“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s a question we’re asked before we know how taxes work, before we’ve paid a bill, before we’ve lived enough life to know what matters to us.
At five years old, the question is harmless. The answers are ambitious: astronaut, veterinarian, movie star. At sixteen, however, the question begins to feel different. It becomes less of a curiosity and more of a deadline.
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, having a dream stops feeling exciting and starts feeling like a requirement.
Young people are expected to choose a future while still discovering themselves. We are told to make plans, set goals, choose courses, and map out careers. Yet many of us are still figuring out what we enjoy, what we value, and who we want to become.
Social media doesn’t help. Every day, we scroll past success stories. Eighteen-year-olds launching businesses. Nineteen-year-olds traveling the world. Twenty-year-olds graduating from university. It creates the illusion that everyone else has a clear direction while we’re standing still.
But perhaps that’s because nobody posts the uncertainty.
Nobody posts the changed degrees, the abandoned dreams, the applications that were rejected, or the moments spent wondering whether they’re on the right path.
The truth is that most lives are not straight lines. They twist. They restart. They surprise us.
A dream isn’t a contract signed at seventeen. It isn’t a promise that must be kept forever.
Maybe growing up isn’t about finding one dream and following it until the end.
Maybe it’s about allowing yourself to outgrow old dreams, discover new ones, and accept that the future is not something you choose once.
It’s something you keep choosing.
And perhaps the people who seem to have everything figured out are still asking the same question as the rest of us.
“What do I want to be next?”
This was written by our contributing writer, Alisha Blanch.
Image Source: Unsplash, Adrian Swancar
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