As far back as I can remember, people asked me, and I asked myself what I wanted to be when I grew up.
My grandmother hoped I would want to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, three oft-chosen careers of Middle-Class Jewish parents. Nobody wanted me to be a reporter or a writer.
They always meant my work, my career. But the idea meant something different to me and still does. If growing up means being normal, I’ll never get there.
But this was my great question: what did I wish to be when I grew up?
I’m 75 years old, and I’ve been a writer for nearly all those years. And it’s still an excellent question for me. What do I want to be when I grow up? I can’t answer the question. I’m a work in progress.
At a time of life when it’s doubtful that I’ll do anything else but what I’m doing, I still often ask the same question: What will I be? What am I going to do?
I believe the question is still relevant; I think the answer is ahead of me. I haven’t landed in many ways.
“What do you suppose we are going to be, you and I? when we grow up,” asks Frederick Buechner in his book “Secrets Of The Dark.”
People I know often like to think they’ve made their mark on the world as they grow up, but I don’t feel that way. I feel as if I’m beginning, not ending. I want to be better than I am when I grow up. That’s what I want to be.
I have never thought I was finished experimenting, changing, questioning, or trying new and different things. I’ve never really acquired the feeling that I’ve grown up or wanted to.
I’m getting a more precise idea of who I want to be and what I must do to be it.
For me, the question is not about work, and it’s not about money.
“Every once in a while,” writes Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and the author of more than 30 books, “we long to be what out of darkness and mystery we are called to be, when we hunger for holiness even so, even if we would never dream of using the word. There come moments, I think, even amid all of our cynicism and worldliness and childishness, maybe especially then, when there is something about the saints of the earth that bowls us over a little.”
I never really knew what I might be called to do or how fate might change my life. I’ve given up on guessing. I do hope to be called to meaningful things.
But something about finally growing up seems like a kind of death of the spirit to me. It’s a way of giving up on changing, being better, and having more meaning. I think I want to be a Light-beater and a Light-bearer. I think I can be almost anything that I want to be.
I’m just not ready and hope I will never be prepared to say this is enough; I’m good enough; I don’t need to look any further. The question is always open for me: what will I be if and when I finally grow up?
I don’t mean outside myself; I mean inside myself.
Growing up is about being as good a human as I can be.
As good a father. As good a husband. As a good writer and a blogger. It means being responsible for my life. It means becoming more tolerant and merciful, doing good, and having a purpose and meaning in life that is not about money or power.
It means being honest and authentic, and generous to others. It means embracing empathy and compassion and helping the needy and the vulnerable.
It’s a statement, a goal, not a career or a million dollars in the bank.
Every once in a while, I long to move out of the darkness and mystery; I seek a kind of holiness that is not religious but spiritual.
Grow up? asks Buechner.
Really?
For older adults, isn’t it a little too late? For young people, isn’t it a little too early?
I don’t think so. It’s never too early to grow up, be a whole person, or even be holy. It’s never too late.
“Be kind enough to yourselves not to just play it safe with your lives for your safety, but to spend at least part of your lives like drunken sailors for God’s sake,” pleads Buechner, and “come alive indeed.”
That is good and precious advice. I stopped playing safe with my life years ago, and I’ve never been more alive than I am now.
I think of how the flowers grow and how the sun comes up. I think of the way the morning light comes through our windows.
I think of the sound of silence when I listen to it. I think of how I sense the presence of the people and things I love.
This kind moment, suggests Buechner, is a door that holiness comes through. That’s where I want to be when I grow up.
May it enter me. May it enter you.
Interesting article, Jon. I recently did a course with Dr Edith Eger, perhaps a name known to you. She is a 95-year old Holocaust survivor who made a career in psychology. She has made a name for herself because of how she looks at life and her experiences in WWII. One of the questions in her ‘Unlocking your potential’ is: How do you want to be remembered? Not so much for fame and glory, but sort of the flipside of your question: what do I want to be when I grow up?
The funny thing is that I do not remember ever being asked that question. I grew up in the shadow of a sibling who was a musician at a young age and only had one wish at 19: get out of the house and the school system (where I was bullied) as soon as possible. I had seen, through my sibling, how journalism worked and thought it would be a nice profession. I discovered I am good at writing and language and made a career change at age 36 to become an IT database developer. That coloured my life for almost 30 years and it was not until I remarried and followed my husband’s career opportunities, thereby giving up my professional career, that I realised how much of my life was filled and defined by work.
It cause quite a fall into depression and sometimes it is still lurking around the corner. Worse in darkening and frigid winter days in Canada, where I now reside. I am now semi-retired and do a lot of painting and try to keep a small artist blog on the side, just for the fun of it.
Never did I think, in my younger years, that I would want to be an artist. Never did I think I would be good enough, or find it as fulfilling as I do now. So, I think that this is what I am meant to do, with some little side jobs now and then. And I can see the gift in the loss of the professional career – were it not for that, I would not have found painting. I was always drawing and painting in life, but never like I do now. So I think that is what I would like to be remembered as. As a creative person that can bring joy to my own life and sometimes to the life of others through my paintings.
Sometimes that feeling is almost spoiled when people ask: how much of your works have you sold? Because the implication, I feel, seems to be that it is only valuable of my time and attention if it leads to income. But I am getting better at saying: that is now why I am in it. I am in it for me. It brings me serenity. And when I sit under my spotlights at my easel during one of those dark, frigid and colourless days we have up here, time just flows past me while I am in my own world of colour and shape. It gives me great contentment too. And a sense of wonder when I go back to my studio the next day and see what I have created. Who knew I could do all of that, eh?
When people ask you what you want to be when you grow up, they are talking about tomorrow’s day. Which will never arrive if you choose to live in today’s day. With enough todays spent with activities and thoughts that keep you evolving and living in wonder and contentment, perhaps you already are what you wanted to be when you grow up. Although, do I really want to grow up? Most of the times I think not. But that might just be me 🙂
Great post, great reply (N Decorte). Thank you both.