To Be or Not to Be: That is the Question? Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Like the vast majority of us, my 12th-grade English teacher asked our class to write an essay entitled “What I Want to Do (when I grow up).” I’m not sure whether I was trying to be cute or rebellious or perhaps prescient, so my essay turned the question on its head. I asked why adults ask us what we want to do, rather than what we want to be.