Assignment 19- Drew

"You can be anything you want to be"
                                                  - My parents

This is one of those cliche phrases every parent tells their child, whether they mean it or not. Unfortunately for me, my parents meant it.

See, many parents have expectations of their children, and my parents are no exception. You want your kid to have good grades and to be involved in something and to generally not suck at life. Many parents go above and beyond with their expectations, going as far as to basically dictate to them a career path. My parents have kept true to their cliche promise, however; they have attempted not to influence me in any way towards any career path whatsoever. Obviously there are certain unintended influences, like my heavy interest in engineering because my father and grandfather are engineers, and my early dreams of becoming a successful writer (don't worry: those dreams have been thoroughly suppressed) due to my mother's job as a copy editor, but beyond those, they have not influenced in any way possible.

Which stinks, at least for me. See, I'm one of those people who will do just about anything one asks of me, and do it well. If my parents had, since the moment I was born, told me I was going to someday grow up and become a basketball superstar, then it is very likely instead of reading as a child and wanting to gain knowledge I would've instead gone out and gotten good at basketball. Instead of writing this blog post, I would be outside in the snow shooting hoops or studying tapes of the greats like Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. Because of my lack of forced direction, I face a large decision in college: what shall I become? Because to be truthful, I could probably be relatively content doing anything. Perhaps my only true skill in this world is "making things work." If my parents told me I would go to, say, IU and study music, I could make it work. Or if I was to go to Purdue to study aeronautic engineering, I'd be on the next bus headed to life as a Boilermaker and future Boeing employee.

So in a way, I guess this whole post is me just whining about the biggest decision of my life. I should be thanking my parents for not heavily influencing my future, and I'm sure some time down the road when I've found my calling and become entrenched in it and working as a career in that field I will thank them for their insistence that they not force me to become the next Larry Bird or Dustin Pedroia or Martin Frost or Harry Reid. But until then, I think I will continue to lament their kind, caring, thoughtful decision.