Lately, everyone around me has been asking me one question; “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My friends, family and teachers have asked this question for as long as I can remember. My answer has changed at least a dozen times and I still have a short list of career’s floating around in my mind about what I want to do once I graduate.
My biggest fear is that after I graduate, I’ll end up in a career that’s not suited to me, and I’ll be stuck in that profession until I retire. I know it’s a pretty dramatic thought to have, and in reality I can change careers in the future if I really want to, but that’s the ideology that everyone seems to have – what you choose you’re stuck with. There are so many different options it’s hard to make a decision.
Do I want a “real” job? I feel like this is the one question everyone asks themselves. There’s a post on passion vs. pay here. I’m huge on arts; I love to act, read, sing, and play in band. They are ways for me to express myself, relieve stress, and they are things I love to do. I’d love to make a career out of music or acting, but it’s a difficult thing to do. There is no guaranteed success or career in pursuing either, choosing to pursue either option would be a risk. The easier route to take would be to choose a profession that guarantees me a stable future.
Almost everyone around me is obsessed with their future (I have Maclean’s University guidebooks from the past three years, and have memorized acceptance averages for my top schools), but for good reason. Graduating and choosing a career is a huge part of any individuals life, but you don’t have to have it all figured out right now. Take the time to learn as much about yourself as you can. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, passions, and how you work best will help you find out what’s right for you. It’s not necessarily about how much you’ll be paid or how impressed people may be when they find out what your job is. I think it’s about finding something you like to do, and being able to do it for as long as you want to (as a career of not).
Personally, I still don’t know what I want with my life, and that’s okay. I think we’re all just trying to figure out where we fit in the world, and I don’t think we’ll find it thinking about it, we’ll find it by letting it (whatever “it” is) find us.