When I was in the 6th grade, I told my teacher I wanted to be the President of the United States of America. My second choice for a career was to play in the NBA.
Neither of those things happened.
But I remember the certainty of those answers. The complete absence of self-doubt. The idea that anything was possible and the only question was which dream to chase. Nobody told me to be realistic. Nobody said "that's a big goal, but have you considered something more attainable?" I just... believed it.
No kid ever dreams about being in back-to-back meetings for eight hours straight. No kid fantasizes about building a PowerPoint for a Q3 business review. No kid lies awake excited about their annual performance cycle.
And yet here we are. Most of us spending the majority of our waking hours doing exactly those things — and wondering why it feels hollow.
I'm not saying the work you do isn't important or meaningful. A lot of it is. But I am saying: when's the last time you thought about what you actually wanted when you had no concept of what was "realistic"? When's the last time you gave yourself permission to want something big, something unconventional, something that reconnects you to that 6th-grade version of yourself who hadn't yet been told what was possible?
The goals might change. The path will definitely look different. But the energy behind that kind of wanting — the unfiltered, unbounded kind — is exactly the kind of fuel that builds careers worth having.
What did you want before someone talked you out of wanting it?
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