“When you grow up, what do you want to be?” Quite often in our life, we can hear such a question, but quite often the people who give the answers are not ourselves but our parents. When families gather together, parents always talk about the plans they have made for us children, but have you ever cared or really understood what we children are really interested in and good at?

Once one of my best friends was asked the exact same question by a friend of his father’s, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He was at a loss and murmured, “I’ve no idea. You can ask my parents. I’ll be what they want me to be.” He’s not an exception. Most of our parents are used to arranging everything for us, for example, which school to go to, what subjects to make up for and what activities to take part in. We kids just need to follow. You know what’s the most terrible part? We may gradually lose our interest in the learning of many things, miss the chances to learn how to make decisions and we may become lazier and lazier in thinking because our parents think everything for us ahead of time.

I really enjoy being asked the same question although I still have no clear answer to it, I may be a doctor or a teacher, a professor or an engineer. I may still need some years to find it out, but it really doesn’t matter. So long as I keep on trying, I’ll become more and more capable in figuring out what my real interest is and making decisions for my future life.

So, if you ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I would say I want to be what I want to be.

( This is a speech written for my student. )