“I have decided to become a full-time improv player,” a friend announced at our bimonthly book club.

We all clapped in glee, happy for her. She wasn’t quitting her full-time job just yet. But then another announced that doing photography as a profession could be a possibility. And another casually chimed in about being a full-time organic gardener. And then another joked about being a math tutor alluding to her recent volunteering at a classroom. I even mentioned my desire of being a writer.

And yet, we are all user experience designers. Some a little closer to a strategist. Some more product manager like. And others still…like myself doing wireframes and prototyping.

When people ask me about what I do at social events, I describe it…”making things easier to use” or “understanding what people need and creating a product that fits that need”. The accountants, the hardware engineer, the teachers, the students…all peer at me with curiosity. That is so interesting, they would say with widened eyes. Perhaps they leave the event wanting to learn more…or about telling their significant other in bed later that night…that they met someone who does really cool stuff about designing, creating interesting products, and making the world seemingly a better place.

So it’s rather interesting that at our book club, we…were in some way…almost dissatisfied to a certain degree. Or more that, our childhood desires of careers spring up. Do anything of us…really at all…were born to do this job? Or was our childhood dreams consisting of a career that we suppressed when we realized it brought no income, was not respectful, was…impractical?

When I first watched Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture, I was inspired (perhaps only temporarily) to make my childhood dreams come true. I signed up for a creative writing class and took an improv class. I loved both—the ability to be someone else for a moment and escape my everyday hum-drum.

And yet at the same time, there’s a part of me that wants to sleep all day and do nothing at all.