When I was little (up to about puberty), I wanted to be a vet. I decided 12 years of college was more than I wanted to endure.
Through my teenage years, I wanted to be a trauma nurse or a combat medic or a disaster relief worker (think Doctors Without Borders). Then I chickened out and decided that two out of the three would take me too far from home and that I was prolly too stupid to hold peoples' lives in my hands.
Decided to become a teacher. Didn't have the PC social skills for it.
Decided to become a writer. Hated the pretension of it, and trying to force it to yield on command pretty much killed the spring, so to speak.
So I became a SAHM with four kids and a lot of pets, which tidily combines elements of all the professions I have considered, with the possible exception of combat medic.
My baby is going to school soon. Guess I need to get back to thinking about what I want to do when I grow up.
Is "small-scale homesteader and community volunteer" a career???
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"