Living Like Peter Pan (Tights Optional)

In a blog I posted on Tuesday about a networking event that I attended I posted the questions that were discussed during the meeting. One of the questions has continued to linger in my mind for the past week and is now prompting me to record my thoughts on the subject. “What did you want to be when you grew up? In what ways does your current job resemble parts of that early ambition?”

My response to this question during the event was typical of many men my age… growing up I wanted to be a professional baseball player. Really you can insert any kind of professional athlete and you would describe about 95% of the male population. Once many of us realize that that would take some level of athletic ability the dream slowly fades and reality takes hold of our lives.

Later in life, in my early twenties, I wanted to write for a living. My primary genre was poetry but I knew that I would never be able to make a living creating poems. Having published in numerous literary journals and even having my own book put out by a publisher made that reality very clear… I would have to find another genre if I was going to support myself.

I still write both personally (obvious if you are reading this) and professionally and I am never happier when I am able to write something that has particular meaning for me or that has a demonstrated impact on others. This blog has been that source of creative happiness that has long been absent. I have read comments and gotten feedback that has made me continue to push to get out a blog every day and keep pushing to improve.

This leads me back to the question posed above. For me, what it really comes down to is that when we are kids we want to continue to do what we enjoy… this is what we want to do when we grow up. So later in life we must ask the child imprisoned within each of us whether we enjoy the work that we are doing (whether as a profession or a hobby). Does the daily joy and hope from childhood remain in our consciousness?

For me, I am enjoying writing again. This is what I want to continue to do when I grow up and something that I will continue to work at and hopefully will be able to apply in my next position. Creativity is my passion and writing is my method of expression and so long as I continue to write I will forever be an incarnation of J. M. Barrie’s imagination.