catapult magazine

catapult magazine
 

discussion

Career Goals

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Al
Mar 07 2003
11:55 am

It’s interesting to see how my views of “career” have changed over the past years. As early as kindergarten, teachers are asking kids what they want to be when they grow up. As a kid, and then as an adolescent, I tried to figure out what it was that I wanted to be at that far-off future date of grown-upness. And now that I’ve graduated from college, I find that my earlier views were quite simplistic. I’ve stopped asking, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” and started asking, “What do I want to do next year?” I’m realizing more and more that life happens in stages, and that I don’t have to know what I’m going to be doing in ten or twenty years. In fact, I don’t really want to know.

Is there something wrong with that? I don’t feel as if I’m completely lacking in direction. I have many interests, many things that I want to do, and several possibilities for the near future. On the other hand, I don’t think it hurts us to have goals, and I don’t think that people who DO know what they want to be doing in 20 years are to be pitied. But I’ve always liked to take life as it comes; what fun is it to plan every detail? I agree with you, bridget, it seems very restrictive. Life’s more exciting when I can’t see where I’m going to be this time next year. A year ago I had no idea that I’d be living on the south side of Chicago in 2003.

Sometimes I’ve been frustrated that I don’t have my life planned out, especially when some of my friends seem to see so clearly what they want to do. But I think that this not knowing leaves more room for God to work—or at least it forces me to depend on God to direct me. I was amazed at how I ended up in Chicago: a bunch of little nudges and coincidences here and there, and here I am! Now that I’ve seen the process unfold once, I have more faith that it will happen again. And soon, I hope. :)