What you want to be...when you grow up?

Aanya is presently too young to understand this question, but very sweetly she asks "Mummy, can I be a Doctor when I grow up?" "Well, of course you can Sweetheart. But why do you want to be a Doctor?" I ask. "So that I can give you and others shots, like the way I get every time I visit the Doctor." Wow! Injection, what a motivation! Not bad. I smile.

No one asks me this question now...a sign of growing old, I believe :-) Remember the time when we were asked this question all the time! Teachers, friends, parents, grand-parents, relatives and of course, we did indeed pose the same question to ourselves a hundred times! What will I be some day? Our creative side wanted us to be an artist, designer, dancer, or a writer, our sensitive and caring side wanted us to be a doctor, our engineer parents inspiring us to be an engineer. This was a query so filled with delightful promises of a future still hidden but so within reach! Yes, there were doubts, the answer also changed from time to time...but it was all there for us to grab and become what we wanted to be.

What I realise when I look back, is that, during those days in most of us there was a maverick dream, something inspired. I mean very few of us wanted to be an accountant, a manager or a bank official! Majority of us wanted to be an artist or an athlete or some other fun job that started with an “a.” But typically that artist or athlete instead became a techie or a manager.
Growing up has its drawback...and such dreams are perhaps its first causality. There is a quote from a Bollywood movie: I, me aur mein, "I always wanted to learn Piano, dreamt of becoming a Musician when I grow up and then I grew up, dreams changed". Yes, ambitions do change, become modified or sometimes plain inability or lack of right opportunities stop us from doing what we once thought "we were born to do". And sometimes we start running after money, success and leave behind our dreams. And we just go where our life leads us. Why is it that very few people get to pursue the dreams of their childhood?

So, here I am...all matured and mom of one...and why do I think of this today? Maybe because inside me there is still this little voice asking me, what do you want to be now. And I guess most of us still do think of this....Is this my calling in life? Even today, in the middle of life, busy with job, kids, socializing, we still sometimes get jolted by this sudden thought, this ain't my calling...this is not what I wanted to do.

I believe, we can still connect to that child within us and bring some of that dream to life, and even if we can't, this question itself still can inspire us to some new adventure! bigger and better maybe.

And that's why I always say "Don't ever stop being a dreamer"