I’m 43. I Still Don’t Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.

When you're a kid, adults love asking:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It's presented as this perfectly reasonable question.

Firefighter.

Doctor.

Astronaut.

Teacher.

Professional baseball player.

Nobody expects an eight-year-old to respond:

“Ideally, something with good health insurance and enough flexibility to take my children to orthodontist appointments.”

Then you grow up and discover the disturbing truth:

The adults asking that question didn't know what the fuck they were doing either.

I'm 43 years old.

I have a wife, two kids, a house, a career, bills, responsibilities, and opinions about HVAC replacement costs.

By virtually every measurable standard, I have grown up.

And I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Technically, I Already Became Something

I've worked in technology for years.

I'm good at it.

I've built software. I've managed engineers. I've worked with APIs, ServiceNow, Jira, automation, support systems, and enough corporate acronyms to qualify as bilingual.

I've led teams.

I've helped people get promoted.

I've made architectural decisions.

I've spent countless hours in meetings discussing things that could have been resolved by three people standing near a whiteboard for eleven minutes.

I've built a legitimate career.

I recently celebrated ten years with the same company, and my coworkers surprised me with a card and balloons.

Not normal balloons, either.

They put enormous 1 and 0 balloons at my desk, roughly large enough to be detected from low Earth orbit.

I almost cried.

Because ten years is a long fucking time.

And because it reminded me that I've built something beyond a résumé.

I've built relationships.

So maybe technology is what I want to be.

Except...

I Also Might Want to Sell Houses

Recently, I started studying real estate.

Not because I hate technology.

Not because I've dramatically thrown my laptop into a lake.

I just became curious.

Could I be good at real estate?

I like people.

I like talking to strangers.

I like solving problems.

I've bought three houses, so I've already experienced the delightful process of signing 400 documents while someone points at increasingly mysterious lines and says, “Initial there.”

Maybe I'd enjoy being on the other side of the table.

So I created my own unofficial real estate school with an AI professor and a collection of fictional idiots including Beatrice, Marcus, David, Elena and, naturally, Cousin Fucking Larry.

And something unexpected happened.

I really liked learning it.

Suddenly this thing I'd been casually considering started feeling possible.

Great.

New career identified.

Except...

I Also Like Building Things

I build websites.

Sometimes for myself.

Sometimes for other people.

I'll get an idea and suddenly I'm thinking about layouts, logos, APIs, databases, content management systems and whether a button should move six pixels to the left.

This is apparently recreation.

Normal people watch Netflix.

I occasionally decide a website needs an administrative interface.

Then there's writing.

I've started blogging.

Apparently I have opinions that need to be inflicted upon the internet.

I've written about Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, real estate school and why “That's what she said” represents one of humanity's greatest contributions to comedy.

And I fucking love doing it.

So now we have:

Technology professional.

Potential real estate agent.

Developer.

Designer.

Writer.

Excellent.

This childhood career-planning exercise has gone terribly.

Maybe I Don't Want One Answer

Here's the part I'm starting to understand.

I've spent a lot of my adult life being things for other people.

Employee.

Manager.

Husband.

Dad.

Homeowner.

Problem solver.

Driver.

Person-who-is-apparently-responsible-when-something-in-the-house-starts-making-a-weird-noise.

I love many of those roles.

Especially husband and dad.

But somewhere along the way, adulthood quietly starts convincing you that your job is to perform your assigned functions competently until retirement.

That's depressing as hell.

Because I'm still curious.

I still want to try shit.

We Treat Careers Like Marriages

There's this strange assumption that eventually you're supposed to choose your thing.

You become an accountant.

A programmer.

A lawyer.

A teacher.

Whatever.

Then you put that answer in the little occupation box on forms for the next forty years.

But why?

Nobody looks at someone who ate tacos yesterday and says:

“Interesting. I thought you were a pizza person.”

People are allowed to like multiple things.

We're allowed to change.

We're allowed to become interested in something at 43 that wasn't even remotely part of the plan at 23.

We're allowed to be good at something without promising to do it forever.

Maybe Growing Up Isn't the Finish Line

I used to think adulthood eventually arrived.

At some mysterious age, you'd understand money.

Relationships would make sense.

You'd know exactly who you were.

You'd have a career plan.

You'd finally feel like one of those competent adults who clearly knew what was happening.

I have since met enough adults to confirm:

Nobody knows what is happening.

We're all improvising.

Some people just own nicer pants.

And weirdly, I find that comforting.

Because maybe I don't need to decide what I want to be.

Maybe I need to keep deciding what I want to do next.

Right now I work in technology.

I'm studying real estate.

I'm building websites.

I'm writing.

I'm raising two boys who somehow have more scheduled activities than most Fortune 500 executives.

I'm trying to be a good husband.

I'm trying to make time for friends.

I'm trying to laugh as much as possible.

I'm trying to make other people laugh.

And I'm trying to remember that somewhere underneath all those responsibilities, I'm still me.

Maybe that's enough.

So What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?

I have no fucking idea.

And for the first time, I don't think that's a problem.

Maybe I'll become a real estate agent.

Maybe I'll become a technology director.

Maybe I'll write something people actually want to read.

Maybe I'll build another website.

Maybe I'll do several of those things.

Maybe five years from now I'll discover something completely different.

I hope I do.

Because I'm starting to think the saddest possible version of adulthood isn't reaching 43 without knowing exactly what you want to be.

It's reaching 43 and deciding you're no longer allowed to wonder.

So I'm going to keep wondering.

I'm going to keep trying things.

I'm going to keep learning.

And if someone asks what I want to be when I grow up, I've finally got an answer:

I'll let you know when I get there.