When I grow up…
…I want to be a firefighter.
…I will be an astronaut.
…I want to fight for my country.
…I will be a doctor.
…I wish to make a difference.
When I grow up….
This very sentence is said by almost every toddler across the world after being asked one simple question: What do you want to be when you grow up? As a kid, the possibilities are endless. Everything seems achievable. Everything is so easy to dream about and make entire life plans about. As a kid, everyone wants to just grow up and achieve these very dreams. As a kid, that’s all you want.
That was all I wanted. Everyday I would wait for the day that I would become a ‘big kid’, become an adult, so that I could make my own decisions and achieve my own dreams. But I never realized the reality of growing up. Now that I am on the edge of adulthood, all I want to do is go back to the simpler days, days of just dreaming. Because this is what growing up really means: graduating from a school you have known your entire life, leaving home for the first time, saying goodbye to old friends and hopes to make new ones. All due to this childhood dream that your chasing.
I had a dream. I would have an enormous house, 10-15 cars, a private jet, and maybe a handful of yachts. But I never thought about the day I would actually be grown up or the day I would make the decision to follow through with this dream. I am now in charge of myself and able to make decisions for myself and the reality of it is that this anything but a dream.
The future is exciting and there are so many possibilities but now there are so many other factors. The idea of independence also means being away from family and the people that I am used to. The idea that I get to make my own decisions also means making decisions that determine my entire career, my entire life. Everything may be based in the same ideas, the same foundation, but there are so many more factors pressing down on this foundation that simply aren’t even thought about as kids.
I am growing up…
… and one thing remains constant.
I have a dream.
And I will work towards my dream every single day.
“Easy to start off your dreams but it’s harder to finish. They gon’ hate me for my ambition.” -Kodak Black