The American dream is based around a single question. It’s engraved in our brains at an early age, then up through high school, and finally comes to light upon the completion of college; “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Looking back on my earliest years, I’m sure I said something like “ballerina” or “teacher”- I might have even said “superstar.” It seems trivial now as I look back at my earliest recognition of being asked the question- I was seven years old. I could barely read and write when the world started pressing me to settle into a lifelong career decision. I wanted to be what every seven year-old wants to be- at recess with my friends, sneaking into my sister’s closet when she wasn’t home, and ultimately marrying one of the Backstreet Boys. But things haven’t quite worked out that way.

I graduated college in 2015 and I now work in the music industry in (seriously) the greatest management company in Nashville. I love my job, the artists I get to work with on a daily basis and the people that I get to interact with- but I want to do so much more. I want to open an all-female artist management company someday, but I also want to go to law school and study copyright and/or entertainment laws. I want to travel the world and go on a hiatus for months on end. I want to be a teacher, write a book, own a small calligraphy business in my downtime (once I learn, of course) and learn how to rock climb. I want to open a diner in my hometown and create my own fashion line. I’m in this awkward stage of knowing exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life but not being able to say that it’s going to be one particular thing forever. And while it makes me feel, sometimes, that I’m unfocused or uncommitted, I’m realizing that it doesn’t make me anything but human. The real American dream is to create a life that you could never imagine. I could be a calligraphy-creating, book-writing, adjunct professor/copyright lawyer in the future who also happens to run multiple companies in all of her “free time.” It’s unlikely, but not impossible. I’m only 24 years old- I could do something different every decade for the rest of my life. Life is not about finding a career you love and sticking to it- it’s about living so ambitiously that when your time comes, you know you filled it with every experience you could ever dream of. In a way, that question I was asked when I was seven wasn’t necessarily about what career I wanted to settle into but rather what I would be content doing for the rest of my life. So, do I know what I want to be when I grow up? Sure, I do. I want to be happy.