an evolution story

When I was three years old, I told people, “When I grow up, I’m gonna be a bear.” At age five, I realised that wasn’t quite possible.

By the time I turned seven, I had decided I wanted to be a scuba diver/ whale trainer when I grew up, influenced by a video of one I had seen at school. I read books on whales, dreamt of dolphins, and could almost see sharks swimming about in the swimming pool. However, at age ten, I became aware of the fact that I wasn’t brave enough to train whales or swim with sharks, and that it was safer to become a writer. I was already capable of writing poems and devouring large numbers of stories; it wouldn’t be too difficult.

At twelve, I felt that my essays didn’t sound nearly as good as my paintings looked, and I was determined I could become an artist when I became an adult. But at thirteen, looking at some of Sadequain’s spectacular murals properly for the first time, I realized my works could never be good enough to be called an artist.

Today, at the age of fourteen, I know I’m capable of writing mediocre stories, making average paintings, of taking pictures that aren’t nearly as picturesque as as I’d like them to be, of making designs which - amaze some as they may - I know could have been much better. However, as I look at all those around me; people struggling to attain higher ranks, better living standards and more recognition in the eyes of society, I know none of this is what matters. When I grow up, I would like to become a person - not necessarily a writer or an artist, or a graphic designer, probably not a whale trainer and definitely not a bear - but a person; a being not governed by animal instincts, but one raised to the qualities that make me human, a person strong enough to stand by what I believe is right, regardless of what people may think or say or do.

That’s all I would like to be when I grow up.