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 professional baseball.
Not once, in the history of childhood, has a kid said, "When I grow up, I want to sit in a conference room and review quarterly deliverables."
Yet here we are. Somewhere between sixth grade and adulthood, we traded the big dream for the comfortable calendar.
I am not saying the work is not important. I am saying that the work should be in service of something that actually matters to you — not the other way around.
The people who seem most alive in their careers are not the ones who love every meeting. They are the ones who can connect the mundane stuff to something they genuinely care about. They know why they are doing what they are doing, and that why is bigger than a performance review.
Think about what ten-year-old you would have said if you asked them what they wanted to do with their life. Before the practicality kicked in. Before someone told you what was realistic. Before you learned to shrink your ambition to fit what felt safe.
You do not have to go back to the baseball dream or the presidency. But somewhere between those original ideas and where you are now, there is probably a version of yourself that still wants something big and real and worth getting out of bed for.
You are allowed to want a career that lights you up. No kid ever dreamed about deliverables, and the best version of you never gave that dream up entirely — you just buried it under years of practicality.