If you don’t hear this question in school, you hear it at work. Maybe you hear it from your family. Regardless, we all hear this question. What do you want to do in ten years? Where do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? It’s to prompt you to plan for the future. Have goals. Give yourself a purpose. I was recently asked this, and…
Honestly? I hate this question.
While I understand the prompting and purpose of this question, I don’t want to think about where I’ll be in ten years. Why? Because, a lot can happen in ten years. I could change jobs. I could move cities or states. I could get sick or suffer an accident or even be dead. The future cannot be planned for, so I want my focus on the now. Yes. I do have dreams that I hope to come true in the next ten years, but the timing isn’t mine to decide. I can only make things happen a day at a time. I don’t do well under time limits anyway.
Another reason as to why I’m not a big fan of this question is because I was asked it throughout school. In elementary school, they ask you want you want to be and help you make a plan, same with middle school and high school. My answer was always: vet school. I was going to grow up and become a veterinarian. I remember in middle grade, my class was assigned to write a poem about where we’d be in five to ten years and my poem had me working as a vet tech at an animal hospital as I was trying to make my way through vet school.
Even in college I planned on vet school. All my classes were geared toward it. My clubs were focused on it. I was even at the point of figuring out the steps and funds I’d need to get into the vet school at my college. I remember how anxious I was about the whole process. I wasn’t excited. I wasn’t inspired. I wasn’t ready for the challenge. I was scared and I was keeping the prospect of vet school at arm’s length.
My last semester of getting my bachelor’s degree, I made the decision not to go to vet school. It was a huge weight off my chest, but I no longer had a plan. All those times I answered that ten year question with vet school, now I had to figure out what I was going to do next.
Ten years ago, I was finishing up my associates degree and planning on moving to a bigger college to get into their pre-vet program. Now, I’m a zookeeper.
nikki diekemper 