What do you want to be when you grow up?

I remember being asked that very question when I was younger. I had no idea how to respond to it. I remember being offered a “menu” of sorts to pick from. Do you want to be a doctor? A lawyer? A scientist? It all felt very daunting to me – to have to choose from a “menu” like that, because what if I wasn’t drawn to anything on that menu – then what?

And as you can see out in the world today, there have been many creative, fun and interesting things that people have created with their lives, with their careers, which is how I believe it was intended to be. Otherwise, we “box ourselves in”, which is the same as making ourselves miserable because our hearts aren’t fully immersed in what we are doing.

Many choose careers based on the income and certain lifestyle it would provide, but end up unfulfilled because the career choice wasn’t what their heart desired.

What if we were to find out that if we followed our hearts and what we truly wanted to do, that our needs would always be met? What more could we want than that?

Following our hearts isn’t just a matter of getting a job doing what we love and are drawn to. It is about following our hearts in each and every moment along the way.

What do I mean by that?

I’ll use myself as an example. I was a paralegal for 30 years in the Chicago area. A moment in my life came where I had an opportunity to move to Colorado, a state that I had visited for 20+ years. I felt that my legal career was time served. It was a career that was really chosen for me at the young age of 17, and I didn’t know what else to do.

What I did know, however, was that “What good is this life if you can’t “go for it” and do what you would really like to do?” And so, I had to do a bit of soul searching at that time, and the arrows kept pointing to a career involving children.

One day it came to me to become an “on-call” nanny. I took the proper steps in starting an LLC, getting an online profile, etc.

I don’t need to go into detail about the whole process, but just save to say that I had to work through many moments of limitation along the way – which is always part of the process as I have mentioned numerous times in my blog posts.

I had to “grow up”.

Meaning, I had to do things that I didn’t want to do. I had to do many interviews with parents, including interacting with their children in front of them. I had to speak up when nothing in me wanted to speak up. I had to ask for payment when fear would tell me not to. I had to stand up for myself when there was a certain advantage being taken. The list is quite long.

To “grow up” isn’t just a physical thing. It is a life thing.

When we do the things that nothing in us wants to do, but in truth need to be done, it is the same as inviting help from “UP” above us. That’s true growing up because it is letting go of our childish ways that know nothing of what is truly good for us.

If we understand that whatever it is that we choose as a career, it will always be met with people and events that we’d rather avoid. Avoidance of going through what we need to go through, is how we remain as a child in this world, no matter the age. Walking through those unwanted moments knowing that we always have help from “above”, is growing up.

Growing up is to live a life that is “lead” by a consciousness above ourselves, instead of giving ourselves our own answers and guidance.

Growing up is simply being present as often as we are able to, being watchful of the old childish parts of ourselves that are always trying to convince us that they know what’s best for us and to take the easy way.

Growing up is waiting for true guidance. Growing up is participating in real Life. We’re not trying to “make something of ourselves”, we are working to understand, moment to moment, what has always been in the way of us coming to know and fulfill our own true heart.

Our journey has never been about acquiring. Our journey has always been about letting go of all the images and beliefs that are in the way and blocking our hearts - keeping us from growing up.

Image courtesy of: Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels