“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s the go-to adult question for children  – especially adults who aren’t very comfortable with children. Or are meeting a child for the first time. Implied in that simple, innocuous interrogative is the skeletal structure of a system of values. It assumes first that you are not anything now – merely a possibility, a hope, a beginning. It presumes you will grow into some thing – a career, a pursuit, maybe even a position of influence or authority. It infers that the meaning of every human life is inexorably linked to the things we do – especially the things we do for a living.

No one ever asks “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” In fact, we seldom ask ourselves who we are becoming.