As a child, I didn't have any idea what I wanted to be when I'd grow up. I can recall my school teachers—from kindergarten up until at least junior high—quizzing classes—one student at a time—about their adult aspirations and desired careers. As if being publicly discomfited by impossible surprise questions wasn't enough, classes would be occasionally given assignments on the topic.
Of course, some students responded to these ambush quizzes with prefabricated and vacuous answers as recourse, like fireman, policeman, teacher, engineer, etc.
Having to hear all these classmates' ready-made rejoinders confidently articulated with barely a femtosecond of forethought or hesitation, my anxiety and consternation only increased by an order of magnitude every step closer I came to being called on.
When finally my turn to tell the class my prospective career choice, I'd never opt for regurgitating the name of some archetypal blue-collar job (like a fireman or mechanic) or quixotic Hollywood-esque caricature of a scientist (like an archaeologist or paleontologist). Instead, I'd question the logic and purpose of asking adolescents a question even most adults would find themselves bemused by. If time permitted more detail, I'd rhetorically ask how many adults could claim to have the same job they imagined they would have as children.
However, understanding the absurdity and insignificance of the question didn't defend me from the poignant sense of being an insouciant loafer or ne'er-do-well who, unlike my career-oriented coevals, hadn't a clue what I'd want to be years hence.
Even now as a 20-year-old young man, I find myself suffering awfully from multipotentiality and ambivalence. If I could, and I had my druthers, I'd be a chemist, linguist, theoretical computer scientist, biologist, philologist, etymologist, sociobiologist, philosopher, logician, author, engineer, indologist, botanist, pharmacologist, and on and on.
I envy those people with specific and narrow interests. How easier it must be for them in our highly productivist society. Knowing precisely what one wants to achieve makes success come more swiftly than having million-and-one topics of interest amongst which one is equally passionate and adept.
It's unfortunate that the polymath or even modestly-deft jack-of-all-trades is less valued than a the deep and narrow acumen of the cognoscente.