Be

Fill up your mind with all it can know / What would we be without wishful thinking?
-Wilco, “Wishful Thinking”


When I was little, these are the things I wanted to be when I grew up:

1. Zookeeper
2. Astronaut
3. Writer (thanks to my 3rd grade teacher)
4. Botanist (in 4th grade I loved plants, quite a lot, haha)
5. Teacher, but still had astronaut leanings
6. Teacher (realized that there are now machines instead of astronauts)
7. Scientist, biology of any sort
8. M.D.

There are, of course, other jobs that I have wanted (and had!), the kind of jobs that you think, "At some point in my life, I would like to have the experience of being a ---" and then you do it. (That's why, for example, I was a waitress the summer before last (loved it), and, that’s also why I’m writing to you from Uganda.) One thing I haven't done that I really want to do is get a temporary job as a flower delivery person for Valentine's Day. I think that this could possibly be the best job ever- you get to give random people flowers and make them smile about love, all day long. Heck, you wouldn't even have to pay me, I would do it for free, using my own car. Someday, I will do this. Anyway, that's not the point.

The point is this- when you're little, people ask you what you want to be when you grow up.

Today I was brainstorming possible projects to do here at my organization... I was thinking of starting a nurse shadowing program for the secondary school students who are interested in going to nursing school. I was wondering how many students might be interested in such a program, and then I realized- maybe no one. I realized, with an awful, immediate certainty that brought tears to my eyes: here, no one asks what you will be when you grow up.

I don't know why, but I hadn't really thought about it before. Here, particularly for girls, there is no planning for your future, no high school counselor, no career day, no unsatisfying personality/aptitude test to see whether you should be a doctor or a florist. (I always get florist; maybe my future Valentine’s Day job is what it’s all about, after all.) But here, there is no “exploring future career options,” no summer science camp, no take-your-daughter-to-work day, no dreaming of going to the moon in a rocket ship.

I never really realized that asking, “What do you want to be?” is not just asking what you might like to do, it’s implying that you need to be something, that you need to do something with your life. No one implies that here, particularly for women.

In America, I actually think we imply it too much- does little Suzie really need to be an Arabic, Chinese, and English-speaking star soccer player, oil painter, concert violinist, and math club president by the time she's six years old? No, what she needs to do is go play in the dirt, because she has years ahead of her to think about what she wants to be. And, people my age are often annoyed by the question- they don’t know what they want to “be,” even after college (or after Peace Corps!), and they don’t enjoy people implying that they should know, now, or ever. I can sympathize, but—if you are annoyed by the question of what you’re going to be—know that being annoyed by such a question is a luxury. Some people are never asked, never expected of, never encouraged to be.

It’s ironic- earlier this month I was lamenting to Min about how planned-out my life is: 4 years of high school, 4 years of college (with 10-week quarters, and you always knew what number week it was), 27 months of Peace Corps, 4 years of medical school, then residency… but now I am thankful for that seemingly rigid, by-the-numbers plan, I am thankful that I have a plan at all, I am thankful that people encouraged me to plan, I am thankful for “Expanding Your Horizons” and “Star-Spangled Summer” in elementary school, I am thankful for middle school assemblies that I dozed through, I am thankful for Mrs. Bergsmann, who at 9:30 filled out my UofC recommendation letters and at 10:30 encouraged the other girls at my high school to at least think about enrolling in junior college, even if they were pregnant, and I am thankful that there was a whole office of “Career and Placement Services” at UofC— no matter how unhelpful they were, at least they existed.

Mostly, I am thankful that people asked me the question, “What do you want to be?”

And so, slightly disheartened, my brainstorming continued. The schools here are on holiday right now—the equivalent of summer vacation—but I hope to arrange a meeting with the headmistresses sometime next month. In addition to (or before) a nurse shadowing program, maybe we can start a guidance counselor program, a let’s-think-about-future-careers program, a be something program. Or, at least just institute the idea of thinking more than a year in advance. I’ll let you know how it goes.



To conclude-
What YOU can do, today:
Find a little girl, and ask her what she wants to be when she grows up. It doesn't matter whether she wants to be a zookeeper or an astronaut or a waitress or a doctor or a florist— you'll do her more good than you can ever ever know, just by asking.