When I grow up...

Recently I was conversing with a co-worker, also in her early 20's and the question of what to 'be' when we 'grew up' was raised. (Pardon the pun)

So what do I want to be when I grow up?

Well, I think that's a question we spend our whole lives answering. Perhaps we never really 'grow up'. That is, reaching a state of being where we 'know' the 'answers' to our biggest questions.

Perhaps being a 'grown up' is more about pursuing what author Sharon Parks terms "big questions, and worthy dreams".

Sharon Daloz Parks' article, "How then shall we live? Suffering and Wonder in the New Commons" which appears in the larger work "Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer" addresses the battle and difficulty of coming to terms with these types of questions in our early adulthood and beyond.

Parks writes about the importance of engaging with the "big questions" encouraging "encounters with otherness" to shape and shift our world view - to shape and shift our collective and individual selves.

She writes:

"We are now being invited to become responsive and responsible citizens in the life of this new commons - a place that is complex, diverse, and vast. We are discovering that the formation of citizenship for this new commons requires transforming encounters with 'otherness'. When we encounter those other than our own 'tribe' in a manner that awakens our empathy and compassion and enlarges our sense of belonging, power, and hope, then 'us versus them' is transformed into 'we'" (p.300).

Parks continues in her call for engagement with 'big questions' describing her experiences as a professor researching with students at the Harvard Business School.

"No one had asked them to consider: What do I really want the future to look like, for me, for others, for my planet? Why is there a growing gap between the haves and have-nots? In this society, why do gross patterns of injustice continue to be legitimated by skin color? Why are antidepressants being prescribed for an increasing number of children? Why is the prison population growing in our society? What are the reasons for climate change? How will we heal the rupture between science and religion? How shall we practice commerce and design governance in the life of the new commons? They had not been offered the gift of encounters with otherness that could awaken them to beckoning questions stretching us and prompting formation of the capacity to reach for more than a job, a career, or a lifestyle. Only live encounters that evoke big enough questions give rise to worthy dreams...too many young adults are being offered dreams of their future that are not worthy of the promise of thier lives"(p. 301).

Parks speaks to the difficulty of negotiating our 'new commons' when she continues:

"I have a choice. I can read and deflect the new knowlege into a mental bin of 'interesting information'. Or, in contrast, I can take it in and allow it to become alive in me. If I do so, I become connected with a people, a region, and dimensions of suffering and courage different from my own...I find myself saying 'There has to be a way,' which gives rise to the courage to risk" (p.303).

The most important of her points is that she urges us to truely ENGAGE with the world, to take the time to reflect and think about ourselves, others, and our mutual positions in the world.

This, for me, is the marker of adulthood - perhaps better phrased the marker of true human capacity and potential. In taking the time to ponder -what do I want to be when I grow up - and ponder it always we must - we are asking more fundamentally, what the meaning of our lives should be, how we will be remembered both individually and collectively. Asking ourselves -What legacy then, do we leave?

In quoting author Parker Palmer, Parks writes that:

"'Contemplation is not the special skill of a disciplined few who have mastered some esoteric set of techniques. Contemplation is any way of penetrating illusion and touching reality. We arrive in this world with an inborn contemplative capacity...that helps us survive and thrive by keeping us grounded in reality, if we will let it.' If we will let it."(p.304).

Our contemplation perhaps suggests the true fulfillment of human capacity and potential. I don't have the answer - what I want to be when I grow up - but the answer is not nearly so important as exploring the question. (and of course, remaining open to the ever-changing answers!)

Asking what to be when we grow up is the beginning of a marvellous engagement with ourselves, the world, and ultimately our potentials. Perhaps it's not so bad, or so much cause for alarm to be without an answer to our biggest questions - they lead to worthy dreams.