when picking a major. This isn’t to say I hate marketing or regret my decision, but I definitely wish I had more time to experiment with the “what could have beens” in my life.

I find inspiration in wildife rehabilitators and warriors like Bindi Irwin, whose father inspired me to want to move to Australia and rescue crocodiles when I was just a child, and part of me realizes that child in me never died. I read Nancy Drew books and play Nancy Drew computer games and yearn for that kind of adventure in my life, even now. I still have dreams of waking up to a new adventure every day and I think that is something I am really missing from my current career.

I love what I do and find social media marketing fun but I know I could be doing so much more and the feeling in my gut says that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up yet. I know I want writing and yoga to remain a huge part of my life but something in me is still looking for more. This leads me to ask the question, “do we ever really grow up?” What is the cutoff for the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” To be honest, I haven’t found an answer for either of those questions yet.

I think this year is really the year where I buckle down and work hard to allow myself to play around with the things I have been wondering about. Perhaps I will take online classes or travel somewhere new or talk to people doing what I would love to see myself do. Maybe I will play around with the idea of volunteer work or dabbling in a new hobby. All I know is that there is something out there for me and I need to try my best to find it.

Here are just a few ideas I have for things I want to try out this year:

-Progressively start the framework for writing my first book

-Release at least one cover on the internet

-Volunteer, even just for a day, at an animal shelter

-Take more time to research and take free online classes

-Try out a new hobby (who knows what that could lead to!)

So, tell me this, what do YOU want to be when you grow up? And if you’re already doing what you want to do, how did you find it?

Jess~