vocation (or, stubbornly sticking to plans you made at age 12)

Looking ahead to the start of my SENIOR YEAR (!!) in two-ish weeks, I thought I’d go back through one of the journals I wrote on plans and vocation while I was in Chicago…

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Even though I would like to think of myself as an idealist, from a very young age, I had a certain sense of practicality surrounding what I would be when I grew up. At the age of twelve, I dedicated a weekend to consider all possibilities of future careers, intending to have it narrowed down to one (with maybe an additional backup plan) by the end of the week. I remember having a horde of tabs open on my iPod Touch, sitting in a bean bag chair for hours, combing through any job that seemed vaguely interesting to me.

Being a veterinarian or working with animals in some capacity got ruled out early on—I had learned enough science and math to know I didn’t want to do them for the rest of my life, and I also realized that the animals I’d be interacting with would not be the happy ones, so I quickly lost interest.

Other careers, like acting, ballet, or music, intrigued me almost—but not quite—as much as they intimidated me. I knew that I loved beautiful, expressive things, but I didn’t think that I had the skills to do them to my own or anyone else’s standards. Looking back now, I think it’s strange that I never considered any other forms of art, as I liked to make things with my hands, and I was constantly drawing. Sometimes I wonder where I would have ended up if I’d pursued the joy that this brought to my life at a young age, but I still find myself coming back to it as a method of release and reflection.

The choice that I finally landed on, after hours of staring at a small screen, was that I was going to be a writer

To this day, I don’t fully understand how I came to this decision or where my deep sense of surety that I’d made the right one was based, but I’m grateful for it. At the age of twelve, I was not a fan of writing. I rarely had to do it for school, but I would prolong the process any way I knew how because I hated sharing the things that I wrote.

However—nothing in the world brought me more joy than stories. I read constantly, but when I wasn’t reading, I was daydreaming, fixating on the pieces of my life and making them richer and more fantastic in my head. On that level, I never questioned that I would be a writer; even though, in later years, I’ve considered other jobs to supplement my income, I’ve always seen myself as a writer first. And even as the process of finding words to describe the images in my mind has been a pain and slowed me down in many ways, I still haven’t found any other medium that fills me with the same sense of satisfaction.

One of my main struggles, internally, since deciding to be a writer has been coming to terms with the fact that people have to read the things I write for there to be any sort of impact

As a writer, I can process and work through stories that enrich my life and change the way I see things, but if I were to write solely for myself, what need would I be meeting? Rarely have I been affected at some deep, heart-level by reason or logic or facts, but the stories I read and view and engage with change the way that I see the world every day. I think there’s a tremendous responsibility with telling stories, not only to educate but also to change people’s hearts and minds, to bring them joy and hope.

During this semester with my internship at the Field Museum, I’ve been able to apply some aspects of my calling through relaying stories of objects, specimens, or cultures

However, the longer I work at the Field, the more I’ve realized that while I enjoy working on more general or overarching stories, my real passion is for individual stories. My very favorite days of this job have been when community co-curators have come in, and I’ve been able to listen to them tell their personal stories, or days when I’ve been working one-on-one with one of the developers on my team, and I’ve been able to learn more about them and their lives. The more specific a story is, even if it doesn’t resemble my own story, the more I feel able to relate and connect on an emotional level. So as I finish this internship out, I’m trying to find opportunities to engage with people’s personal stories, and hoping to continue this in whatever possible capacity in my next job or internship.