I Still Don’t Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

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I think I’m an adult.

The date on my license says I am. It says I am old enough to vote (I do!), I am old enough to rent a car, and I am even old enough to have lived in two different millennia. I have two children, I pay bills, I do the grocery shopping for the entire household, I make meals every day, and I even meal prep. I do all the things I read about adults doing. But I don’t feel like an adult.

I went to a vocational school. I chose a trade I thought I would do forever (I don’t use it at all), and I even went to college for a year for this trade. I thought that was it – I had life figured out. But then I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t get my degree. Then I tried again a few years later. I started school for something entirely different – psychology. And then I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to do either, so again I didn’t finish school.

I went to work full-time and figured maybe NOW I had it figured out: I would just work a job I wasn’t fond of so I could pay the bills. That’s the adult thing to do, right? Do what I need to do? But then I decided I didn’t like that idea. It wasn’t about the money, I just hated getting up and doing something I didn’t like every single day of my life. So I studied for multiple certifications in the fitness field and decided FOR REAL this time that that’s what I wanted to do.

I thoroughly enjoyed working in the fitness field, but starting isn’t the easiest undertaking. At the time, I didn’t have children so I could work all the hours at all the gyms. I could put in all the time behind the scenes to successfully teach classes and train clients. I could work all the hours I needed to make a living (hint, it was A LOT).

Then I had my son and I no longer had the time nor the drive to work morning, noon, and night. I tried working at jobs I didn’t love so again I could pay the bills. As I was trying to figure out what I REALLY wanted to do, the universe decided for me. I became a stay-at-home mom. Not really a way to pay the bills, but rewarding nonetheless.

Now I am starting school again, this time for occupational therapy. I am also working on my 200-hour YTT (again), but I am hoping to use the two together in a physical therapy setting geared towards athletes.

Maybe.

I was always so envious of the people who knew what they wanted to be before even graduating high school. They would go to college for their chosen major, find a job with their degree, and live happily ever after. I never knew how someone could be so sure at such a young age that they wanted to be an accountant, a teacher, an architect, a chemist, or a lawyer. Here I am, an actual real adult, still feeling like a clueless teenager, not totally sure of what I want to do in life.

I’m here to tell anyone in the same boat that that’s ok! Who says we need to have everything figured out when we are 18 years old? Where is the written rule saying that we need to decide, as teenagers, what we want to do for the next 40-plus years? There isn’t one. And if there is, well then I’m going with “some rules are meant to be broken.”

I know someone who didn’t get her Master’s Degree in Nursing until she was 34. When she was in high school, she had originally wanted to be a chef. I know someone who didn’t know what she wanted to be, found a job in child care, and THEN got her degree a few years later, after deciding she loved what she did. I know another person who was a dancer her whole life but went to school for psychology, then became a professional dancer (even danced on cruise ships!), and then decided fitness was the route she really wanted to take. She now runs her own fitness website while holding multiple fitness certifications.

This is not to take away from those that actually figured this out.

If you’re one of those people, please share your wisdom, because I’m not even sure occupational therapy is the right route for me! I am sure there are others out there thinking the same thing – help us out! Also, kudos to you, it’s well-deserved!

My point (finally, dang!) is that maybe it’s never too late to decide what you want to do with your life. Whether you know when you’re 18 or you don’t figure it out until you’re 40, there is no right or wrong time to decide. There is never a bad time to learn or grow. To quote C.S. Lewis, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

So to those of us setting another goal or dreaming a new dream, cheers. And let’s remember, we’re kind of adults, even if we don’t feel like it.

1 COMMENT

  1. Cheers to you, Cyndi! And thanks. I think we sometimes define ourselves by what we do, and we shouldn’t. Our culture sells us short this way. It feels great to set goals, achieve them, try to find what we love for a living and do it. But I feel like it’s less important WHAT we do than how we do it, being honest & not too hard on ourselves, trusting the path. Not always easy, for sure.
    Meg N.

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