No one has ever gotten away from the "what do you want to be?" question. The only difference is when it turned from idle question into nagging reminder that your life was, as of yet, unfulfilled and you weren't on the Right Track to have a really good Plan.
There's a fabulous quote from the poet James Tate from an essay he wrote on poets/poetry and where his poetic originated:
As a child I was exasperated by the question: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Here you are, six years old, you know, trying to put together this little model airplane, and they say, 'What are you going to be?' I just wanted to say, 'I'm going to be seven. Next year I'm going to be eight. Leave me alone ... Whatever it is I'm going to be, let it be a surprise. Or I'd rather be nothing at all. And if you keep asking me this I'm probably just going to be a guy who avoids interviews.'
"The question persisted, but at the age of seven I started getting cagey and hit on an answer that got these people off my back. I told them I was going to be a writer, and that silenced them right away. And I went back to kicking my pet squirrel."
The question we pose: When did "what do you want to be?" go from friendly question to crazy, impossible, unbearable pressure?
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