Very simple question — what did you want to be when you grew up? And did you achieve it? Are you in the process of achieving it, or did you take your life on a completely different tangent?
When I was a kid it changed constantly. For a long time I wanted to be a professional football player — but I was never anywhere close to good enough.
Then I wanted to be a pirate. Mostly because I spent a massive majority of my time playing and replaying Monkey Island.
And finally, by the time I became a weird, moody intense teenager I wanted to be a writer. I feel kinda lucky that I somehow managed to get there in some shape or form.
What about you guys and girls?
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103 responses to “Off Topic: What Did You Want To Be When You Grew Up?”
A principal. Or a caterpillar.
Late serious answer.
I’ve always wanted to be a writer but never known what I wanted to write. So high school and university were experiments with different writing styles. Turns out that was all pointless because Doc and Shiggy asked me to write for Potaku and I realised that’s what I enjoy the most. 😛
Always be yourself, unless you can be a Unicorn. Then be a Unicorn.
Always wanted to be a vet, or work in a zoo.
When I got older and realised how much school I had to do to achieve this, I gave up 😛
I wanted to work in a zoo…. or with food.
Wish i could have combined the two, but now I’m just lost 😛
Just go to the zoo, stick your arm in the lion’s cage, and you’ve made it! You made it! 😉
I’m kinda torn between being a game dev, Web designer and a computer repairman.
I went between actor and game dev. At the moment game dev’s the only one i’m making progress on 😛
I wanted to be a game dev since i was 12. Became a game dev and found that I enjoy playing games a lot more than i do than dealing with the politics of game development world.
Being a system admin and webcomic artist are good enough for the time being.
I’m making my first game in Unity, It’s so easy to learn it should be illegal. I think my first game is very generic and won’t be successful at all, but it’s so nice to know that I’ve actually made one (almost)!
At the moment I’m finding making games more enjoyable than playing them, but that might just be the initial rush of excitement that comes with learning something new.
If anybody wants to develop games and has no idea where to start, it has never been easier than it is right now to have a crack at it. Pick up Unity, or gamemaker or Construct2 or flash and have a go.
Well I’ve started making my first game in RPG maker. It’s really easy to use because you don’t actually need to know much code. The only thing I’ve found annoying is that it limits the tile-sets.
Its definately better to work on your own projects (I still code my own projects). It is much more difficult to work in a team with deadlines and explaining to investors why you are taking so long.
It is very easy these days for independants to release their games as Apps, or via Steam etc. so there are many avenues to do it.
I wanted to be a game dev when I grew up.
I grew up and became a game dev.
There’s not a lot of people out there that can genuinely say they are in the profession they wanted to be in as a kid, but I can genuinely say that.
To be honest, I wanted to be a game developer, either artist or programmer. Got my dream job at 24, but then the industry kinda died in Aus. So now I’m just a regular programmer, who does game jams on the side. Job stability is nice tho 🙂
Here here! I’m in the same boat haha
Which one of you is Michael?
Ditto, though it’s been super tough having to kind of let go of the dream. Plus I only learnt how to program so that I could make games. It’s kind of boring without that end goal.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an AFL footballer, then when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a writer…
Now… I don’t know what I want to be….
Batman
I’ve decided that if my partner and/or family ever die under tragic circumstances while I’m under 40, that’s what I will do.
Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before the realization that vigilante detective work is really risky and difficult and morally unsound kicks in and I’d stop pitying myself and grow up and move on.
I actually became Batman.
No super criminals, so it was really really really boring.
I dunno man. The best part of any of the movies is when the folks playing as you get to show how awesome you are by beating the snot out of and terrifying hapless mooks. I mean, I always figured the hapless mooks are the mudcake in the mudcake, supervillains are the icing; icing being the only part you see from the outside, but not the bulk of the job.
I’m not sure but I know it wasn’t this.
Bingo!
I laughed.
Then I cried.
Then I ate cake.
Not really, there is no cake.
Oh god.
Why.
When I was a kid I had developed a talent for speaking and I liked arguments. I became aware that lawyers made a lot of money, and the applicable job skills seemed to be the ability to talk a lot and be good at arguing. Putting this information together, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer.
Of course, I was terrible at doing school things, I hated homework, never applied myself, etc. I was tremendously lazy and I’m probably a lot dumber than I think I am. Naturally, I didn’t get the grades needed to study law. In fact when I did study at university I continued to fail to apply myself and ultimately dropped out for financial reasons. I hope if I was studying something I was actually interested in I would have tried harder to support myself with part time work and been able to afford to keep studying, but it’s hard to know for sure.
After drifting aimlessly for a few years I wound up in insurance, and now I do liability claims, where most of my job is probably similar to the work lawyers do, just less complex and I don’t have to account for my time as stringently. Since a bunch of people who actually finish their law degrees wind up hating the work and fall into insurance anyway, I feel like I’m as close to my goal as I would have been even if I had followed a different path.
I’d like to earn a shitload more money though.
Interestingly enough, I was at court yesterday and ran into a guy I’d known at university back in 2001 who was doing a combined Health/Law degree. He’s my age (30) and has aleady been a barrister for 4 years now. I congratulated him on his accomplishments, but he didn’t seem to think they were all that noteworthy.
Success is relative, I suppose.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Then in year ten I found out that my eyes were irreparably fucked… & I just stopped caring about school anymore.
I barely passed year 12, & went to work in retail.
Now I don’t know what I want to do… but it isn’t this.
You have a job?
I managed to work my way up from cleaning toilets to filing away paperwork.
I think I preferred cleaning toilets :-/
Yeah, I work as a clark in a hospital.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet. Until the day I wandered into the back room at the local vet, saw a dog on the operating table, and realised it involved cutting animals open.
These days the desire (I hesitate to say dream) to do game dev is still there, but I’m not really a fan of the industry and career possibilities. Eh, still work in I.T, just need to start a personal project in my spare time for a bit of fun.
Archaeologist. Until I meet one, and he was nothing like Indiana Jones.
I wanted to be… a lumberjack.
That’s OK
Sleeping all night and working all day.
Yeah the good life.
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch… 😀
Archaeologist.
…
Or a writer.
Hellooooo Indy!
That movie had a profound effect on my childhood. 😛
I wanted to be a time travelling teen with a crazy old scientist buddy. 😀
I wanted to be an artist, but it is difficult to get work in that field. I am currently a civil engineering student.
My Dad. He was a firefighter and saved peoples lives. Before that he was in vietnam working rescue services. His mate told me a story about how they flew in two rescue choppers to rescue some downed flight crew and were themselves shot down. Said it took ten minutes for the first chopper to circle back around safely to evac them. In that time they had to hide and pray they werent killed. Told me my Dad saved him by shooting someone who was shooting at him. *Edit* My father was not a soldier as per se, just rescue services and not used to shooting at people, it’s not something he’s proud of but something he knew he had to do being put in that situation *finish edit* It’s something my Dads never talked about but my mother and I have extensively. My Dad saved lives all his life in one way or another and has major ptsd hes never let conquer him. At 36 I STILL hope I grow up to be half the man he is to me and my family.
Archaeologist. Then after seeing Jurassic Park Paleontologist.
I wanted to be a cartoonist.
I’m not a cartoonist but I still draw occasionally for fun.
yep 🙁
I don’t think I ever wanted to be something as a kid.
I guess that would explain my directionless meandering through life.
Some of the best discoveries were made by accident. Maybe you’ll meander your way into something awesome.
If you look into it, infact most of the major discoveries were in some way shape or form ‘stumbled upon’ 🙂 it’s awesome to find out the ways in which they were. Einstein was a classic for it.
A storyteller, the medium has varied, author having the most stating power likely by virtue of it being storytelling in one of its purest forms. Still want to be that when I grow up (do we ever stop? :P). I love stories, and would love to impart them.
And I do sleep science… soooo… not exactly… for the moment.
Staying power ^
Off to a good start >_>
Wanted to be a range of things, carpenter, athlete, movie star, work in games and more. But at 23 still trying to figure out what to do.
My grandfather was a carpenter and my dad has recently taken it up as a hobby. I was always fond of woodworking and joinery. It seems to be in our blood. Maybe when I’m 50 I’ll suddenly throw off my corporate shackles and start handcrafting furniture.
Hopefully Potaku either opens up some doors or turns into a thing 🙂
Id love it to but if it doesn’t, I won’t be upset because it’s been fun the entire time.
Awesome attitude!
But seriously, the difference between ShiggyHost in series one and ShiggyHost last series (I’m behind ok> BACK OFF!) is substantial. 😀
You seem to be really happy doing all that stuff which is a good image 🙂
Keep at it, man 🙂
Thanks bro! Means a lot. When you gonna be doing more comic stuff, I miss it!
When @doc_what is free to help
You need my help on articles?
Huh? I see. Yeah no. I misunderstood his question.
The other stuff, as of last night I have free time again so I will look over your stuff!
Yeah, cool.
Well, if Harrison Ford and Jesus are anything to go by then Carpentry is a pretty rock-solid place to start a career.
Computer Programmer… got laughed at for that in primary school… haha
Then changed to wanting to be a Computer Technician… and now I am… lol
I wanted to be a WRITER \o/
Maybe one day.
But I think some things are more important than vocation. And I think I’ve always know that. I just wanted to be a good person. While the definition of that has changed from valiant hero-type to decent husband and provider, I think the underlying concept is the same, and I’m by-and-large being true to the dreams of that kid I once was.
That’s really nice. I honestly wish more people had ambitions to just be decent human beings.
I live by that, being a good person I mean.
But there is a big hole in my life creatively that I need to fill.
I couldn’t live without my writing, man. That’s a science fact.
I’ve always just wanted to know how things work and be able to fix stuff. I considered becoming a doctor, but developed a squeemishness in my teens. So I became an engineer and qualified scientician instead. I still wish I knew how more things worked and that I could fix more things, but I’m getting there.
Paleontologist. Dinosaurs are rad.
Wanted to do Law for a while in high school because of the Ace Attorney games ;D
Aren’t you studying business?
And the dinosaurs who wrote our economic principles.
Yeah but only because I still don’t know what to do and Business is pretty broad and general.
Paleontologist. Dinosaurs are rad.
Also dabbled with the idea of archeology or marine biology
But really had no idea so just drifted through high school and ended up with a “Well I might as well do something with computers”
‘Is anybody here a marine biologist?’
I want to be a soldier in the ADF.
Comics, penciller, writer, inker, letterer, editor or whatever.
Anything would have been nice
Failing that, an animator of some description.
I kick shit in an office for an average wage…
I went through a phase where I specifically wanted to be an awesome letterer and inker. I never wanted to do it for a living though, just wanted it to be a thing I could do. All I use it for is to make birthday cards (in a non-professional capacity).
You wanna letter a comic I’ve been working on?
http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb468/ollyboy/I-know-that-feel-bro.jpg
i wanted to be a comics penciller or storyboard artist/video game concept artist.
I thought I wanted to be an artist. Paint on canvas kind of artist.
I worked on it for a long time and then finally decided that I had a second dream, a dream of actually earning a living. so I put my brushes away, plonked down $10k for a 3 month animation course, and learnt how to do computer animation. I thought painting was something I loved, but now I realise that there are many things I love, and animation is just as beautiful as painting.
But now I’ve gone and changed it all again! After animating for a few years I’ve now decided that I want to make a game, so that’s what I’ve done. I plonked down some more cash, took time off work, learnt Unity, and now I’ve almost finished my first game! I don’t think it’s going to be successful in any way, except for the way in which I learnt a lot and had heaps of fun making it.
In retrospect, I now realise that my passion was always game development. Unless I’m retconning my memories, it seems really obvious now that it was always my dream job but I never really thought I could do it before. As a kid I made board games, DMed roleplaying games, made mods and maps for heaps of early games and just spent all my time playing, reading and thinking about games. Probably like lots of people here, games are more than a hobby.
I always wanted to be a pilot, even manages to have a few flying lessons which were awesome. Then I learnt you’d need to be good at maths so that went out the window and I started just wanting to help people
I’m currently running a help desk for a recruitment company and get to help heaps of people.
Welp, now I’m living my dream I guess there’s nothing else to do
I’m expecting Tyler Durden to bust into this thread and put a gun to everyone’s heads, steal their ID’s, and then threaten to come back in a week and kill them if they aren’t on their way to becoming what they wanted to be.
Man, I wish he pulled a gun on me when I was 20…
It never too late yknow. I’ll come over and pull a gun on you if that helps…
I have my shit together a lot better now, just don’t have time for much other than the daily grind and some parenting.
I wish I was one of those people who can survive on 4 hours sleep.
I wanted to be a vet for most of my school life. There were times when I wanted to be a detective or pilot but being a vet was my dream. Then I did work experience with one and quickly saw that it wasn’t anything like I thought. I then wanted to be a physicist, but between first and second round offers I realised that I had always been more interested in software development, games and computers than being a vet so I switched to Software Engineering, going on to be a developer and have not regretted my choice since.
I haven’t figured it out yet
and I’m 38…
I never really thought about the future or growing up until I was about 10 (all that “adults want to be kids” stuff made me content to delay growing up as much as possible), and I wanted to be a mathematician* or a physicist (yes, “NERD!!!”), as my images of them were people that sat at a desk and thought about interesting things. I’ve since learnt that mathematicians pretty much have to teach or go broke, and physicists have to be far smarter than I was to be able to be successful. I then switched my ambition to software developer, writing the next Windows OS (and doing it right), but again, low-level programming is hard for doing complex things. Information systems development is a happy middle ground, but I still try to keep learning higher mathematics and low-level programming when I get the time.
* Interestingly, my early experiences with Super Mario Bros on SNES drove me to pore over my mum’s calculus text books rather than play video games for about five years until I was peer-pressured into getting an Xbox, and discovered Halo.
Oddly enough, when I was a little kid and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer, “A uni student.” Because that was the highest level of student I knew of. I just loved school that much.
I did not succeed at that. University came to an end, and I foolishly did not attempt to persist with becoming a lifetime academic. On the plus side, I have money.
Circus Clown then Magician.
You know, the respectable professions.
If you became either, your parents would be able to proudly proclaim that at least you aren’t a webcomic artist. Or worse, webcomic writer.
I wanted to become an artist/cartoonist. I became an artist/cartoonist designing toys for big franchises (included some massive manga/anime properties); hated it.
Now I’m in advertising/media and it’s leaps and bounds better.
I thought I wanted to be a teacher, then I realised I hate kids.
I thought I wanted to be a cartoonist, then I realised I can’t draw.
I thought I wanted to be a musician, then I realised I have no musical creativity.
I thought I wanted to be a writer, but then I realised I had nothing to write about.
So here I am, now an adult, working in a call centre, watching myself slowly sink into this inescapable pit of mediocrity.
Hey, on the plus side, at least it’s not something you can see yourself doing into your 40s… or god-forbid 50s. There aren’t folks like that at your call centre, right? Folks you will end up becoming?
You mean the morbidly obese middle-aged women who like to email out pictures of kittens in silly positions with funny captions like “I can’t wait till Caturday!”
Oh god.
OH GOD.
Ruh-roh. I wonder if they got there by mostly living for the weekend, hating job, spending as little time there as possible and thinking about distractions the whole time whilst there… Joking, making the best of it by spending disposable income on clothes, booze, and fixing up the car, while the years go by, age takes its toll, prince charming kept refusing to come around. So it’s nights out on Friday or Saturday, trying to make the most of looking good while they do… a few good prospects failing, in between repeatedly making the same old mistakes with that ex in a predictably tired dance where they really do wonder if maybe their ex is the best they”ll ever do and hey, they’re not perfect but it beats being alone… right?
Next thing they knew, whoopsie – pregnancy! But hey, it’s not all bad, and it actually feels pretty good – they DID want a baby at some point anyway, and the attention is nice, and woah, maternity leave kicks ass! Might even have another one! Give the little tyke a sibling. But being poor sucks and the crummy former-ex-now-babby-daddy’s job pays dick because… well. He’s him. So it’s back to the grind, but at least they can gab about babystuff now, and they’ve known the people there for so long now that they’re practically family, so that’s tolerable too.
The effort that looking good used to take isn’t yielding the same results anymore, so maintaining that gets harder and harder and the kids take up WAY too much time to put in any more effort, to the point that they really do wonder, ‘Why bother? I’ve got everything that would secure me, it’s not like I’m about to up and run off with a billionaire,’ and decide: screwit. Comfort and a really good book or tv show is WAY better than pain and sweat. And oh my god so much more time for facebook, and aren’t they popular now that they have more friends and get more likes and share more cute things?
Or at least, that’s one way of rationalizing that kind of trajectory, I guess. There are alternatives.
Astronaut.
Video store clerk. Im not kidding.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a paleontologist. Sometimes I also wanted to be a Director. Then when I was in my mid to late teens I had no idea what I wanted to be and was freaking out because everyone already seemed to have a plan for their life.
Now I’m 21 and I want to be a writer.
I’d really like to be a chemical engineer, but a series of rejections from grad programs makes that look unlikely in the near future.
archeologist and then an animator.. I became an animator, the other day I was thinking about how cool it was that I get to do what I always wanted.
But the truth is I’m not a very happy so yeah… that’s a bit disappointing.
WWF Wrestler
In order?
-Spiderman
-Hulk
-Lee Majors
-He-man
-Indiana Jones
-Rocky Balboa
-James Bond
-Rocky Balboa (but better looking)
-Rambo (but with less PTSD and more diction)
-Rocky Balboa (without brain damage)
-John McClane (with more swearing and less glass)
-Voltron pilot
-Ninja Turtle (because He-man is so lame and looks kinda gay all-of-a-sudden)
-Chuck Norris
-Schwarzenegger (when I realised Chuck Norris status was impossible)
-Dolph Lundgren
-Van Damme (with less splits and leotards)
-Steven Seagal (except in better shape)
-A palaeontologist
-Not Steven Seagal (no one really watched that lame shit, right? Cough)
-Dirk Diggler
-Employed
-Rich and unemployed
-A kid again.