What did you want to be when you were 5 years old?

I wanted to be a flight attendant.

Many are afraid of flying, but I had my passport before my first birthday, so it never really bothered me. I actually like airplanes. I even like airports. But my career choice was not driven by a passion for making sure you had the most enjoyable flight; I was just a spiteful toddler throwing a tantrum.

If you ever witnessed a child in an airplane cry, or scream, or kick your chair incessantly for hours at a time, it’s because they were bored out of their minds. We did not want to waste time sitting patiently, quietly, strapped to a chair, when we could be running, jumping or kicking your chair incessantly for hours at a time. It was psychosomatic torture for me to contain that childhood energy and carry it across the Atlantic. My parents had convinced me it was illegal to be out of your seat while flying. Yes — they looked right into my big round eyes and threatened to report me to the fuzz if I dared make a break for it. I, out of love, fear, and ignorance, believed them. But I was also a sassy little thing, so I pointed out that the flight attendants were walking around constantly. Why didn’t they have to sit down, buckle up, and not kick anyone’s chair? Mom and dad said the “law” only applied to the passengers. The attendants were allowed to walk around the whole airplane. (They even got to walk around first class!)

To get revenge for this aerial imprisonment, I knew what I had to do.

I was going to grow up and be a flight attendant.

That plan didn’t last long. According to my 3rd grade diary, I wanted to be a pop-star, then in 5th grade I remember wanting to be a chef, and then an author, and then an interior designer. By the time I got into high school I was certain I wanted to be an architect, but and all the cool kids wanted to be lawyers or business majors at NYU, so maybe I would be a good lawyer too? I did love to argue. Towards the end of high school, (you know, that lovely 6-month period when you are pressured by all of society, your peers, and your family, to make a choice that is supposed to determine your entire future) I serendipitously ended up in a mechanical engineering course. I was sooooo annoyed that I wasn’t taking AP Sociology with the cheerleaders, but I was strapped to a new airplane seat now, and I couldn’t move till we landed. To my surprise, I ended up really enjoying the classes. I was making 3D renderings, learning about industrial design, ergonomics, material science, Gantt charts — the whole shebang.

I was skipping class half the time and still making excellent grades. In my idealistic ignorance, I was convinced ME was an intrinsic talent of mine, and if I chose it as my career, I would be able to breeze through life, or at least college. I chose “mechanical engineering” as my prospective major on all my college applications, and took the drafts to my guidance counselor, who promptly reminded me I was poor and should just apply to CUNY. (It was free!) I folded up my hopes and dreams, laid them neatly at the bottom of her recycling bin, and proceeded to the bathroom to cry.

I did as she said. Both of schools I blindly applied to accepted me, which was neither a surprise nor a cause for celebration. I resented the acceptance letters. They laid heavy on my lap, like an airplane seatbelt I desperately wanted to climb out of. I decided to attend the school that was the shorter commute from my parents house and didn’t think about it again till a week before my registration deadline. Six and a half days after that, I actually sat at my computer desk and opened the abhorrent website, CUNYportal.cuny.edu. To my utter dismay and shock, I realized I had chosen a school which offered no engineering classes whatsoever.

Life lesson: Don’t choose a school based on name recognition, kids.

Frustrated, but also relieved, I saw this as an opportunity to say H*CK IT and take a year off. I had run out of time, I had no options left. I would take the year to work, make money for a college I actually wanted to go to, it would be great! This was the argument I repeated to friends and family. They weren’t buying it. Again, they strapped me down for flight. This one would last two semesters, with a layover in General Education, and a transfer to another school. My first semester, I took one physics class with an amazing professor, and one physics lab with an attractive professor. I thought that’s reason enough to be a physics major. Right? I mean… Why not?

But I didn’t become a physics major. I transferred, I was an ME major, and I hated it. Then I became an art major and actually saw it through till the end. That decision was made 30% because I love making sculptures and 70% because I was simply exhausted. At graduation, I felt like I was putting on a show.

Ta-da! This is what you all wanted, wasn’t it?

I had spent my whole life listening to other people. After watching a million TED talks I decided to do the one thing I said I really wanted to do: take a darn year off. This time I fastened my own seatbelt. I wanted to go to Bangkok, alone. Over 20 hours away from home, no contacts, no knowledge of the language, a complete change of my surroundings. I spent a month there, making my own decisions, relying on only myself, quite literally on the opposite side of the world from home. It was, by far, the most amazing experience of my life. How stupid was I to have waited so long for this? (I had wanted to go to Thailand so badly, had it all planned out, for two years before actually doing it!)

I returned tanner and tougher. I decided to embrace the erratic spontaneity of my desires. Instead of feeling lost due to my indecisiveness, I felt inspired. By not focusing on finding a place I belonged, I was finally free to enjoy not belonging. I would embrace being foreign, starting from scratch. I realized the planes were never taking me to a final destination; they were taking me to my next destination. (Literally and metaphorically.) If I didn’t like wherever I landed, I gained two things: 1) knowledge that I didn’t like that place and 2) a new refrigerator magnet.

Sometimes you miss your flight. Sometimes flights are delayed or canceled. Sometimes you can’t afford a flight. Sometimes you have to come home earlier than you wanted to. But every time you don’t get on that plane, you could be missing out on discovering your new favorite place. (Unless, of course, you have a car or board a train or something, but for the sake of this analogy let’s ignore all other modes of transportation exist.)

I am currently attending a coding bootcamp, but I’m still a mechanical engineer. I build machines all day, but now they’re called functions. I design their architecture. In a few weeks, I’ll be working on a big project where I’ll learn about business. I wrote this essay, so that makes me an author as well!

If I had started at plan A, I would have ran out of letters. Twice.

But, combine the letters, and you have a story, which is so much more interesting than just one letter. (No offense typography nerds.) Trying new things is only going to enrich your life, no matter how unrelated they might seem to your goals. It’s not a distraction if you can learn from it.