Decadeaphobia

Alex McManus first asked me this question a little over a year ago while we ate lunch at his house before returning to Kansas. James asked the same question last night.

“If all your wildest dreams come true, where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

I haven’t always been one to not have plans. When I was 17, my senior english project was to write a journal documenting our year, and part of it was to be how we saw ourselves 10 years down the line. At that point, I saw myself living on a lake, driving a green explorer, married to my stay-at-home husband and had twin girls and a little boy. I was a family therapist with a PhD from Columbia. After we put the kids to bed, my husband and I would go out and play on the swings. I think we lived in Georgia. We had a peach tree.

That portrait died when I was 20. In 10 years, I saw myself as a VP of Marketing and Communication in the corporate world – an online industry. I was married to someone as career-driven and materialistic as me. We both drove a Lexus. We ate at the hippest restaurants, went to fancy wine tastings and lived in a really nice area. No kids. But we traveled a lot.

Between the ages of 20 and 26, it seems like every other day my dreams change. A writer. A photographer. A cop. A forensic psychologist. A barista. A gallery director. A designer. A storm chaser. A pastor. A pastor’s right hand woman. In student ministry again. A road manager for my husband’s band. A sheep-herder in the highlands here in Scotland.

My parents always told me I lacked focus. My former employers always told me I lacked focus. My husband often tells me I lack focus. It’s not that I’m not committed or loyal – it’s ironic that in whatever I am doing, I’m hyper-focused. It’s just for my future, I have no defined goals. No one certain “this is what I want to do.”

So, I’ve always hated the “Where do you see yourself” question. Earlier this year, I didn’t known I would be living in Texas and working at Lake Pointe. A year ago, I never thought I’d be in Scotland on mission. I’ve given up trying to plan anything.

The truth is, it’s not that I have no idea what I want to do…it’s that I have so many things I want to do, I don’t know what to do with them. Do I pick one and give up the others? Do I try and do them all?