I wanted to be a palaeontologist. Ended up working in IT. It’s okay and a comfortable job, but I sometimes wish I worked with animals (living ones, not fossilised) instead of computers.

I wanted to be a writer or maybe an artist. I figured I had to do something creative and big, because I could never picture myself doing a normal 9-5 with a wife and kids or whatever. I was smart, but I was a bad student and couldn’t force myself to put in the work.

Turns out it was just undiagnosed ADHD. Now I work as a systems analyst (Excel guy) with a wife and two kids. Later today or tomorrow it’ll be three kids.

I’m lucky. My job is interesting sometimes, but mostly it’s easy and I get to spend the important parts of my day being a dad, which it turns out I love.

Sometimes I draw for fun as a creative outlet. I’ve made a few webcomics. I’m working on a longer comic for my daughter featuring a character she made up called “Princess Super Speed Girl”.

When I was a kid, about 4 or 5 years old, I was at the barbers getting my hair cut. The barber was making small talk with my mother and I. He asked me “what do you want to be when you grown up?”. I panicked, nobody had ever asked me that before. I’d never even considered it. I didn’t have an answer. I assumed I’d have more time to ponder that in the future, but he is asking me now. I was a very nerdy know-it-all kid who always had the correct answer ready for any question that someone would ask me, but not this, I didn’t know what the correct answer was.

I wanted this barber to like me, he was a popular and well known barber in our town. I didn’t want to make something up the he disapproved of. So I said the only logical thing. “I want to be a barber when I grow up”. He was shocked. He said no kid has ever told him they want to be a barber before, and it’s an odd choice, be he was still pleased, so I did a good job.

The only problem was, now I had said that, I thought it was locked in, and I couldn’t change it anymore. So for a couple of years after that, whenever anyone asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I looked resigned, got sad and reluctantly said “a barber”.

Then when I was 8 I finally worked out I could change my choice, so I changed it to Chef, because I loved food and enjoyed cooking.

Now I’m neither a barber nor a chef.

I wanted to be like my father, and do his same job.

Turns out my father is not a good person, my school life sucked (partly because of this), so I took what jobs I could find. I was lucky to be technically inclined in an area where there’s much room for growth for technical people.

as I kid I wanted not to that existential crisis.

that question sent me spiraling with severe existential dread.

I wanted to do IT and I’m doing IT.

Likely related to being neurodivergent. There are also a lot of things I was told I’d change my opinion on later like tastes for food or politics but nope, didn’t change.

As a kid: the usual stuff like a pilot or whatever.

Im an accountant now. Long enough that the money is good, but its destroying my soul.

I’m working on switching to something more fulfilling.

I wanted to be a veterinarian till I worked for one and realized I wasn’t up for that much people-ing. I’m a programmer now and am comfortable with my choices.

I don’t remember being a kid so teenager will have to do. I wanted to be a rock star. I was a good musician and played in several local bands. Punk, metal, alternative. But I live in a smallish southern town. Not a lot of opportunities for us “queer artsy types”. So I work in IT. And while I do have a retirement account and a good credit score, it’s definitely not what I ever expected to be when I grew up.

i wanted to be rich when I was a kid, but it turns out you have to be a soulless monster that steps on people to get ahead in the corporate world and I’m not about that.

I also wanted to work in computers or making video games. I learned that making games is a soul crushing job, so I shied away from that and ended up working as a Software Engineer, so yeah, I nailed that dream. I’ll just stick to playing games.

I wanted to be a race car driver. Literally had no other ambitions, that’s all I wanted, and I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be. Well we grew up homeless and I didn’t realise it was something only wealthy families could afford to support.

Turns out I couldn’t be anything I wanted to be.

I work in I.T. now. It’s fine, pays the bils. I built myself a pretty decent sim racing rig so although it’s not the same thing, it somewhat scratches the itch.

I wanted to be a pilot. As a kid I was obsessed with flight simulators and tried to learn as much about aviation on my own in a time before internet access was ubiquitous. In high school I read up on the requirements to get into flight school and tried my best to prepare.

Then my parents bought me a guitar, and I did not become a pilot.

As a kid, I wanted to be a scientist of some sort. As an adult, I work in retail and live at home with my parents. I hate my life.

As a child, I wanted to be a zoologist.

Later during my teens I wanted to be an artist. And I did.

I pursued the arts for a very long time. Started as a silversmith while I was still in my teens, a career that lasted about 15 years give or take. Meanwhile I kept studying arts. I managed to get some illustrations published but it wasn’t a lot. As my silversmith era was ending, I got into 3D design/VFX. I managed to work for a small studio for two years. Best job in my whole life, unfortunately it ended too roughly with a mix of industry collapse, burnout and personal relationship problems all entangled.

That was a couple years ago and in spite of my best efforts I couldn’t get a job in 3D ever again. This in turn drove me into depression, of which I’m crawling out of, currently holding a job in retail ( I jumped from one retail place to another until I found a decent work environment) but unfortunately my creative side is not giving any signs of life. The current AI debacle adds insult to injury, discouraging sharing new work at all if I had anything substantial to produce.

It’s shit. But it used to be great. I wonder if there’s something of Phoenix in me or if I’m just a pile of ashes. Only time will tell but the years keep piling up and things don’t improve.