At some point in our lives, we’ve all been asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” As kids, we all had our specific answers. I want to be a singer! I want to be a firefighter! Throughout my short nineteen years, I’ve considered several career options. My answer to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” is always changing.

At age 7, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I preferred watching Animal Planet over watching cartoons. I watched the dog show every week and knew the names of dozens of breeds. For fun, I checked out library books about animals and spent hours each week reading them. I taught myself about insects, birds, reptiles, and other wildlife. I thought I’d be a veterinarian, and I thought I had it all figured out.

At age 14, I wanted to be a professional musician. I was second-chair violist in my middle school orchestra, and proud of it! I spent hours in my basement practicing etudes, scales, and solos. I was in choir, too. I auditioned for show choir and school musicals. The summer before high school, I taught myself guitar. I didn’t know everything about music, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to teach myself. I wanted to figure it out.

At age 17, I wanted to be a teacher. When I visited colleges, I visited colleges as a prospective Education major. However, I needed to look into specifics. Would I teach younger kids or older kids? What subject would I teach? While I was unsure of the specifics, I knew I wanted to teach. I put a lot of thought into into it and learned about certification requirements in different states. I was trying to figure it out.

Now, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I like studying institutions, discussing politics, reading Spanish poetry, and doing research papers. I like playing the viola, but I stopped singing and playing guitar. I’m declared as a Psychology major, but I want to switch to a Sociology and Spanish double major. I’m still trying to figure it out.

We all had our different interests growing up. We played instruments, we sang, we danced, we ran track, we joined Book Club-we did it all. But eventually, we lose interest in some things. We forget what we’ve learned. Books are put down, instruments gather dust, and we just stop. We separate our passions from our work and we compromise. We get retail jobs or office jobs and we settle. Imagine if we kept following our passions like we did when we were young. Imagine if we kept dreaming up fantastic futures for ourselves.

Part of the American Dream narrative is the concept of “climbing the corporate ladder”. We have the idea that a person should have one ultimate goal over the course of a lifetime and should take gradual, logical steps in pursuing that goal. However, life doesn’t follow a linear progression. Our dreams change over time, and getting to “the top” is a winding road. We get backtracked, we get stuck, and life gets in the way of itself. But that’s okay. Life shouldn’t follow a linear progression. We have our ups and downs in life, but these ups and downs shape us into better people. We shouldn’t expect life to be a linear progression. How much happier would we be if we rejected the linear model of life and embraced uncertainty?

It’s okay if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s okay if you’ve already changed your major twice. We are never finished growing; there’s no age limit on development. Even into adulthood, we’re never finished growing up. We gain interest in some subjects and lose interest in others-this is natural. Creativity and passion should be lifelong values. It’s okay if we never quite reach “the top”. What’s more important is that we’re always open to change and improvement.