My First Blog Post
A realization hit me today while I was at work: I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. This might sound like a very normal conundrum to be facing, except for the fact that I am not a fresh-out-of-highschool teenager; I’m in my early 30’s and the “when I grow up” time frame should be loooong gone by now. I’ve got friends that are engineers and doctors and electricians, and here’s me, plodding away at a dead-end warehouse job. I went through all of the motions that they tell you you’re supposed to in order to be successful: get working early and establish your work record, go to college and get a degree, etc. and I’m no closer to that “American Dream” than I was in high school.
I wasn’t the greatest student in college – partying was way more interesting than waking up for an 8am class back then – but I did enough to graduate and get that piece of paper that everyone assumes means you’re smart. Some of those friends I mentioned before with the good American-Dream-style jobs were right there beside me shotgunning beers and outlasting me in keg stands, so I know that’s not what separates me from them. No, what I think it is, is that where they were driven toward a single goal, and were passionate about obtaining that goal, I was not. According to my dad, that is a problem I’ve had since at least middle school (yes, this is a lead-in to an anecdote – segues are not my strong suit).
I dabbled in many different clubs and organizations in middle school (Mathletes, band, basketball, track, an after-school reading club, etc.) but never ended up sticking with any of them. It’s not that I disliked any of these things or that I wasn’t good at them – actually, if I may say so without coming across as too terribly narcissistic, I excelled at most everything I tried – it’s just that I wasn’t passionate about any of them. They’d hold my interest for a while, but then I would grow bored and find something else to try out.
Another thing that I was involved in during my middle school days was the Scripts Spelling Bee. The night before the spelling bee in 6th grade, I remember I was being quizzed on words by my parents to help me prepare. As with most everything though, I quickly grew bored and convinced my parents that I was as prepared as I was going to get. My parents, being ever-supportive (sometimes to a fault, I think) didn’t want to push me too hard, and let me go play Sonic the Hedgehog instead. After I went to bed that evening though (I learned much, much later in life from my dad), my parents were discussing the frustrations of trying to raise a child whose interests seemingly changed with the wind, and my dad uttered the phrase “I just wish he would be passionate about something!” The next day, I was competing in the spelling bee and doing quite well. I had outlasted a few classmates, and made it to the top, I don’t remember exactly…5? I was feeling confident as I stepped to the microphone, and the Pronouncer gave me my next word: passionate. This should have been a slam dunk for me in 6th grade, but I think I transposed the “i” and the “o” or something, and got disqualified – irony is very funny that way.
I only bring that story up to illustrate that this seemingly aimless trajectory I’m currently on is not a new one – it’s just more frightening now that I’m getting well on in to my adult years. I should also highlight that my lack of passion does NOT mean that I lack interest in things. I am interested in many things: comic books, football, fantasy sports, Dungeons & Dragons, video games, movies, travel, music, etc. It’s just that, while I enjoy and am interested in many things, I don’t have that burning, fiery passion within me toward any single one of them.
One of my current interests is writing, and I actually started working on a novel but, surprise, surprise, that project has been “ongoing” for about three years now with little to no real progress made over the last year. I’m hoping that by starting this blog, it will get my creative juices flowing and help me find something I can be passionate about.
Thank you for sticking with me through this meandering trip down memory lane, and we’ll see you (hopefully) next week!
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Musings Of A Struggling Creator 