I was at the mall on the weekend - I hate the mall and you can read why here if you'd like - and gravitated towards a couple of the bookstores because I'm always looking for books. I didn't buy anything for myself but came across a 300 page book on military jet aircraft and straight away decided I needed to buy it for @mrbonkers, my legit little nephew; the decision was easy considering the book was only $20 reduced from $45 and to be honest I'd have paid $65 if they'd asked it; anything for my nephew.
He wants to be a fighter pilot which is something I encourage.
He's not yet six and will probably change his mind many times in the next ten or so years but I don't want to squash his aspirations, rather, I'm all about promoting and supporting them and if he wants to be a fighter pilot than that's what I want for him too. He doesn't yet know that Sixth-Generation fighters will (almost certainly) be unmanned but he doesn't need to just yet, it's good enough that he's passionate about it.
The book is hard covered so will stand up to the abuse it may get, I know he'll go through it over and over, and has a lot of information on the military jets featured all of which he may not be able to read just yet but he will eventually and I hope it's something he keeps for a long time to come.
When I was his age I decided I wanted to be a firefighter.
There was something I found so appealing about it but as a five year old I didn't know what. Later, I came to realise that it was the helper-aspect, protecting people and property when they may not be able to protect themselves aspect, that I liked and which drew me to the profession. I started on the journey in my very late teens after desperately wanting to do the job since the age of five but they wanted me to wait until my early to mid twenties which annoyed me; angered me really.
Anyway, I found a way to help others elsewhere and in other ways thinking I'd do my time there and then get back to my dream of being a firefighter but it never happened; I was needed where I was, stayed around, and when that ended years later life took me in yet another unexpected and unplanned direction. Such is life.
How is this relevant? Well, when I was about the same age as @mrbonkers I was given a hard cover book about fire appliances (fire trucks) similar to the one about military jets above and I must have looked at that book, the pictures and read it, hundreds and hundreds of times since that day. Forty nine years later...yep, I still have it and to be honest I still think about wanting to be a firefighter; it's too late for that though, that horse has bolted.
I don't believe in the phrase, you can be anything you want to be, it's just not true...but a person can certainly bend their efforts towards the things they want and in the process clarity will come and that helps a person focus on chasing down their goals even though those goals will shift from time to time. This will happen with my nephew of course, but in the meantime I intend to feed his passions, to support the ideas he has and not limit or inhibit those in any way.
Do you recall wanting to do a job so badly when you were a little kid? What was it and do you recall why it attracted you? Did you manage to make it happen and if so was that difficult, or if not why? If you'd like to share you can do so below, but there's no pressure to comment, the choice lies with you.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
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Image(s) in this post are my own