All my life I've had a clear answer to 'What I want to be when I grow up?' However, it seems to change every 2-3 years. When I was younger, I wanted to work on computers like my dad. Though I'm not really sure that I had an actual reason beyond 'because that's what my dad does'. Then it switched to animals in high school. And that in itself even switched. It went from just working at the zoo, to being a vet once I realized I could cut open dead cats without losing my shit during senior year of high school. That lead to an undergrad career centered around vet school applications.But I found I never got obsessed with the process like my peers did. I didn't live and breath the application I would be submitting at the end of those four years. I couldn't.

I couldn't care that much about getting a perfect GPA that I would research the class distribution of the various Organic Chem teachers and change my schedule to find the one with the most A's given. I couldn't care enough that I would volunteer my time doing research, clubs, and anything else animal related while kissing ass to all the professors I worked with. My mind was elsewhere half the time it seemed. I did the clubs, but I also volunteered with children and found education was important to me. I took on leadership roles and found leadership and serving were important to me. I tried different types of art because art had always been important to me. And by the end of those four years vet school was no longer the end goal. I loved zoology, and always will. I still get excited by weird animal facts or have a great appreciation for the taxonomy of the animal phylum. And I probably will forever. I graduated with a mediocre 3.2 GPA and a moderate love for the field, but also a moderate love for so many other things.

After college, with my found desire to serve, came the plan of being a Marine officer for the next 20 years. Alongside a backup plan of being a genetic counselor because genetics was cool. After knee injuries, and the self-reflection that just because I want to be that type of person doesn't mean I am that type of person, I wound up on physical therapist. Then after over 100 hours of shadowing physical therapists, and a rejected application later, I figured being a physical therapist might not be the life for me. And because biochemistry was my pure hell during grad school, a genetic counselor was scratched from the backup plan. 

I had decided I didn't want to walk into work and do the same thing every day. Sure, I had enjoyed my job of being a personal trainer in grad school, but even in that, I wanted more. I wanted more certifications, more letters after my name. I loved my clients, but I didn't want to teach how to do a proper push up again and again forever.

So I thought research would be wonderful or even teaching, perhaps art, maybe writing. I've done a few research projects before, I've been an advisor and teaching assistant, I've tried my hand at photography, painting, drawing, and some digital art, I've worked on websites, and I've always had a dream of publishing novels. But all of this leads me to that same damn question 'What do I want to be when I grow up?' And now that I've seen it change so much, I know I don't have a real answer. Hell, I can't even shadow a job for more than 3 weeks worth of work without growing bored of the field and wanting more. Wanting to know how I can grow and learn from that base point. Even though people work their ass off to get to that base point. I'm always thinking 'okay, then what?

'Now I don't know where to go or what to do. I have so many interests and like to half-way explore so many things that I wonder if I'll ever become great at 1 thing. Will I ever have just 1 job?