I want to be an author / actor / script writer poet / human rights or immigration lawyer / UN ambassador / artist -with my own gallery /light-aircraft pilot / spy.

Right now I'm none of these things but there's still time....I hope.

oh and book store owner !

what i really wanted to study

was art therapy.

but i realized

i wasn’t good enough in the art part.

because how could your works

unfold as art

if you are too shy

to put pieces of your soul into it.

your stories, your past, your experiences, fears and dreams.

i realized

when i saw the other youngsters undressing to their core,

while i had put off my boots

and felt

exposed already.

so

at the moment

i really couldn’t say.

Good question to ask about what careers we may want.

I thought it would be a writer.

I thought it would be a traveller.

Both are privileged roles that seem to benefit from a patron, to possess a position free from responsibility. But such roles cannot be a foundation for a life. Such roles in their ‘purest’ form leave the writer or traveller free of the flaws that life demands: a partner, children, a job. They cut into writing and travelling time. Yet without the demands of life, what would a writer really have to write about?

In some Africa philosophy, a person is only a person through other people.

The kind of people I knew from my family led selfish lives. My father would cancel the few birthdays we tried to organise. To organise my parties after leaving home was a defiant and sacrilegious affair, always conducted with the stressful tension of swimming against what I had always known.

Career-wise as a youth, I wanted to be satisfied with matters other than success. I remember thinking that promotions and money were tricks for fools that distracted from the innerlife. Yet as I near death I need to leave some interaction with the world. Either a life, literature or some resonance of who on earth I might be.

At birth we enjoy an infinite potential of possibilities. As we grow older, our life becomes more situated - our choices are closed off for partners, jobs, hobbies etc, doors of other jobs or other partners are closed. But those things that remain seem innately significant, regardless of their quality or objective worth.

The desire for freedom in the Western world has dislocated us from some useful experiences. The nuclear family - a supposed freedom from place and connection to kinship - is inadequate in raising children. Total sovereignty over ourselves is rarely achieved, and Eastern philosophies that aim for total self-discipline actually seek the destruction of ego. Instead, consider that some commitment, some love for a role, for people, for things, for finiteness in this world, and hope that might lead to satisfaction.

Part-time writer it is then ;-)

I'd do nothing.

I'd do all my usual hobbies all day long, maybe workout and cook more often, visit friends and family more often, and meditate like I know I should but never do.

I'd take up star gazing maybe - after moving away from the employer-driven cities with their congestion and noise and industry and live in a nice quiet cabin.

I might try gardening. I dunno. Maybe I'd just make friends with a gardener and figure out some other way to barter for a share of their vegetables, like hunt down killer bugs or tend bees.

I'd read every bloody day - not just little bits here and there, but like a whole work of fiction every afternoon and evening.

I'd volunteer my time to whatever community group fit my groove, and I'd do that at least three times a week - including those precious weekends because everyday would be a weekend for me.

I'd sing and learn to dance, maybe invest in an actual karaoke machine and host sing-a-long's at my cabin where nobody can hear you but the birds (who are horribly offended at your feeble attempts).

I'd just live, not defined by my productivity or my efficiency or my ability to produce some kind of good or service for others. Just by my changing interests and random flights of fancy. By my creative urges and inner curiosity. By my carefully tended network of friends and acquaintances.

And gosh does that sound awesome.

Maybe I'll just do it now - I've got a few hours to kill after work today.

Why not.

My ultimate goal is to advance into a proficient writer and has been since 2016, following a brief moment of self-reflecting on my past. It was right then and there when I realized I had a story that was screaming to be told. A book of blank pages where the chapters already exist, but can’t be filled in until the ‘chapters of life’ have been been experienced. My ultimate dream is to write a memoir, but again, my ultimate goal is to make a career as an every writer. To write short pieces of nonfiction as well as my own personal essays that are based on realistic experiences and true events that transpired in my life. Topics including addiction & recovery, mental health disorders, my encounters with brain injury, near death experiences, not once or twice, but three different times. The pain I endured, the challenges I faced and the tears I cried for years on end. Last, but not least, the outcome and results that shaped my life today. First and foremost, to inspire others who are sprinting through the flames of hell in the same shoes as I did. My ideal career of becoming an established writer is to not only do something that infuses me with pleasure, but to make a difference in the world. Whether I leave a positive impact on one life or one million lives, then I fulfilled one of my purposes and reasons for breathing.

Stage acting is so dynamic and full of excitement from the beginnng of production past closing night. I'm not comfortable to perform myself, but I have so much creativity and story-telling that I'd love to design sets and build them. I'd have to get really creative artistically, even more creative with budget, and the stress of time and performance would keep me on my toes. Production after production, always moving forward, always creating, always entertaining, evolving, that would be the life.

I will repeat this quote until the end of time:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou summarizes here my life goal to become a social worker.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, so to speak. I want a life where my deep feelings for others helps them with their struggles, makes them in turn lead their lives with feeling.

I want people to feel good about themselves and their lives.

Above all, I feel the need to give back to my community. For the help I have received.

There is nothing to give but gratitude.

And maybe I can help someone discover this themselves.

When you're 16 everyone starts asking you ' what are going to do after school?' After that milestone it's 'what college will you attend?' Don't even get me started on the blind date or bioligic clock references. Ask if we don't know we're single and getting older. Ive thought about this a lot. And I've concluded what I want is simply.

I want to have a family.

I want to be a wife. Maybe not a love story as grand as Elizabeth Bennett but something unique and original would be nice. You know the look on a mans face when he sees his wife in her wedding dress for the first time? I want that.

Families means children and I think I would be ok with one, or maybe two. Babies with their soft skin and chubby fingers; toddlers screaming and throwing tantrums. And of course, teen's. I think I would regret not choosing my family as my career. Career can flunctuate based on the state of the world. I think I'd rather a career that I can control.

One business owner-my husband and myself

One CEO- me

and future senior excecutives- my children

What else could be more rewarding than that?

I'm going to take the liberty of adding "...if current financial obligations were not a deterrent" to the instructions for this challenge. With that in mind, I'll say that I'd become a travel photographer or photojournalist.

As I've gotten older, I've also gotten better at getting out of my head and really looking around. You know what? There is a LOT to see. This world is huge, and most of it is beautiful and good. It can also be alarming and strange. Sometimes it's just bizarre.

Every second that our eyes are open, there's a chance for us to witness a moment that no one else will ever experience unless we capture it through art and share it.

We owe that to each other.

You can become rich at anything

provided you

love it enough

practice it enough

and seek out others who love what you do enough

to pay you for it.