NerdyJill

Hi everybody!

Today, I’m back with an article that won’t be about the Pussycat Dolls (I know, it was a few years ago already). Instead, I will be talking about school and how everyone pressures you to choose a career from a very early age.

I will write about how my dream careers changed and evolved as I did, too. 

> 5 years old

At that age, my absolute dream was to become a singer. I was in a TV show called La Grande Ecole Des Fans, which was quite famous in France. 

And it felt amazing. Although I was really stressed out (mostly because he asked about my father, and as I said here, I’ve never met him, I really enjoyed singing in front of people. In fact, I had been singing ever since I was two years old (even though you can’t be like Beyoncé at that age). I wanted to feel this forever.

> 6 years old

About a year after, I became very interested in the English language. Why? I have abslutely no idea. At least, I don’t remember. But it was the start of a great love story. I won’t be getting into details, because I’m planning on writing a whole article about my experience with learning English. Do let me know if you’re interested!

And I decided I wanted to speak every language in the world. Little did I know that it would be near impossible. 

> 7 years old

After reading every single one of the Countess of Ségur’s books (my favourites being Sophie’s Misfortunes, Les Caprices de Gizelle and La Cabane Enchantée), as well as Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, I decided that my life goal was to become a writer. I wanted to make people feel great, or sad, or happy, or amazed, with the greatest weapon ever, writing.

> 9 years old

Continuing with the arts, I chose to be a poet. 

Indeed, I had written a poem for Mother’s day. Do you know the expression on your family’s face when you did something mediocre but they tell you it’s great? It didn’t happen. They were amazed. I even heard my grandmother say to her daughter: ‘This little girl of yours is a future poet for sure’. And I thought it would be great to be one, as well as a writer.

> 11 years old

I remember being pretty confused about my career choice at that age. Everyone kept asking what I wanted to do later, and I didn’t know what to answer. 

I had been told that writing or singing were not real jobs, that it wouldn’t guarantee me a good check at the end of each month, and that I needed to find something more credible.

I always loved to braid my friends’ hair, to play with it, so I thought hairdresser might be the job for me. But I was not that enthusiastic. 

Fortunately, my mother said no. ‘You will not be a hairdresser’, she said to me. She taught me that I should not choose a career without being passioned about it. I should not believe everyone who would tell me how difficult and unreliable a job is. I should pursue my dreams.

> 12 years old

I know some friends of mine will read this, and they’ll laugh. But I don’t care! At that time, I had had a terrible English teacher which made me hate the language. So I started loving maths. Really loving it. Not to mention my teacher was amazing. That’s how I decided to become a maths teacher. I was really good at maths, although this quickly changed when the year after, I had a teacher I disliked. 

> 13 years old

A short time after reading Harry Potter for the first time, my English teacher (which was amazing and whom I miss) lent them to me in English (as you know by now, my first language is French). And I discovered how amazing it was to translate books. So I decided I wanted to be a translater, which reminded me of my early passion for foreign languages, especially English. 

> 15 years old

After realizing that spending my day in front of a computer was neither what I wanted or needed, I heard about interpreting, which is basically translating orally, for example in institutions such as the United Nations (for the luckiest). Becoming a conference interpretor quickly became one of my biggest dreams.

> 17 years old

To this day, I’m not quite sure I still want to do it. I will study interpreting for the next five years, but I do want to continue music. I wonder why I let go of this dream to become a singer. After all, I’ve always liked singing more than anything in the world. 

So why not do both?

What I wanted to share by writing this article is how much your needs and desires change as you grow up. I know a lot of people my age who get a lot of anxiety because they still do not know what they want to be later. And that is completely okay. I can’t imagine myself doing the same thing for over forty years.

The pressure we get from a very young age creates a great anxiety which it is hard to get rid of. I think all in all it should be your own choice. Who cares if your parents don’t agree? I get that, sometimes, they are the ones who pay for tuition, and you just can’t make your own choices. Then start saving. Your parents won’t always be here to pay for you anyway.

I will do anything to pursue my dreams, and I won’t let anyone bring me down or tell me I’m not worth it, as I have before.

You should do the same, and fight for what you believe in, and by that, I also mean yourself.

That’s it for today’s article, I hope you liked it! 

As always, if you have a request or anything you’d like to tell me, make sure to message me either on Tumblr or with the ‘Contact’ page on my blog. You can also talk to me via my Facebook page. (The link is at the top of my Tumblr blog or on the top right on my blogspot.)

See you next Saturday!

Hugs,

Jill. x