WP – When You Were 10

I’ve decided to start doing some writing prompts here in an effort to write more often. This came about after finding a list provided by WordPress, as I do more I’ll probably pull from the same list or start taking suggestions if I enjoy this enough. You can find them by looking for the WP in the title!

What did you want to be when you were 10 years old? What are you now? Are the two connected?

When I was ten I think I wanted to be a cartoonist or an archaeologist. That was 1998 so I believe I was in 5th or 6th grade at the time, definitely have to lean more towards cartoonist. I did a lot of drawing back then, instead of doing schoolwork, and I always thought that whatever you were good at as a kid you did as a career. I have memories of creating a comic strip maybe a year or two prior that I thought was the greatest thing ever and from there I thought I could do what Jim Davis or Bill Waterson did. It all seemed so easy! Cartoonist first left my lips on a bus ride home one day, the bus driver – Ms Wood – was looking at my “art”, I was so proud of it that I wanted everyone to see it, and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without hesitation I said cartoonist. 10-year-old me had no idea what that meant, it was just what I was good at. A year or two prior I would have said archaeologist with the same enthusiasm because I was over the moon for dinosaurs(little did I know at the time that was actually Paleontology). For years after that I still drew pictures and then started to write creatively before mixing the two together. It wasn’t long before I aspired to be a writer; my goal was to finish a book while I was still in high school and become the youngest successful published writer in history.

Obviously none of that panned out for me, I’m not exactly broken up about it. I haven’t drawn a picture in years, I doodle a little but the desire and creativity dried up after I learned to focus more and actually do the work or task placed in front of me. Writing remained a passion into my adult years and I still do some of that to this day. The only interest in dinosaurs I have is when Jurassic Park is on TV, glad that I didn’t do everything in my power to become a paleontologist. Today I am even more uncertain of what I want to be than when I was 10. I have a great career with a company I’ve worked with for close to 8 years total, 4 consecutively now, as an operations specialist. At 10, even 16, I hated math but seemed to find a job where I not only use it daily but have come to enjoy it quite a bit. It is definitely not what 10-year-old me would have wanted for himself but those dreams and aspirations change. Even now I am curious as to what I will be next, I know that it’s not in my nature to be this forever. There has to always be challenge, growth, and room for imagination, I get bored without all of those things. What 10-year-old me would agree with and enjoy is my continued love for tinkering and learning how things work. I still take things apart for the hell of it, I still build things because I can – something that hasn’t changed. I think that in some years I will find a way to make that my career; programming and building things for others to use and enjoy.

Some of us grow up knowing what we want to do or who we want to be. Some of us don’t have a choice in any of that and are what we have to be so that we can survive. Then there are some of us who wander and wonder and search for that thing most of our lives. When I was younger that didn’t seem acceptable, you had to know or you wouldn’t amount to anything is what I thought. To those wanderers, just keep wandering. I used to be bothered by being the jack-of-all-trades and the master of nothing but now I find enjoyment in being fluid and able to take on more than just one thing. Eventually I will find my calling but for now I am continuing something I started as a boy –

Adventuring.

What did you want to be when you were 10? Are you doing that now?