The Commentary Club

We often ask children – what do you want to be when you grow up?

It’s a question most of us were probably asked at some point as well. The answers can vary – astronaut, doctor, teacher, footballer, influencer. I think when we’re younger, the future feels endless, every opportunity is possible.

But we’re the grown ups now. And, I think the more interesting question might actually be – what are all the things I’ll never be?

Because to be truthful, becoming something almost always means not becoming something else. I don’t love speaking in definitives. Technically, anything is possible. You can retrain. You can go back to university. You can move to the other side of the world and start again. Whenever you want. None of it is really ever as fixed as we think it is.

But that’s easier said than done. I think most of us make decisions early on that quietly shape the rest of our lives: the people we’re friends with, the jobs we apply for, the places we settle down, the people we fall in love with.

If you spend ten years training to become a doctor, it’s unlikely you’re then going to spend another seven years training to be a lawyer. If you buy a house in one place, you have to accept that there are so many places that you’ll never call home.

There is meaning in the things we choose. To live one life fully, we inevitably have to let go at the possibility we could have lived another, without ever knowing how life would have turned out if a different choice was made.

So I think growing up isn’t just about deciding what we want to be, but also – maybe – coming to terms with all of the lives we never get to live.