Your Mother

Secure the Future

When we were five, our parents asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. We answered with such things as fire trucks, princesses or in my case… A Violinist.

They asked us again when we were ten, this time our answers were something like actors, Superheroes or in my case… A Doctor.

Now we’ve reached year 11 and we are ‘young adults’ and we are supposed to have our whole lives figured out, but really? Who knows?

Deep down inside we are all still those little Five-year-old girls, but the difference is now, everyone wants a serious answer. You know to ‘Secure the Future’, I don’t know about you, but the expectations people have for us these days force me into a nervous breakdown. ‘What if I disappoint them’, ‘What if I fail’, these questions run through my mind in constant loops, round and round, round and round.

Whatever happened to being a kid? Where the world wasn’t sitting on our shoulders. Where we could get things wrong and everyone would look at us and let out an adoring ‘Aww’. I miss those days, when I wasn’t using all my time and energy into trying to be the ‘Perfect child’.

This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, its time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy 'cause there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent.

So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… we won't have to guess. We'll know.