What do you want to be when you grow up?

This morning (strangely enough) I was thinking about what I wanted to be when I grow up. Notice I used "grow up" and not "grew up"--it's a matter of time that we "grow old" but we each decide when or if we "grow up." (That's my excuse, anyway, for still liking to eat a bowl of Cap'n Crunch while watching Saturday morning cartoons.)


With the release of my latest book, Shadow Hunter, I find myself reminiscing about the goals and dreams of my youth. My first recollection of "knowing" what I wanted to be when I grew up was this ad that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune when I was 13 or 14. It was a recruitment push by the CIA. Now, I'm not sure how often ads like this ran before I saw it (and cut it out), but I am pretty sure they have never run one like it since. Now, I was raised on James Bond and always imaged how cool it would be to be a spy, but the serious thought had not really crossed my mind until my dad pointed out the ad in the paper. From that point on, I read books, I watched history and documentaries, and even made a conscious decision in choosing my classes in Junior High, High School, and even College based on this assumption that I was destined for a life in the smokey, mirrored world of international espionage.



But then two things happened. First, I met the cute young lady that would later marry. Now, at this time, I had an application in for an internship with the CIA, and had also submitted one for the FBI. Natalie made it very clear while we were dating that she did not want to be married to someone who had to carry a gun or put his life on the line like that on a regular basis. You might think that it was a difficult decision to make, after all I had spent my entire life preparing for this line of work, taking German (during the Cold War) and Arabic (post Cold War), as well as a myriad of Middle Eastern, Asian, and South American courses at the U, not to mention years of Kung Fu. You might think that nothing could stop this Juggernaut pushing me toward a life of secrecy, but Natalie did. I made the choice then that I wanted to be married to to more than I wanted to work for the CIA or FBI or any of the other agencies I had applications for.



And then the other thing happened: I wrote my first novel. I have said this elsewhere, but the first book I ever wrote is the latest one to be published (Shadow Hunter) but back then it was titled, A Green Hill Far Away. About 15 years ago, my father shared with me a dream he'd had the night before, and over a game of pool we fleshed it out into a pretty good story. When the game was over (I think he won) he said, "and we're going to write it." The next day we started working on what would be our first novel. The next year and a half was challenging, fun, exciting, disappointing, and exhausting, all rolled into one. I still remember very clearly looking at the final, printed copy of the book, sitting there on the bed--I was so proud of it you might have thought I had just given birth to healthy, 400 page baby boy--and thinking, "I finally know what I want to be when I grow up." I was 25.



Now, when people would ask the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would smile and say, "Happy." The reaction was always, "No, really. What do you want to be when you grow up?" and again I would emphasize that I just want to be happy. Would I have been happy being some foreign analyst working on the 3rd floor of the CIA offices in Langley, VA? Do I ever regret not pushing on toward my childhood dream of serving my country in this capacity? Not once. I made the right decision to choose Natalie and our life together over one glamorized by Hollywood. Happiness comes from not living with regret. Sure, you'll make mistakes and poor choices from time to time, but learning from them and moving forward, either toward a dream or being present in the one currently live--this is where you find real happiness and satisfaction in life.



So, what do you want to be when you grow up?