My earliest recollection of answering this question was as a young child, maybe four or five-years-old, when I would spend a lot of time at my dad's small accounting office. Back then, my dad and I would watch re-runs of the 70's television show Sanford and Son together almost every night. I really loved the show, and I also loved that Fred Sanford worked with his son. I decided that's what I wanted to do; so, when people asked me the question of "what I wanted to be when I grew up" I would tell them I wanted to work with my dad.
When I was around nine, I had become quite the young scholar, and was obsessed with knowledge. I was definitely an odd kid. "Fun" activities for me were reading the Encyclopedia or creating maps out of construction paper, but one subject I was particularly obsessed with was meteorology. I loved storms, and I loved to watch the local weather or The Weather Channel anytime there was a big event going on. I especially loved watching storm-chaser footage of tornadoes, and it was during this time I decided I was going to be a meteorologist/storm chaser.
In high school, I quickly learned my obsession with weather and science wasn't going to get me anywhere socially. I wasn't very athletic, but I did love to watch football. I found the constant chess-match on the field to be mentally stimulating - not to mention the fact that when it came to most people in my school or in my family, for the matter, that football was the best ice-breaker/common topic I could have conversations about. It was out of this I took my obsession with knowledge/data-studying and applied it to football. I became a human statistics-machine, something I still embarrassingly am to this day. I really enjoyed it, though, and I enjoyed the art of predicting the outcomes of games based on data; so, at this stage of my life I decided I wanted to be a sports journalist.
When I started college, I actually did declare journalism as my major, but after one semester of introductory courses, I quickly learned it wasn't what I thought it would be. I was so football-obsessed, that I didn't even consider the fact that I would have to cover sports that I didn't like nor care about. I'll be the first to admit this has always been a flaw of mine, but I've never been able to force myself to do things I'm not passionate about or interested in. Unfortunately, I just wasn't interested in covering other sports, and I realized I had made a mistake in just picking a major based off of a hobby-like interest; however, during my first semester of college, I did find somewhat of a niche and a passion. I discovered how much I loved analyzing literature and writing.
English was always my best subject in high school, but in college I really started to excel. I made A+'s in my first 3 English courses, and since I was a journalism major I had to also to creative writing courses. I remember after my first creative writing class my teacher told me I had "real talent." This was pretty much all it took for a fickle college student to change their major, and so at that point I changed my major to English with a minor in Creative Writing. After I got my degree in English, I would move on to get my Master's degree in Creative Writing. I was going to write novels and teach at a university - you know, the dream of all English majors.
This lasted until I got a serious girlfriend mid-way through college who convinced me we were getting married as soon as we graduated. Since she was going into grad school immediately after, I would need to be able to get a job right away after I got my Bachelor's degree. I was far too deep into my English curriculum to make a drastic change, but obviously my idea of getting my Master's in Creative Writing would have to be put on the shelf. I went with only option I thought I had, and I swapped my major to a double-major of English and Secondary Education; so, now I was going to be a high school English teacher.
That relationship ended around a year after that decision was made, but due to adding Secondary Education onto my major, I had also added a year onto my school. I knew I didn't want to be a high school teacher, but I also was running out of time and money to change course yet again. I was twenty-one-years-old and I was definitely starting to panic because I still hadn't figured out "what I wanted to be when I grew up."
It was around this time I discovered I could play piano and sing (that's a whole other, crazy story). I think at that time I was desperate for "something new" and something to get me motivated and distracted from reality again; so, I took this new found talent of piano and I began to write music and lead worship for the campus ministry I was involved with and other churches that had me fill-in. I learned fairly quickly that there was never a shortage of churches or ministries looking for people to come in and help out with their worship, whether it be piano, singing, or leading the entire thing. My creativity from my writing courses came in handy too when it came to writing music and lyrics. Fickle and looking for anything, I decided at this time I was going to pursue a career in music and ministry.
The decision to add that fifth-year onto my college turned out to be a costly one when it came to my degree. While I did complete my curriculum, I found myself in a debt situation where my degree was essentially "frozen" until I could pay it off; so, I basically had no choice but to try and pursue music and ministry. I was still very green, though, when it came to both so most of my time was voluntary, and I worked in retail to pay my bills while hoping and paying for opportunities.
For someone with big dreams and who was always considered a brainiac their whole life, working retail was a very humbling experience. Ironically, though, I essentially had two job opportunities at the same time that allowed me to get out of retail: one was leading worship at a church in my hometown and the other was working with my dad in his accounting office.
The worship-leading job was one I held for a couple of years before giving it up. I learned pretty quick that it was not what I thought it would be, and definitely not for me, but I was glad for the experience. I still work with my dad to this day; however, seeing as my degree is in English (which is now "unfrozen" - I do officially have my degree now) I would say accounting is not exactly my forte.
I'll be thirty-two in a couple of months, and I still feel like I don't know what I want to be or what I'm supposed to do. I've been dealing with health issues the last three years that have made career decisions very difficult, but I do still have hopes and dreams and finding something, even if my health forces me to eventually work exclusively from home. I still have thoughts of writings novels or doing some types of creative process. I still like the idea of being a writing coach/teacher or an editor. I even have thoughts of getting into the podcasting/online media game.
As I type all of this out, though, I think about how fickle I've always been about commitment when it comes to what I want to do as a career. I wonder if it's a discipline problem on my part or perhaps it's that I don't quite fit into society's idea of a one-career path. I'm not really sure.
