What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question that everyone is constantly getting asked throughout their life. What do you want to be when you grow up? And now in college, it seems like this question is one that should be on our minds all the time and that our every waking action should be dictated by it. What do you want to be when you grow up? It is such a taunting question. Everything about it screams intimidation. But when you switch around some words it can have a completely different meaning.

Instead of asking what do you want to be when you grow up, try who do you want to be when you grow up. Who do you want to be? Not what. Then the question changes from a noun to an adjective. When you ask the question like this, you go from wanting to be a doctor when you grow up to wanting to be self-giving when you grow up. By changing the what to who, you create a whole different question.

Instead of asking what do you want to be when you grow up, try what do you want to be when you grow. Because although a lot of us consider “growing up” to be something done in our twenties, some people may decide to grow when they are forty or sixty or even eighty. Growing up is a term used to give people a standard of where they should be in their lives. But if we are really being honest, each one of us are growing at our own pace. So take your time with life. And realize that growing up is not necessarily growing.