{"id":10311,"date":"2012-05-12T22:50:40","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T06:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=10311"},"modified":"2013-09-18T09:37:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T17:37:45","slug":"what-to-answer-when-they-ask-what-you-want-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/what-to-answer-when-they-ask-what-you-want-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Answer When They Ask What You Want to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I was five years old, my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told them I wanted to be a butterfly. It did not seem to be the answer they were looking for.<\/p>\n

But I quickly caught on. The next time they asked me that question, in junior high, I knew what I wanted to be– a crusading investigative reporter ala Woodward and Bernstein, or a humor columnist like Art Buchwald, or a theater critic such as John Simon. They told me those jobs were already taken and that journalism was a dead end.<\/p>\n

When they asked what I wanted to be when I was in college, I told them what I knew they yearned to hear\u2014 that I wanted to be a lawyer. But then I decided I would rather kill myself than go to law school, which resulted in a clinical depression, followed by a one month\u2019s stay in a comforting place that taught life reassessment skills. My parents were so frightened by the experience that they dropped the whole J.D. thing for the time being.<\/p>\n

My newfound shrink thought it would be nice for me to be a risk taker. So, after college, on an adventurous whim, I lit out for Los Angeles to study screenwriting. I was fortunate enough to sell a script to the hit sitcom, \u201cFamily Ties,\u201d starring Michael J. Fox, while out there. I made a lot of money and met some super-rich people doing it, so everyone told me that it would be cool to be a wealthy television writer. After all, who could live in L.A. and not want to be one?<\/p>\n

But then, I didn\u2019t sell anymore television scripts and had another severe attack of the blues. My parents whisked me back to New York and were soon at their wits end about what I was going to be now that I was a directionless semi-adult. So, they sent me to a new mental health professional that gave me a battery of psychological tests and told me I should be a gym teacher. That nightmare didn\u2019t last much longer than student teaching.<\/p>\n

Left to my on devices for a moment, I went out and got a job as a trade magazine reporter (turned out, there were openings in the journalism field) and started to freelance for a number of print publications. When print began to dry up, I slowly adapted to the digital realm, a process that continues to this day.<\/p>\n

My dad passed away many years ago, still concerned about what I was going to be, and my mom has since convinced herself that not only did I go back to school and get that law degree, but that I am now a member of the Supreme Court and finally have that sense of job security that only comes with being \u201ca true professional.\u201d I don\u2019t have the heart to tell her otherwise.<\/p>\n

But today, when people ask me what I really want to be, I tell them: \u201cAll I ever really wanted to be was who I am.\u201d And I leave it at that.<\/p>\n

Wendy Aron is the author of <\/em>Hide & Seek: How I Laughed at Depression, Conquered My Fears and Found Happiness<\/em><\/a> and the founder of WendyAron.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Photo credit: ‘Fairy Tale Forest<\/a>‘ by Big Stock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was five years old, my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told them I wanted to be a butterfly. It did not seem to be the answer they were looking for.<\/p>\n

But I quickly caught on. The next time they asked me that question, in junior high, I knew what I wanted to be– a crusading investigative reporter ala Woodward and Bernstein, or a humor columnist like Art Buchwald, or a theater critic such as John Simon. They told me those jobs were already taken and that journalism was a dead end. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12163,"featured_media":10342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[4645,406,66,4629],"yoast_head":"\nWhat to Answer When They Ask What You Want to Be - Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When they asked what I wanted to be when I was in college, I told them what I knew they yearned to hear\u2014 that I wanted to be a lawyer. But then I decided I would rather kill myself than go to law school, which resulted in a clinical depression, followed by a one month\u2019s stay in a comforting place that taught life reassessment skills. 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