What I want to be when I grow up...

When I was a kid I wanted to be a doctor. I realize now this was kind of a bad call because I get white and cry (yes, still as an adult I cry) when I see needles. I think what really prompted me to want to be a doctor was the fact that we were studying Elisabeth Blackwell. Even at the ripe old age of 8 I was a feminist. Who knew?

Blackwell, if you don't know, was the first female doctor in the United States. She blew the field wide open for us women folk and she didn't really have a grand old time in the process. I remember thinking "that is amazing. I want to do that. I want to be like her." I don't think my wanting to be like her thought was really about wanting to be a doctor, but wanting to be a strong women who refused to back down in the face of oppression. That's a pretty great desire to have.

I'm still struggling with what I want to be when I grow up. I go back and forth and all over the page. For a long time I wanted to be a journalist. Now I want to write, but I don't think it has to be for a paper. I like teaching and I like impacting students, but I don't know if I want to do it forever. A huge part of me wants to start an all girls school, but an even larger part of me wants to have a big family (think two and then add three or four to it) and I don't know how you do that and run a school. I'm thinking about occupational therapy and masters in social work. I'm thinking more and more about practical things I could take into the missions field for months at a time.

I don't really know. Or maybe I know too much.

This I do know:

1) I want to do something that matters. Something that truly matters and impacts the future in some way.

2) For me, I think that thing has to do with children. Low-income children, girls, orphans. Any and all of those groups.

3) I don't want to wake up in 20 years and realize I chose a vocation based on selfish ambition. I want to know that even though my job undoubtedly has residual benefits for me (you know, like a pay check) that it is helping people. I want to contribute to the world in a meaningful way and I also want to push the world to change.

4) I want to always be in a place where (in my actual life and my heart), if God called, I could pick up, move out and change my life drastically.

You know, for a 24-year-old who is still figuring out this real life stuff, while daily trying to survive the beat down of 12-year-olds, those are pretty good things to know. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

For more on vocation, check out what my friend Mr. Blair and Thomas Merton have to say.