Thursday, October 15, 2009

When I grow up.....

Do you remember when you were little and the things you dreamt of being when you grew up? It was and is very common to hear young children say "when I grow up I'm gonna be......". When did we stop believing that we could be whatever we wanted to be "when we grew up"?

Now the real question is.... are you saying... "whaddayamean stop believing?" Good for you!

When I was little I wanted to be a veterinarian. I loved animals. I still do. Then there came a time when I realized two things. There is a LOT of math involved in getting to be a veterinarian. Science too. No thanks. I also realized that being a veterinarian wasn't just taking care of animals and always making them better. Some animals don't get better. I never stopped believing a Vet was a very cool thing to be and my admiration for good veterinarians is huge, but I did stop wanting to be one. And that was ok. Letting go of that wasn't hard. I was still little. So many choices. I could be a ballerina.

Then comes High School and real life starts looming large. These are the careers I wanted to have:

Professional Model
Journalist
Writer
(those two are different things in my head.....what do you think?)
and I eventually wanted to be a wife and mom.

So High School ends and I decide I DO NOT want to continue with formal education. And since I am 18 and and can do whatever I want...thank you very much.... I work for a year, visit Europe for a month and then move to Sacramento with my best friend where she enrolls in Sac State and I "get a job". I work at the mall (retail is a thankless job), until I find a better job at a Mortgage firm. Thus begins my career as secretary, aide, assistant....call it what you will, to me it's second fiddle. I just have to say there is nothing worse for your dreams than being in a safe, decent paying job with medical benefits and weekends off. While my friends were going to school and studying, I was off at 5:30 everyday, my weekends were free and I had a regular paycheck. Woohoo!!! Fast forward 30+ years and guess what? I'm off at 5:30 everyday, I don't work weekends and I have a regular paycheck........... WOW! I've come a long way baby!!!!! Geez... a steady job with a regular paycheck at 18 and NO PLAN is almost as dangerous as sitting in the basement smoking pot everyday! And you know what???? Half the people that were going to college WERE smoking and they are still in successful careers now!

Stay in school.... Go back to school.... never stop learning ... don't settle.... don't get comfortable.... don't let the unknown be so foreign to you that it becomes a language you don't understand and are afraid to learn.

This is not what I was going to write but it's what came out. I still want to talk about "What I want to be when I grow up".... but it's late and I'm going to fall asleep.

...to be continued.


1 comment:

  1. Is it comfort and complacency that allows us to fall into the rut of just living. Or is it circumstances like marrying young and having kids?

    The important thing is to never ever give up on your dreams but plan how they can be achieved and work to that end. It is, after all, how we choose to live that defines us and our dreams and aspirations give us the momentum to live through the mundane

    The Knight wants you to remain valiant and purposeful

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