When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be....

I met up with an athlete friend of mine today and he told me what could be some terrible news, but with a smile on my face. "They laid off my entire department. Everyone. Come June, I'm out of there." He worked for a giant bank (no surprise) but was delighted - he had been sick of the changes at his bank, and now, he gets to focus on training, on doing his athletic business.


"I wish my ultrarunning could become a career," I told him.


"Maybe, someday, it can. This is my dream," he told me.


(I hope he got a good severance too, to help him fund his dream!)


In the midst of all of this, my boss has asked us to brainstorm what we'd like our department to look like. It's more of a business plan, but I'm calling it "My Dream." I'm reworking my role here, hoping to make my job even more interesting and useful and something new and fun, hoping to get it nearer to my dream, but it will get there eventually....or I will.


What is my dream job? What's anyone's? I have a bunch of ideas and nothing that I'll be accomplishing this year. But at least my job is interesting, challenging, lots of learning, making a difference in the world, and I like most of the people I work with - all of these things are HUGE for me.


Remember when you were little and people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. Maybe you said an astronaut (but then you realized physics was too hard) or a ballerina (but you suffered from arthritis at the age of 17) or a cop (but then you realized cops don't always want to help people) or a lawyer (but you realized the barriers against women lawyers are insurmountable) or the president (that's a stainless steel, not a glass ceiling, for women) or a doctor or, or, or...


What did you become? Why?


When I was little, I said a writer or a poet. I still want to be that.


What's your dream job?