I'm currently teaching a trio of public speaking courses for the local community college. In order to get all of these fearful young adults to engage themselves in speaking in front of others without passing out or puking, I commonly use impromptu speeches. Just little one to two minutes talks about random topics that they either choose or I decide on ... depending on my mood that day. During the last set of speeches I had several students (mostly sophomore high school students enrolled in college courses) decide on the prompt: What I will be when I grow up. Many of them said they wanted to be musicians, artists, soccer players, and runners. I even had one brave soul say he wanted to be a newspaper reporter. Maybe he was being honest, maybe he was sucking up. Either way, it was interesting to hear all of their different dreams and desires. 
It got me thinking, am I doing today what I dreamed about doing as a kid? The answer is yes, kind of. See, I always wanted to be a writer. After winning a second grade writing contest, which may have been rigged in order to make the new kid feel welcome in a new class, I thought writing could be my thing. I wanted to cover baseball and football games. Interview athletes. Write the story. Then in 5th grade, I pondered being a professional X-Games athlete. Suppose it's a good thing that didn't turn out because as I am notoriously accident-prone, I would have had more trips to the hospital than I had. I went back to writing and haven't really switched since. I'm curious to know what the percentage of people who stick with their "What I'll do when I grow up" plan.
My mom always said I should be a teacher. She was right. Don't tell her. And, if all plays out, I think I'll do both. But for now, I'm in the one of those dream realized kind moment. I haven't have a center piece sports feature in the paper since I was working for my college newspaper. This Sunday, I get one in a smidge bigger publication.
I hope/wonder if my students will have the same luck I have had making their "What I'll do when I grow up" plans work out. Yet again, not sure I'm finished growing up. I still eat all the crunch berries out of the Captain Crunch.
