What do I want to be when I grow up?

Random life/career thoughts/questions...

Have you ever taken a career or personality test of some sort? I don't know why I take them, since they never really tell me the answer I'm looking for - What to do when I "grow up." Yet, despite the lack of answer, I continue to play the game and think some magical test some stranger created will actually tell me what I should be when I grow up. Today I took another career test and it made me think about how I answer the questions. Do I answer questions honestly or how I want others (including myself) to see me? Are these two the same? I find that the answer the tests generate are always predictable. Perhaps this is due to that fact I always get the same answer - "you want a creative occupation that allows you freedom to express yourself and help others." One, does this option exist? Two, is this really what I want or is this based on the answer that I would rather play with Legos than Monopoly (yes, this was an actual question I answered today.)? How do people decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives? Do you think people are actually happy in their jobs or just go to work for the pay check? I'm sure more often than not the answer is the latter, but I'm still young and naive enough to want more. I want to have the personal life that excites me, but I also want to thoroughly enjoy what I spend 9+ hours doing every day. Is this too much to ask? Is it really all about making yourself happy those last 4 hours every day and on the weekends and just surviving the 8-5 M-F life? I sure hope not. I hope one day that little test will tell me what I should do with my life or I figure it out somehow.

The other challenge with figuring out what you want to be when you grow up (or at least for me), is realizing you're actually grown and you have a life and responsibilities. What I mean by this is that I'm no longer a 22 year old college graduate who thinks she can go anywhere in the world and just get a job doing anything. Just because I think it would be interesting to be doctor or lawyer doesn't mean I can just snap my fingers and be that, as these careers require qualifications (i.e. specific degree) which I lack. Also, it's not as easy to just go back to school to obtain these qualifications as it would have been at 21 or 22. At this point I have financial responsibilities like everyone else that require more than Monopoly money for payment. Thus, taking 3-5 years off to go back to school isn't a possibility. So, faced with the obvious obstacles of being an adult, but still grasping to that naivety of an idealistic child, how do you decide what to be and how to realistically obtain that role? Being an adult isn't as cracked-up as I thought.