Maybe I don’t Want to Be Just One Thing Anymore

On ambition, identity, and unlearning who I thought I had to become.

Am I a writer now?

I suppose that if I feel the inclination to write down my thoughts on this very page you are reading — in hopes of connecting with you — then I may actually be one.

So let’s go back to where this started.

In middle school, I decided I was going to write a novel, so I joined the writers’ club. I quit shortly after because I didn’t want to take public transportation at night.

I forgot all about writing after that.

Though I guess I did a handful of it to earn my degree.

I did enjoy writing about topics I was passionate about, but I was more focused on churning out a paper that would earn me an A as quickly as possible.

Now that I have graduated, I have found myself falling back into hobbies I used to love as a child.

I suppose these hobbies have always been on my mind.

I just ignored them.

Now I can’t help but wonder if others, too, lose themselves while wrapped in their own expectations of who they should be.

Society does play a role in what is deemed successful, but if we believe in it, is it all society’s fault?

I guess I was part of the society that believed there was only one track I could follow to reach my idealized version of success.

What happens when the noise stops and you’re left with yourself to truly ask what it is you want — and you discover that the answer is not at all what you worked toward?

I find myself re-envisioning my future now. Of course, there are aspects of my last few years that still apply. But I choose to give myself permission to explore a different way to use them.

Maybe I am a writer, or maybe I am not.

Maybe I don’t want to be just one thing anymore.