When (if) I grow up, I want to BE not do.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Time’s up. Funny questions get funny answers like: Deep Sea Fisherman, Jason Bourne or fifth member of the Fantastic 4. We say we want to be when we really mean we want to DO.

We could assume that professional athletes all grew up right? How do we know? For starters, they are what millions wanted to be, a “paid-to-play” guy/girl. But the reality is that we’re much more than what we do because now Michael Vick has to prove that he is actually more than a football player. Vick, who served and recently completed a 2-year prison sentence for dog fighting charges, was cleared as eligible to play again in the NFL should he be offered a position by a team. He’s had plenty of time to consider and reconsider how incomplete his estimation of success might have been as a young man.

Rumor has it that he admitted to fighting dogs as far back as age 8. That means that he, just like many of us, could separate his taste for watching dog death matches from his natural talent. See, there’s a continuity to our being – a wholeness to our personhood and no matter your age, we do well to recognize that YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU DO. However, your actions speak honestly in telling who you have become. I’m not sure who I am but I know what I want to be now. Characteristics like:

• honest
• courageous
• humble yet stern
• Single-minded
• Inspiring

…are among the traits that come to mind now. I think there’s a part of Michael Vick, Marion Jones, Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Plaxico Burress, Ben Rothlisberger, etc. that would say the same.  But the funny thing is that people don’t ask grown men or women what they want to be when they grow up. It would be oxymoronic to do so. On the contrary. It is now more than ever that we should ask our heroes and ourselves what they (we) want to be when they (we) grow up. What would the best “you” look like if you were at the pinnacle of maturity, the zenith of your personal development? There’s probably not a job title for it but my hunch is that you’ll save lives all around you simply by your example. Where was that answer when you were six?