WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE?
by Eric Munter
This must be one of the most commonly asked questions a child faces as they grow up. At first, grandma, grandpa, relatives and friends will gush over the baby of a parent and eventually ask, “So, what do you want little Oswald or little Mildred to be?” I guess technically, the first question these people should be asking the parents is, “Why in the world did you name your child Oswald or Mildred?” (No offense to those of you who named or plan to name your child as such – but I beg that you please reconsider).
Later on in the child’s life when they can speak and are in school, they will field this question themselves. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Ozzie? Miley, have you considered what you will do in the future?” (Oswald and Mildred have of course grown up to despise their names as I predicted, and they demand to be called by their self-enforced nicknames).
Ozzie and Miley know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. Oswald wants to and becomes a lawyer (but sadly this will cost him his “Ozzie” nickname, and he will henceforth be known as Oswald Reagan Kensington IV because it sounds more “lawyery”). Miley wants to and becomes an actress (and changes her name for a third time to stage name Macy Furlap because her birth-name is already registered with the S.G.A. – the Screen Actor’s Guild).
Oswald and Mildred are lucky. They have known what they’ve wanted to be their entire lives. When growing up, I was asked the same question they were asked hundreds of times. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered this question hundreds of times and probably gave dozens of different answers over the years.
“I want to be a writer.”
“I want to be a teacher.”
“I want to be an actor.”
“I want to be a priest.” (Fortunately, this ambition passed – no offense to those in the priesthood.)
“I want to play in the NHL.”
“I want to be an architect.”
I’m now twenty-nine years old and if you were to ask me what I want to be – I honestly don’t know what I’d tell you. I have dozens of different things that I am extremely interested in pursuing, and have been lucky to pursue several of them to various degrees. But to only pick one? I get antsy and want to try something new after doing the same thing for a period of time. Is this just a lack of focus, or is it simply I haven’t found the one thing in life I love to do and want to do until the day I die – the thing to which I can finally answer the question, “What do you want to be?”
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