What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

I don’t remember my first answer to that question. But I remember the first one I gave with conviction.

Growing up religious, I once said I wanted to be a missionary. “You get to fulfill the gospel,” I told someone earnestly. Go and make disciples of all nations — Matthew 28:19. And you get to travel. That was the part that stuck. Even back then, I knew I wasn’t built for staying in one place. Movement felt natural. The unfamiliar didn’t scare me.

When I was nine, I watched a Hong Kong movie about trauma surgeons and decided: that’s it. I was going to save lives. I bought books on human biology and anatomy. I studied diagrams of the heart like they were treasure maps. But then I got my period. I fainted at the sight of blood. It made me dizzy. The idea of reaching inside bloody body crevices was horrifying. So I let go of that dream, a little embarrassed. But, if I was being honest, I was also a little relieved.

In 2008, Obama won. I was living in Singapore. He had spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, like me. He wasn’t white. He didn’t look like every president who came before him. Suddenly, the ceiling shifted. For the first time, I thought: maybe I could be president too.

I held that dream close. Until one night at the Grand Hyatt Singapore executive lounge, where I technically lived (boarding school made everything complicated), my mother’s friend joined us for dinner. She was one of those women who filled a room without trying. Elegant. Sharp. The kind of woman who made you want to level up just by being near her. Somehow our conversation flickered to my dream. About Obama. About how geography and race could finally feel like a reason to try, not a reason to opt out.

She smiled and said calmly:
“You’ll never be president. You’re a woman. You’re a minority. You don’t belong anywhere locally.”

She wasn’t cruel. Just honest. There was no bitterness in her voice. Just experience.

And I believed her. Not because she was right, but because she was real. She didn’t say it to discourage me. She said it so I would walk in with eyes open. Even my rebellious side couldn’t deny the weight of that truth.

Still, I wanted to try.

My parents didn’t quite see the point. They wanted a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or, my mother added helpfully, to “marry one. You can find him at your school!”

They reminded me how obsessed I had been with that surgeon movie. I reminded them that I nearly passed out looking at a papercut. They shrugged it off like an inconvenience.

When college application time came around, I told my dad I wanted to major in political science. He said no. Not until I convinced him. So I did what any aspiring strategist would do: I launched a campaign.

I scheduled meetings ambassadors, diplomats, elected officials (mostly his friends). I wrote five- and ten-year plans. I created a PowerPoint, complete with SWOT analysis. I made politics sound noble, exciting, strategic. I made it sound safe.

Eventually, he said yes. And I left for Washington, DC.

College was intense. Not academically, emotionally. Being in the heart of power meant you were constantly measuring yourself against proximity. Everyone wanted to be someone. Everyone already was.

I wanted to quit more than once. I flirted with fashion design. Then culinary school. I had phases where I wanted to dress like Blair Waldorf and run a magazine. Or use my trust fund to buy a food truck. But I stuck with political science and learned how to navigate the game.

After graduation, I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was stable, predictable. But I felt like I was playing the role of a grown-up without fully believing in it. I craved impact. Urgency. I wanted to be closer to the action.

So I pivoted. I dipped into the electronic music industry (I know, I know). I worked at a think tank. I explored web design. I went back to grad school. I was searching, always. Hungry for something that would make me feel alive.

Then came the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Nothing prepared me for that. Months on the trail blurred into one another: sunrises on the interstate, back-to-back events, conversations with people who had never felt seen by politics before. In the morning, I’d brief a senator. By afternoon, I’d be registering an addict to vote outside a shelter. It was humbling. Exhausting. Humanizing.

Would I do it again? Probably not. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

Then I moved to Berlin. I thought it would be temporary: an escape, a pause, a sabbatical. But something shifted. I lost the need to be in the room where things happen. I no longer wanted to measure my worth by titles, access, or resume bullet points.

Berlin taught me to be anonymous, to listen, and ironically, to sit still.
It also forced me to let go of the version of myself that only made sense in DC
And that was terrifying.

For the first time, I had to ask:
Who am I without the job title? Without the plan? Without someone else’s validation?

For a while, I didn’t have an answer. I still don’t have a perfect one.
The answer came slowly and then all at once.

I’m still working. I’m a PMP certified project manager now, leading AI-driven SaaS implementations at a Berlin startup. I manage complexity. I translate chaos into clarity. And I still carry the discipline of DC with me. But it no longer defines me.

Because what I do is not who I am.
My career is part of my story. But it’s not the whole plot.

I am not the girl who wanted to be a surgeon.
I am not the woman who thought she could be president.
I am not the title in my email signature or the last job I left.

I’m someone who reinvents.
Who adapts without erasing herself.
Who listens carefully and moves intentionally even when the next chapter isn’t clear.

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
But I know who I want to be:

Sharp. Curious. Compassionate.
A little brave. A little reckless.
Always becoming.

And if that’s not a career path, I’m okay with that.

It’s a life.