What do you want to be when you grow up?

I am currently reading a self-help book. The book recommends figuring out your strengths and using them. Not just working on your weaknesses. It also suggests knowing your personality. Taking the Myers Briggs and Big 5 personality tests. Finally, the book suggests looking to your past, specifically your childhood for information. This may be the biggest source for figuring who you are and who you want to be. 

I remember doing a similar exercise and looking back to my childhood a few months ago. I think I had been chatting with my two eldest boys. I asked them what they wanted to do now and what they wanted to do in the future when they get older. I ask them this now and again and it keeps changing. A professional footballer. A professional rugby player. A gymnast. A writer. An actor. A rock star. An artist.  

Then I remember one of them asking me, when I was a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up? 

Do you know what? I didn’t know. I had completely forgotten.  

It was like Robin Williams in the film ‘Hook’. I was all grown up and I had completely forgotten the boy who I had been when I was a child. 

I wonder how such a thing happens? How does one forget one’s dreams? 

God only knows, but it had happened to me. 

I had resolved to do some deep thinking and remember who I was as a child and the dreams I had. 

Scientist 

I remember spending time in my bedroom reading science books. I especially remember a book encouraging you to do science experiments at home.  One experiment encouraged you to grow crystals in a jar. You fill a jar with water and add a chemical to the water. You then lay a pencil across the top of the jar with a piece of string tied to it. The other end of the string dangles in the water with a paperclip on the end. Crystals were supposed to grow on the paperclip. I don’t remember that experiment working very well. 

I remember having a microscope. The microscope came with some pre-prepared slides. One of the slides contained neon rainbow coloured dragonfly wings. 

My dad used to keep a tropical fish tank. He would keep angelfish, kissing gourami, tetras, barbs, swordtails and cory catfish. I would read books with pictures of the fish so I could learn which fish were which. I read books on sharks and dolphins (but dad wouldn’t let me have one). 

I was just trying to understand how the world worked. Just like a scientist.  

Inventor 

In one science book, it showed you how to make an electromagnet. You needed a battery, some wire and a piece of metal. Luckily my dad was an engineer and had a shed full of engineers ‘stuff’. It was an Aladdin’s cave for a young boy looking to build ‘stuff’. I coiled the wire around a big metal bolt. Attached the end of the wires to a battery. The bolt then became magnetised and could pick up other metal objects. I remember taking it into Primary school to show my teacher. 

That same teacher went through a year of getting us to build things. We made mangonels with wood, nails, elastic bands and lollipop sticks. We then had a competition to see whose mangonel could catapult the furthest. 

We built small racing cars with balsa wood, glue and cardboard. They were powered by balloons. Again we had a competition in the main school hall, to see whose car could go the furthest. 

I remember building a drawing desk for myself out of bits of wood in my dads shed. It was slanted with a butt across the bottom and sat on top of the makeshift desk my dad built for me. It was straight forward, as my dad had shown me how to measure, how to saw, how to hammer a nail and how to drill a hole. 

I loved to build things. To create things. Things that were not there until I made them. Things to make the world a better and more enjoyable place. Just like a builder or an inventor. 

Jedi 

I was born in the eighties. Film, TV and music were awesome. Top Gun, Dirty Dancing, Iron Eagle, the Goonies. Airwolf, Streethawk and the A-Team. Michael Jackson, Madonna and Cindi Lauper. 

Some films stood out above the rest. Star Wars and the Karate Kid. 

My mum and dad tell me that I used to watch Star Wars repeatedly. We must have had it on VHS. Presumably all three of the original trilogy. The Empire Strikes Back was the best. I think my favourite section is when Luke finds Yoda and begins his training. I dreamed that I was Luke. Being trained to become something extraordinary. To become a Jedi. I just needed to find my Yoda. 

I had the same aspirations with Karate Kid. A kid struggling to find his place in the world. A kid wanting to stand up for himself. A kid who wanted to learn extraordinary skills. He found a mentor to teach him. Again, it was the training scenes that inspired me. Painting the fence, balancing on a boat and practicing the crane kick in the surf. 

I dreamed of learning martial arts and becoming a Jedi. Doing things others found extraordinary. 

Athlete 

When I was young there was TV and there were games consoles. The Commodore 64, Atari, Amiga, Nintendo, Sega Megadrive and the Gameboy. I played computer games but I wasn’t too obsessed. I think I preferred being out playing. I used to play football, cricket, basketball and martial arts. 

I remember I was always training, always practicing. I remember having basketball training straight after school. Then being picked up and taken to football training straight afterwards. In sixth form, I remember training six days a week at my Taekwondo club. My PE teacher and basketball coach would let us practice our shooting at lunchtimes in school. 

Basketball was the sport in which I achieved the most. Our school team was pretty awesome and we won almost everything in our area. We won a 3v3 tournament for our region then went on to compete in the national finals. At the national finals, we received a lesson in humility. We got smashed. In a bigger pond, there is always a bigger fish.  One of the fish was over seven feet tall.

I and two other players went for trials for a team in the national league. One got to play on the team. The 6’ 6” one. Not me, the 5’ 10” one. The 6’ 6” one got a scholarship and headed off to University in America. 

I loved being physical. Using your body for what it was meant for. For running, jumping and playing. Even for competing against others and winning. 

Summary 

This was a search. A search to find the boy I was in my childhood. And what that boy wanted to be when he grew up. 

He wanted to be a scientist. To wear that white lab coat with safety specs. Playing with test tubes, Bunsen burners, microscopes and agar jelly. Looking to understand the world. 

He wanted to be a builder, an inventor. He wanted to build things that made the world a better and more fun place. 

He wanted to be a Jedi, a martial artist. To go through extraordinary training with extraordinary people to become something extraordinary. 

He wanted to be an athlete. To experience all the wonderful things a body can do. To know how fast he can run, how high he can jump, how strong he can be. To compete against others and win. 

Can you remember the experiences you had when you were a child? 

Can you remember the things you loved and enjoyed? 

Can you remember the hopes, dreams and aspirations you had when you were a child? 

Can you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? 

Footnotes 

I am forty this year and I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.