What is talent without effort?
What is a title you do not earn? (Alternatively: I have been lazy.)
When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a marine biologist.1 I wanted to swim with dolphins and belugas and sea lions. I wanted to cooperate with—bond with—these fellow yet disparate creatures.
Here’s the other thing: I wanted to simply dream this career into existence.
My parents, confident I could be anything I wanted to be, encouraged me to pursue a range of interests. Perhaps they were too confident. I remember my mom once telling me that in order to truly work with marine mammals I’d have to swim and dive and hold my breath for long periods. Despite not being close to performing any of those skills, I brushed off her words. The work required sounded dull. It was effort I’d have to put in toward something that wasn’t even a guarantee—and I traded almost exclusively in guarantees.
I followed rubrics. I asked my teachers for feedback. I listened when they told me what to do. I liked living in the most predictable of worlds.
A few years after my beluga phase, I circled back to my dream o…
