"What do you want to do with your life/be?"
It gets me every time. Although I know it's coming, I still react shocked, and my mind goes off in a downward spiral of panic, looking for something to say that won't make me sound like I have wasted thousands of dollars in school.
It's funny when people ask this, because there are so many ways to approach this question. I often think of a few different inappropriate answers before coming to the general few answers I always give someone like "I would love to work for a college Athletic Department" or "I really enjoy what I do at my internship now with Channel Marketing" that leaves the questioner satisfied and able to move on.
But really, what is the right way to answer this question to be honest, realistic, accepted by society, and personally satisfying?
Here are a few different answers that I've heard when someone was posed with the "unanswerable question":
1. "I would like to make tons of money without lifting a finger." (wouldn't we all?)
2. "I want to be a stay at home mom!"
3. "I am going to be a student forever."
4. "I want to be a professional shopper."
5. "Whatever is going to make me rich with the least amount of work."
6. "I'd like to travel the world."
7. "I'm going to just marry someone rich and never work."
8. "Probably something that has nothing to do with my major."
9. "What's wrong with playing video games for a living?"
10. "Wait, I can't just off of my parents forever?"
These were mostly jokes (I hope?) but at least someone can find humor in a serious, open ended, fearful question. The truth is:
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY WILL END UP DOING
So stop asking me what I want to do with my life! Stop asking anyone what they are going to do with their lives. The honest truth is that anything can happen in life. Sure, people have dreams and hopes of what they will achieve by retirement and maybe a lot of those people will do exactly what they aspire to do. But if you ask anyone at retirement if they foresaw every work related event in their lives happening, chances are they will say no.
Most adults I know are STILL trying to figure out what they want to do. So as a 22 year old almost college graduate, how am I supposed to know better than anyone twice my age?
The question is indeed unanswerable, but only because how is someone supposed to give an answer that can really answer the question?
I have never given the well thought, drawn out, truthful answer that I wish I could give every time someone asks me what I want to do with my life, but here it goes:
"I don't know"
I don't know! I do not know what I want to do with my life, is that so bad?! Because I'm pretty sure I am not the only one who wishes they could be as truthful as this. No one really knows, especially us college kids. That's why these meme's exist:
There are a lot of things I dream of doing:
I want to marry the man I love so much and have kids by the time I'm 30.
I dream to have a beautiful home not to far from my family.
I aspire to have a job that is rewarding and that I love.
I plan to be able to not work so much that I miss my kids growing up and I'm able to actually enjoy life.
I would love to have many jobs over the course of my life, so I can learn and grow over my career and be able to look back on how far I've come.
I plan to eventually go back to get my masters, whether that is directly after my undergrad or a few years later.
But most of all, out of everything I want to be in life, I want to be happy.
What I've realized is there isn't a right or wrong answer to the unanswerable question, because no one really knows what they want and even if someone thinks they know, they don't know what's going to happen that may change that. Anything can happen, and anything will happen.
What I've realized is there isn't a right or wrong answer to the unanswerable question, because no one really knows what they want and even if someone thinks they know, they don't know what's going to happen that may change that. Anything can happen, and anything will happen.
