I Still Don’t Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up — and That’s Just Fine
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Failure, Growing Up, Personal Development, Advice, Life Lessons

I’d like to speak, however, to those of you who are 12, or 26, or 55, and don’t have that singular focus and have never found an adequate answer for that dreadful question: What do you want to be when you grow up? I despised that question at age five, couldn’t answer it at all at 15, left college despondent that I had a degree but no idea what to do with it, left the country, and returned as a grown person to find that question waiting for me, hands on hips, saying “Well? I’m still here. What are you going to do?” The most vexing part of having to cobble together a life without that clear sense of direction is that this nagging feeling is still there.

So, then, what does one do in such a situation? There is no clear answer. What is most important to recognize, however, is just this — there is no law or dictate about such matters, and that’s actually beneficial. To be sure, there are certain areas of life where absolutes are a must: don’t kill people; drinking spoiled milk is probably a bad idea; driving drunk is definitely a bad idea. Certainly there are things people must do, like eat and support themselves financially. Of course, the “musts” can consume everything else, so it’s not as if there is always a particularly deep well of time within which one can muse over aspirations.

Giving a Coke and a smile to the ambiguous nature of ambition and most of life is especially difficult for those who prefer clear answers. Acknowledging a lack of knowledge, however, is incredibly useful in coming to some semblance of an answer to whatever question is on the docket of life. It is a stubbornly human — and particularly male — trait to hide ignorance. After all, not knowing is embarrassing, and embarrassment possesses an underrated power over our ability to make clear decisions. Saying “I don’t know, teach me” is particularly difficult if one seeks clarity in wisdom — but it has to happen because the alternative — ignorance and deceit — is toxic to progress in life.

A disturbing amount of the wisdom I use everyday comes from my childhood cartoons. In Animaniacs, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot make the point far more succinctly than I ever could:

It’s a great big universe

And we’re all really puny

We’re just tiny little specks

About the size of Mickey Rooney.

It’s big and black and inky

And we are small and dinky

It’s a big universe and we’re not.

Leave it to a long-defunct cartoon (though not in my heart) to offer a sense of proper perspective. In the broader sense, we are all Mickey Rooney, earnestly smiling and buttressing ourselves against the demonic seeds of chaos sewn by doubt. It is a worthy metaphor to carry forward, even as I shudder to consider my 6'3” frame compressed into such a compact existence. Who knows? I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but perhaps it is for the best.

—

The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.

—

About David Perez

David Perez lives in New York and wears a belt that reads ‘FOR SALE’ in LED lights at all times. You can talk to him about anything on Twitter @ContrarioMan.