What am I going to be when I grow up?

One of the biggest problems I run into when… What am I going to be when I grow up?

One of the biggest problems I run into when wrestling with this quandary is the sobering fact that by deciding what to do with my life, I’m simultaneously deciding not to do a wealth of other interesting things, namely everything else. This is a problem. It’s not the biggest problem, though. Not even close. The real problem is that whatever vocation I choose to pursue, I will, in a sense, become that vocation, while at the same time ceasing to be it at all. If you’re confused by all this, good. I am too.

To better explore this idea, let’s imagine an undergrad with an English writing track and an unnecessarily specific backstory. Let’s call him Eric.

Eric wants to be a writer.

The dream began in the second grade when he aced a pair of essays about Benjamin Franklin and hammerhead sharks. From there he went on to write movie reviews for his high school newspaper. Everyone agreed the reviews were funny, but several aroused suspicion that he watched only the trailers. Though the suspicions were more or less true, Eric enjoyed the accolades and a slice of his self-concept became tangled up with the notion that he was a good writer. Eventually, this notion convinced him that his calling was to write things down. “It’s all so obvious,” he realized one rainy Tuesday afternoon (because as a writer, he knew that rainy Tuesday afternoons are ideal for realizations). “I’ll become a writer.” And there Eric stands now, on the doorstep of a dream, laptop in hand, the whole world ahead of him.

This is where things will get really ugly, really fast.

Once he becomes a “writer,” he’ll no longer be a good writer at all. Compared to other writers, which is the only population against which a reasonable writer can compare his writings, he won’t stand out. He’ll fade into a bluish-gray haze of insignificance from which he’ll never emerge. He’ll be average. Mediocre. In becoming what he was “great” at, he’ll have forfeited his greatness.

And this will suck. And the realization that “suck” is the only way he can describe such a colossal disappointment will suck even worse.

This is my problem. I’m paralyzed by a fear that someday in the not-too-distant future I’ll be struck between the eyes by the cold, hard reality that I just don’t have what it takes. There’s a distinct possibility that I’m not special, and I’m not sure I can handle the truth. I suspect I’m not alone on this.

As a child, I was reasonably good friends with a kid who played basketball in middle school. Scott was great. I don’t mean he was great in the sense that he had a peach-fuzz mustache and was taller than everyone – he was great like Hendrix with an upside down guitar on three hits of acid. He played with a grace and fluidity that could, and often did, make you stop mid-game in wonderment of how someone could make something so hard look so easy.

One lazy afternoon at the YMCA, Scott went up for a rebound and came down teary eyed. His shoulder had torn out of its socket. What came next for that shoulder was a barrage of surgeries and rehab sessions, but no basketball. The tendon didn’t heal right and he never played again. At 14, his greatest gift had been suddenly and cruelly snatched away.

And I was jealous.

I wasn’t jealous of Scott because he had lost his “greatness.” I was jealous because he would never have to find out it was imaginary. (I was also jealous because his girlfriend let him sleep with her. We were 14.)

Scott wouldn’t have to follow a great high school career with three middling seasons as a borderline starter on a Division II team before realizing one summer while practicing jump shots in his parents’ driveway that he was never that good to begin with. Because it never came under attack, his sense of his own greatness will sit forever unblemished in a glass case in his psyche. By losing basketball, he got to hold onto it forever.

Obviously I didn’t think about it in those terms when I was 14. I’m not even sure I recognized my emotive state as jealousy – at 14 I wasn’t in the business of recognizing emotive states, and I certainly wasn’t in the business of using words as pretentious as “emotive” – but I nevertheless felt his injury had earned him a sort of permanent hall pass. I still do.

I suppose I just wanted to say that the fear of chasing a dream is probably the most valid fear a person can have. Pursuing something you love takes a lot of balls – or, I guess, ovaries – because there is so much at stake. When you put all of yourself into something you’re in a very real – albeit highly metaphoric – way, risking your life.

I’m not ready to take the plunge.

Incidentally, the loss of basketball sent Scott into a dark tailspin he was too broken to pull himself out of. He’s now an emotionally devastated heroin addict. He might actually be dead now. I’m not really sure. You can reach Tom at [email protected], but he is not sure how you can reach Scott.