This is one question that has been on my mind for a while now “what do I want to be when I grow up”. Now I believe that by thinking for a long time about this question I have a vague idea. It’s more of an idea about what I would want to be like rather than a specific career goal. I’ve arrived at it after looking at people around me, essentially my parents, understanding what is important and what is trivial and finally answering my own question. I would like to be the best at whatever I finally choose to do in life.
The important things I have understood, mostly by observing my own mother, is that I want to be truthful. Truthful to myself about what I am doing. Being true to others is easy what is difficult is being true to your own self. I understand that whatever my mother does is done with all her heart and soul. She never starts something that she cannot or does not finish. It could be a huge software project at office, a beautiful art project at home or a simple thing like reading a book, she gives it all her energy and makes sure she does it with focus and finishes it. That for me is something I want to be able to achieve when I finally arrive at my career in life. I want to persevere and complete my projects rather than give up and walk away in the middle just because I run into problems. I have observed my father as well and from him I have learned that it is very important to think, research and be well informed about what one speaks about. He has shown me that it is important to be compassionate and helpful to everyone around us, to go out of our way to solve problems. He has also taught me that it is important to be independent and disciplined in life and not be too worried about norms that the world runs by rather write my own rules. He also tells me that there are lofty ideals of doing good for the world and making a difference to humankind however one should rather focus on doing whatever one is doing to the best of their abilities, the world will take care of itself if everyone stays truthful.
So yes at the end of the day what I would like to be is an amalgamation of all of these and so many more qualities. What I finally end up doing will depend largely on my journey. I could be a doctor, a software programmer, an innovator, a scientist, an artist, a social worker, an author or I could just go backpacking around the world and blog about it. Whatever I do I will do it with dedication, sincerity and persevere in my quest for excellence because end of the day my competition is with myself and I want to do better every day than I did yesterday.