I am 49. There. I said it (or wrote it). And still I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I have friends who have found their passion. They are excited about what they are doing and they know their Why. It makes me wonder if I missed something along the way. I don’t have a passion and I apparently don’t have a strong enough Why.
Don’t get me wrong. I have lots of talents.
In college, I was scolded by my Calculus professor for not majoring in math
Instead, I majored in accounting because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Each semester I would tell myself “If I get in A in this class, I will continue to major in accounting.” That must have been a sign that I was doing the right thing because I was good at it and got good grades. Right?
I got a job with a Big 12 (that ages me, but then I already told you my age) accounting firm in Washington, D.C. I must have done something right. I was a good auditor. I saw things that others missed. I was even asked to stay after I gave them my two weeks notice (I missed Texas and wanted to go back).
I fell into another audit job and was good at that as well. But nothing ever ignited a fire in me.
In the mean time, I started dating the man who became my husband and we moved. He had a passion. He was a football coach and teacher. He was good at it and he loved his job. When we married, we had an agreement that he would get the first 10 years of our marriage to chase his dream and I would get the next 10.
Of course that didn’t work exactly as we planned. A couple of years into our marriage along came a little ball of joy named Lizzy (and 3 years later another one named Kaci). So we moved to Austin to be close to family. He got another coaching job and I went back to work as an auditor.
Fast forward a few years and my husband’s passion has changed. I married a football coach, and now he was hanging up his whistle to help at the family farm. I don’t know anything about farms or cattle. I was brought up in the military. Both of my parents were raised on farms (and dare I say they did not want to go back to that lifestyle).
I left my job in the city and began working with the company that was beginning to grow from the farm consulting and application business that started to grow. After all I was a CPA, so my passion was numbers, right?
Wrong. I had no passion for being a bookkeeper. And as much as I love my husband, I do not share the passion about the soil that he has.
Since 2010 I have been less involved in the business due to my Stage IV cancer diagnosis. After I figured out that I still had plenty of life left in me (some days more than others, after all I still have a bad hip and take oral chemo) I began to wonder what my passion is.
I have a great sense of humor (but stand up comedy isn’t my thing). I have been told that I am inspiring (not sure I believe that, I just continue to put one foot in front of the other while living with Stage IV cancer, what other choice do I have?). It seems that I am good at many things, but not passionate about anything (other than my husband and my daughters).
Does that make me a dreamer? I don’t seem to have a line in the sand that I want to cross and say “There it is. What I was put here to do.”
Dreamer? No. I think it means I’m just like most other people out there. That is probably why there are so many books on how to find your purpose.
So what do I do about it? Well, I continue each day to put one foot in front of the other, try new things (like writing this blog), and continue to look for my passion. I’m sure it is out there just waiting for me to find it. And when I do, watch out world. And if I don’t? Well, I will have not wasted time sitting around waiting for my passion to find me and I will have BuiltaLife.
As Kermit sang:
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it
It’s something that I’m supposed to be
Someday we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me
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