I Love This Question

I Love This Question
By David Stoddard

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Now there is a question that brings back memories.

It’s probably one of the first “adult” questions we are ever asked. Granted, no one ever held us to our answer whatever it may have been. I think my first was something like “bayble braayit.”

Translation: Baseball player.

Later became cowboy, fireman, doctor, quarterback, ballerina, jockey, play-by-play announcer, and guy who sleeps til noon. Note: There’s not a good future in that last one.

Anyway, it’s a question that sets us in motion to think of the future a bit. It gives us a chance to form a plan. It lets us see what may be on our minds at that time. It gets drinks thrown on us at bars. Guys, rotten pick-up line.

But it is a question we should keep asking ourselves from time to time. Maybe not the exact question, more like: What do you want to be – in the future?

There are those who have their whole lives planned out. Some even have every hour of their lives scheduled in a Palm Pilot of sorts. They know what they want, they know how to get there. And even with such a detailed schedule, they still have time to iron their socks and fold underwear. Martha Stewart would be proud.

Most of us are not quite like that. We may have pictures of what we feel we’d like, but for fear of jinxing things, we don’t look at it for long.

There are also those who may have been in one area for so long, they don’t see themselves doing anything else no matter what the possibilities may be. Related to that are those having too many choices, so they just sit and let whatever happen.

Yeah! That’s pretty much me at times. I pretty much have seen myself as a generalist. Not necessarily because I could do a bit of everything, but because I couldn’t find that one area I did well.

It doesn’t just have to be about jobs. It can be about other parts of our lives. Perhaps we want to be a better parent or be more assertive or less angry.

Maybe we’d like to travel the world or be a photographer or even live in the country in a quiet wood house with a pool table in the living room and a den like Mr. Brady. The same question can cover those things as well.

The future is still going to be here. Just think, today is the future from our days past. We are definitely not the same people we used to be. How can we expect to be the same in the future?

I remember seeing the story about Sesame Street on Biography. It was interesting to see the characters and images from the early days of the show. So much about it has changed over the years while still having the same core, the same street, the same “mission.”
It’s different than it was, but it’s still Sesame Street.

Finally, there’s the other extreme. It’s when we feel there’s nothing left for us. When we feel so trapped in ourselves or our jobs or whatever. When we look around at people in positions we’d have liked to have been. We put them down not so much for because they did something, but perhaps because we didn’t.

If we have those moments when we think the world is against us or feel there is nothing out there, it may very well be because we are just unhappy with our past decisions. We didn’t get off our tails when we could or should have. Maybe we didn’t have the opportunity for one reason or another. If we’re frustrated or upset by our current situations, there must be something inside us which we “wish” we’d rather be doing.

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 (c) David Stoddard - All Rights Reserved

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