You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Audio.

This talk features writer, coach, and artist Emily Wapnick, recorded live at TEDx Bend,

2015.

We're featuring this talk today as part of a special selection themed around journeys.

Raise your hand. If you've ever been asked the question, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Now, if you had to guess, how old would you say you were when you were first asked this question?

You can just hold up fingers.

Three, five, three, five, five, five.

Okay.

Now, raise your hand.

If the question, what do you want to be when you grew up has ever caused you any anxiety?

Any anxiety at all? I'm someone who's never been able to answer the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? See, the problem wasn't that I didn't

have any interests, is that I had too many. In high school, I liked English and math and art,

and I built websites,

and I played guitar in a punk band called Frustrated Telephone Operator.

Maybe you've heard of us.

This continued after high school,

and at a certain point,

I began to notice this pattern in myself,

where I would become interested in an area,

and I would dive in and become all-consumed,

and I get to be pretty good at whatever it was.

...