What do you want to be when you grow up?

Published:

by

Is this still a valid question? When I was five, I wanted to be a banker. I had once been in a bank and the clerk pointed at this giant vault. He said that this was where they kept all the money in the world. So naturally when I grew up, I became a tech support agent in a non-profit organization.

But then, I wasn't done growing up. A few years later, I was a web developer. And then a couple of years went by and I became an entrepreneur in online real estate. A couple of years ago, I started working as an AI software engineer. Now I'm contemplating writing.

I thought it could be a generational thing. I asked my mother what she wanted to be when she was a child. She answered, "a doctor." Instead, she became a history professor, then turned into an import/export businesswoman. My father was academically an engineer, so he worked as a diplomat all his adult life.

I asked my 8 year old niece, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" She answered: "I want to be a YouTuber right now!"

No one keeps the job the set out to have in the beginning. You can't trust the words of your younger self to guide your future.

As a big kid, I have no idea what I want to be. But I'm hoping for an interesting future.