"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It's a question we have all heard.
It's also one we never quite have the same answer for.

As little kids, people always ask what you want to be when you grow up, and ,with our vast imaginations, we came up with such things as a princess or the president or a firefighter. These were the things that clouded our minds as children. We always read stories about a prince and a princess or a knight in shining armor or a superhero of some sort, so these are the things we aspired to be because that's all our imagination knew.

As middle schoolers, the only thing we could ever say as a response to that dreaded question was "I don't know." How could we ever be worried about our future as independent adults when we didn't even have any amount of freedom? We would answer with the same response every time and then run off and continue with whatever strange thing we were currently participating in. If you stuck around after that question, there always came the question of where do you want to go to high school/ college that haunted us because we weren't even sure of what we wanted to have for breakfast the next day.

Now, as we grow older and we get closer to those moments of independence, we are forced to reconsider what it truly is we want to be when we grow up. We have to consider every possible option of a major to pursue after we graduate high school and move out to college. The only thing is, none of us are absolutely positive about who or what we want to be when we grow up. We don't even know who we are now and the thought that we are being forced to make the decision of who we want to be in the future throws us into a constant loop of stress and doubt. The continuous line of "what if's" runs through our minds. What if I don't make the right decision? What if I regret going down this path? What if I am forced into something that I can't get out of?

These are the things that haunt us at night. The looming thought of college and independence is such a terrifyingly seductive idea that none of us really consider what is truly at stake: our futures. What we want is to get out and experience what it is really like to be on our own. We crave the freedom that we have never had. The one thing we constantly overlook is that with independence comes great responsibility and maturity. We have to keep the future in mind when it comes to completing high school and the decisions we make while in high school.

There are very few high school students that will tell you that high school is about getting good grades and making it in to a good college. Most students in high school are focused on the idea that they need to be different, but not so much so that others disagree with their actions. They are locked on to the idea that high school is about going out with friends and having the time of their life, and this is true, but only to a certain extent. There comes a point in the decision making process that we need to step back and ask ourselves "What do you want to be when you grow up?" If our actions will assist us in the journey to what our little kid selves dreamed of being, then we should continue with those actions, but on the other hand, if those actions and decisions distract us from the path to our true dream, they are things we must stop.


There are many decisions to be made in life and every single one should be made with one's own future in mind. This does not in any way mean that going out with friends and being stupid on a Friday night should not be something we participate in, but it does mean that if there is something in our life harming us or distracting us from the true path to success, then it is time to get rid of it. Those things that hold us back or force us into giving up our values or passions are the things that we should rid ourselves of.

With our futures constantly in mind, the question that we should always keep in mind is "What do you want to be when you grow up?" This is the one question that pushes us to fight for our dreams and take action to get to our goals. If we want to be remembered we must take action, but if we want to be forgotten we can let others take our place in our dream spot in life.