What do you want to be when you grow up?

This is a question I'm sure many of us were asked when we were young and still one we might be asking ourselves now (it's never too late to change career, right?). At the end of the day it is unlikely we are all doing what we wanted to do when we were children, either because we were being unrealistic, hadn't thought it through properly or were just going through a phase of some sort. Despite this there are bound to be a few young boys and girls out there playing doctors and nurses right now who will eventually find themselves in one of those two professions. On the other side of the coin, however, there are going to be a lot of disappointed wannabe cowboys and Indians out there.

Today I had a thought, unrealistic as they may be these visions of our futures we had when we were young have got to tell us something about what drives us and what stimulates us as individuals. Perhaps if I listed them and could find some kind of commonality maybe it would give me a better idea of what I should be doing. Maybe.

Bear in mind, none of the following are particularly inventive:

Astronaut

At about 6 or 7 years old I had my first clear idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up and it was probably the most unrealistic occupation a child can dream of. An astronaut. I guess those of you who know me will know that i'm not writing this post from the International Space Station, so what went wrong? Well, I guess a couple of years past and I got a bit more realistic so I put my astronaut and spaceship toys I had my mother buy me away and moved on to the next great idea.


Fighter pilot

Having dismissed the idea of being an astronaut my brain took the next logical step. I decided to scale down to fighter pilot. Why a fighter pilot and not a regular pilot? Well becuase I got to blow things up and fly really fast of course! Well, yeah guess what, I'm not a pilot either! I had to rule flying out because after a visit to the opticians I was found to be not only short-sighted but also red-green colour blind and apparently being a pilot with those two isn't possible (or there are severe restrictions anyway).

Doctor

We've all been here right? I entertained this idea for a while right up until the point I realised I was looking away from the TV every time Casualty got even the slightest bit gruesome. Forget about real life surgeries being shown on TV, I absolutely cannot watch.

Marine biologist

One of my favourite Seinfeld scenes

After receiving a rather uninspiring Christmas present one year in the form of an illustrated wildlife encyclopedia I accidently stumbled upon the marine section. Fish like the whale shark that grow up to 40 feet, whales, flying fish and a plethora of other strange and wonderful marine life triggered something. I most definately wanted to be a marine biologist. In particular, I wanted to study the deep sea simply because every animal was so different to anything else I had ever seen. It felt like I had discovered aliens on earth. I proceeded to get my out my globe that had terrain markings and values on it and scoured it for the deepest of the worlds oceans. By the way, if you didn't know where the deepest part of the world's oceans is it is the Mariana Trench.

I guess you have gathered by now that I'm not writing this from a submersible under many atmospheres of pressure, simply because I was incredibly bad at biology at school. Like a lot of teaching children experience, I failed to see the connections between what I was learning and what I was interested in and so I chose not to pursue it further.

After racking my brain today for what connections there might be between the various things I wanted to grow up to be, what did I find? Not much to be honest, other than the fact that I wasn't particularly good at setting achievable goals for myself!

I'm gonna turn the question to you now, what did you want to be and are there any porn stars out there?