I never had a clear sense of what I wanted to do for a career when I was a kid. I wanted to be an astronaut and a doctor and some other things, but none of those ideas inspired the kind of drive necessary to go after the profession in earnest. When I was getting ready for college, I sort of thought about what I’d like to major in, but I never took the next step in thinking through how that could translate into a job. 

I remember being asked what I wanted to BE when I grew up. I wonder if this is where the problem ultimately began. How can a child determine what or who they want to be? Tying “job” to identity from such a young age is part of why America is a country full of workaholics with terrible childcare and screwed up views of work/life balance. And we ask this question of kids basically as soon as they can talk. They say really cute things like “garbage man” or “singer” or “baseball player” or whatever because they already understand the game. When an adult asks “what do you want to be” they mean “what job do you want to have”. I never knew what job I wanted to have, so I’d say I wanted to be an astronaut despite my lack of interest in hard sciences and unwillingness to work very hard in math class. I now consider these character flaws, but what’s done is done. 

You might say, “ok Laura, but then you grew up, and that took some time, so one might assume you could’ve thought through what job you wanted as you continued to grow up”. Yes, Hypothetical Questioner, you’re right, but the initial question, the “what do you want to BE” line of thought, had rooted itself in my brain. When I pictured my future, I didn’t picture a job. I pictured a life, and I basically was the same person but older. Should I have taken it upon myself to think critically about a career? Absolutely. But I just thought it was going to work out the way it was supposed to according to a grand plan. That’s a big topic by itself that I’m not touching at the moment, but thankfully I was able to go from job to job and figure it out as I went. It involved lots of hard work and LOTS of questioning and self-doubt, and I still wish I had made a plan for myself, but I’m ok and happy with life.

So here I am, untangling my identity from my job, trying to be content with a job that draws a paycheck and allows me to do things I want to do. Implicit in that is I’m trying not to worry about what the job forces or allows me to BE. 

I am. 

Who I am hasn’t changed. I’m still the kid who didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up because she didn’t know why she had to be anything different than what she already was.