As a toddler, I knew what I wanted to do when I grow up – it was an easy simple question that required a simple answer. When my aunties and uncles came visiting and asked this question, I majorly replied, “I want to be a doctor, just like my mum!” as I skidded playfully across the room. They would laugh heartily and give me one or more pieces of candy. To them I must have appeared a really intelligent child who will be among the top doctors in our country, Kenya.

Well, I look back at those childhood memories and feel deflated. Why, you would ask? Simple, because as a child you do not think twice, you do not second-guess your decision, you know what you want – ask for it and get it. So when do things change and we cannot answer this question? Most of my friends just reply, “life happened” or “adulting happened.”

Their answer is not far from the truth, because once you grow up, you have responsibilities to face; paying your rent, tuition fees, electricity among other stuff. The problem arises in the fact that majority of us are brought up to not do what they believe in but to do in what is necessary to survive. “I need to find any job, just any work would do”. Of concern, is that we shift from doing what we DESIRE to doing ANY kind of occupation.

This shift of course would be regarded appropriate because we have to any job to fend for our basic needs. The high inflation rates in Kenya and other countries do not favor the majority – so most of us are stuck into the working-to-survive cycle. After graduating campus, I had to work as a hawker to cater to my bills and continued searching for as many jobs as possible, hoping that I would get a good job; all efforts were in vain. I was then stuck at hawking boiled eggs for a while.

Now, here comes the catch and the critical question, “Are you done growing up?”. The answer is NO. That means we are all still growing up. Then, there is HOPE – a chance to break free. Whatever age or stage one is in life there is still a future in which you can ask yourself this question all over again. One can never be done growing up, thus, we can choose again and again and again what we want to be.

If I found a “job”, I would have been able to fend for my needs. But would I have been happy? No, because I would probably be circling and moving from one job to another. Note that nothing is wrong with what you are doing – whether in the office or working from home. However, that begs the question, IS IT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

In tackling this question, think about the fact that time is still in your hands. We confine and choose whether to stop or continue growing up. One can be 20, 30, 40, 50, or 70 and build themselves towards creating a new dream and setting themselves to achieve it. Consider the stories of Colonel Sanders – daring to start a restaurant at 65 – or Abraham in the Bible – believing he would get a child in his old age among many other examples.

Answer this question this time as a grown-up baby. Given that we are no longer children – who are ignorant of ‘adulting or life’, we can give ourselves true, clear, concise and honest answers. Be honest and truthful as you conquer this question. This time we do not have to reply it to our aunties and uncles so that they can smile but rather to ourselves. Now is the time for us to be true artists, dentists, agents, nurses, masons, plumbers, designers, nannies, teachers etc. as we are doing what we want.