When I grow up I wanna be....

"Hey Mom! Dad! When I get older I'm going to become a princess" ... "I'm going to be a firefighter"... "I'm going to be a teacher".. "I'm going to be a hair stylist" .."I'm going to be the next big baseball player".. "I'm going to be a celebrity and sing"... We've heard it all, and we've said it all. When we are younger we have so many dreams and plans for when we get older. We never think of the small significant details in becoming what we want to become and doing what we want to do, we think of the big. It is like that saying "go big, or go home." Everyone at a young age are the biggest advocates for this, we have all been this person.

You see, when I was younger growing up I had so many dreams. When I was young I thought when you hit a certain age you would have your whole life together and you were the stereotypical adult.. "in their twenties, successful job, happy family, big house, weekends off, family vacations, a dog, and no problems.." Wow.. was I ever wrong and learnt the complete opposite growing up.

Actually if I'm being completely honest.. growing up SUCKS. There really is no better way to put it and I'm sure you all would agree. About 97% of people that I've spoken to have even said it sucks. Being asked that question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?," has probably caused most of us anxiety. I know it did for me and still does today. I'm someone who has never been able to answer the question. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

See, the problem is not that I don't have any interests.. the problem is that I have too many. In high school, I liked English, writing, running, sports, arts and I was involved with many clubs such as the student council, and athletic council and I even played the trumpet in my school band. I found new things to do every time and every chance I had. The thing is, this happened outside of my school life. It happened within my work life as well.

I started working when I was ten years old at a little coffee shop called Cup After Cup. I worked there for three years making coffee, making food, serving guests, washing dishes, learning kind of the basics of a first job. But after three years I quit and got a new job at a bakery, Tait's Bakery. I worked there for to years. Once again washing dishes, making food, serving guests, cleaning and etc. But than again, I quit and moved over to a restaurant, Kelsey's. But after that, I moved to another restaurant, to another place of work, to another place to try new things, to another place to pay me money, to another place to give me new challenge and interests. You see, in my nine years of working I've had over ten jobs. A lot within nine years you will think. Did I have a commitment issues to working? Did I hate my jobs?

What really was it?

Because this continued after high school, and at a certain point, I began to notice this pattern in myself where I would become interested in an area and I would dive in, become all-consumed, and I'd get to be pretty good at whatever it was, and then I would hit this point where I'd start to get bored. And usually I would try and persist anyway, because I had already devoted so much time and energy and sometimes money into this field. But eventually this sense of boredom, this feeling of, like, yeah, I got this, this isn't challenging anymore -- it would get to be too much. And I would have to let it go. This pattern caused me a lot of anxiety, for two reasons. The first was that I wasn't sure how I was going to turn any of this into a career. I thought that I would eventually have to pick one thing, deny all of my other passions, and just resign myself to being bored. The other reason it caused me so much anxiety was a little bit more personal. I worried that there was something wrong with this, and something wrong with me for being unable to stick with anything. I worried that I was afraid of commitment, or that I was scattered, or that I was self-sabotaging, afraid of my own success.

If you can relate to my story and to these feelings, I'd like you to ask yourself a question that I wish I had asked myself before. Ask yourself where you learned to assign the meaning of wrong or abnormal to doing many things. I'll tell you where you learned it:

you learned it from the culture.

We are first asked the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" when we're about five years old. And the truth is that no one really cares what you say when you're that age. It's considered an innocuous question, posed to little kids to elicit cute replies, like, "I want to be an astronaut," or "I want to be a ballerina," or "I want to be a pirate."

*Insert your Halloween costume of the year here*

But this question gets asked of us again and again as we get older in various forms -- for instance, high school students might get asked what major they're going to pick in university/college. And at some point, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" goes from being the cute exercise it once was to the thing that keeps us up at night. Why? See, while this question inspires kids to dream about what they could be, it does not inspire them to dream about all that they could be. In fact, it does just the opposite, because when someone asks you what you want to be, you can't reply with 20 different things, though well-meaning adults will likely chuckle and be like, "Oh, how cute, but you can't be a violin maker and a psychologist," "you can't be a cook and a writer," "you can't travel the world site seeing and be a doctor.." "You have to choose." All we hear is that we are going to have to choose. But it's more than that. The notion of the narrowly focused life is highly romanticized in our culture. It's this idea of destiny or the one true calling, the idea that we each have one great thing we are meant to do during our time on this earth, and you need to figure out what that thing is and devote your life to it.

WHY? WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO THAT? WHY DO WE HAVE TO STICK TO ONE POTENTIAL, ONE PASSION, ONE SUBJECT, ONE THING TO DO IN LIFE?

Because what if you're someone who isn't wired this way? What if there are a lot of different subjects that you're curious about, and many different things you want to do? Well, there is no room for someone like you in this world, right? And so you might feel alone. You might feel like you don't have a purpose. And you might feel like there's something wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you!!!!! YOU HAVE A DREAM, YOU HAVE MANY DREAMS. I always like to say this one quote,

"Don't let your dreams be dreams, just do it."

You see, you are someone who likes a multiple of things, multiple things with so much potential. You are a multipotentialite. What a word right? Just break the word up and it makes perfect sense, multi, potential, ite. It's someone with many interests and creative pursuits. Like myself, and maybe even you. You don't have to stick to one thing for the rest of your life, the world is full of so much potential and you have so many gifts.. you don't have to only use half of yourself while the other half stays hidden. There is nothing wrong with being a multipotentialite. You observe everything you can get yours hands on and you are always a beginner because you've been a beginner so many times in the past... which just means that you're less afraid of trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone. It is rarely a waste of time to pursue something you're drawn to, even if you end up quitting.

Now, let's say that you are, in your heart, a specialist. You came out of the womb knowing you wanted to be a paediatric neurosurgeon. Don't worry -- there's nothing wrong with you, either. In fact, some of the best teams are comprised of a specialist and multipotentialite paired together. The specialist can dive in deep and great ideas, while the multipotentialite brings a breath of knowledge to the project. It's a beautiful partnership. But we should all be designing lives and careers that are aligned with how we're wired. And sadly, multipotentialites are largely being encouraged simply to be more like a specialist.

I personally lived with the pressure of trying to figure out my life to be successful. Successful in money. I did what everyone was doing, applying to school for one degree so I could get a job to work for the rest of my life. That would have been success in money. BUT! That was not success in happiness. Not success in potentials. Not success in my passions. You see, this year I was suppose to be going off to Brock University for concurrent teachers education, I wanted to become a teacher.. but just before wanting to become a teacher I wanted to go into criminology and psychological analysis because I was interested in learning the minds of serial killers (kind of weird and creepy but kind of cool)... but even before that I wanted to become a lawyer.. before that a child youth worker.. before that an artist.. before that a actress.. I have had so many interests and even right now I want to become a cook or I want to work with kids or I want to open up my own diner? How can I accept a limited definable self when I feel, in me, all possibilities. I'm 19 years old and I'm not in school because I still don't know exactly what I want to do. But I am kind of okay with because I don't want to go to school right away without knowing, without trying all these experiences, without getting the opportunity to do so much. I'm okay with not know what I want to do because I like multiple things and I have so much potential to do what I want to do and to be what I want to be. I may not be successful in the money area right now. But I am successful in the the areas of happiness, of experience, of potential, of dreams, of a multipotentialite.

There is NO RUSH in your life to figure out what you have to do. You've got a lifetime I tell ya. I'm not saying either to waste it away on the couch and never figuring it out. BUT if you have multiple passions and multiple potentials then I say... DO IT ALL! And maybe.. just maybe you will find the one thing that you will do for the rest of your life that will make you happy (at the same time making you money, lol).

So with that said, if there is one thing you take away from this, I hope that it is this: embrace your inner wiring, whatever that may be. If you're a specialist at heart, then by all means, specialize. That is where you'll do your best work. But to the multipotentialites, including those of you who may have just realized here in this blog... to you I say: embrace your many passions. Follow your curiosity down those rabbit holes. Explore your intersections. Embracing our inner wiring leads to a happier, more authentic life. Live your life to your full potential and to all possibilities. Have trust and faith for what you are doing and for what you have coming your way.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do what you feel in your heart to be right" - Don't let criticism keep you from following your dreams

As Evel Knievel once said, “I think if you have ability and talent in one way, you have it in all ways. I’m not a jack of all trades; I’m a master of many. I don’t feel there is anything I can’t do if I want to.” _ Try new things and don't belittle your life and potentials.

And as Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give a future and a hope." _ God knows the plans he has for you, trust in him, give it all to him and he will show you your path.