Who ever becomes a ballerina or a fireman?

The other day in church the youth group spoke about using your talents. I have to admit that hearing an idealistic teenager speak about the purpose of their future life gets me every time.What did you want to be at five years old? At ten? At eighteen?

And how close did you get?

I suppose it also matters what scale of "success" you are shooting for, whether it is the scale of how others see you or what kind of person you are and how you touch the world.

There is a song by Switchfoot that has the lyric "This is your life, are you who you want to be?"

Pretty powerful. It chokes me up every time I hear it.



When I was five I wanted to be Wonder Woman. When I was ten I wanted to be a writer. When I was eighteen I wanted to be a teacher.

I have been a High School English teacher.

I am a published author but still strive to find my voice and use that talent more.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how I got from dreams of being a teacher to working in an office with numbers and 401k's and health benefits.

Who among us becomes the exact dream that they imagined at five? How did we go from wanting to be a movie star to getting up, driving to work with one hand on the horn and sitting at a desk being um, in my own words, mediocre?

When I truly think about who I am and some of the amazing things that I have done to save myself and save others, the truth is I am Wonder Woman. Too bad I only get to wear the costume one day a year.