Being a young adult in the States is a funny thing - there's a plan for you: you do what you're told, follow the rules, go to school to "fulfill your true potential,"you follow your dreams upon graduation (which are inevitably always tainted by the shadow of your parents' dreams for you to be rich aka happy) and you live your young adulthood in a whirlwind of opportunity - with every resource at your disposal to build your American dream and stash money away while enjoying the remaining years of your youth.
Unfortunately, that isn't reality. ? In reality, you spend the better part of your college years learning how to party to the point of excess, you hit senior year (for some it's mid-Junior year and if you're anything like me it's senior year of high school) and realize you're about to be carelessly tossed into the beast that of society with barely a direction but knowing that you're about to embark on your career- a commitment that's intended to last about 40 or so years, no big deal. This is not just the society you've always lived in either - this one has expectations of you as a young college-educated youth, you know... responsible for the future of our country and stuff. So you're burdened with student loan debt, you have a degree that you barely know what to do with, you need money and end up desperately applying to any and every job you can find and then BAM! soon enough you're a drone. You're working 9 to 5 and making someone else rich. You're at a desk, and you're working through lunch and you're in early and you're out late and you do the same thing day after day after day after day. It's how it unfolds 9 times out of 10-- I did it. I followed the rules... I went by the plan, the one that practically came with a guarantee stamp of wealth and success and the brightest future possible, and so did all of my friends (or most of them, anyways).
But I am pretty positive that I'm not wealthy right now. Successful? To some, yes. But not by my definition of success. It took me a few years and a whole lot of long, stressful days at work to really figure out what that meant for me.
What if that whole plan, the whole shtick about school and choosing a career and essentially forming your destiny, what if it was ALL wrong? Doesn't that societal pressure, on your parents and therefore on you, to be wealthy and successful predispose you to choosing a particular path? To following a certain "destiny" based on what other people always told you would make you happy? It's kind of a load of crap. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first one to say that college is a great investment, but I certainly think the system needs to be reworked. I don't think 4 years at a desk, writing papers on a laptop and doing math equations out of a book, really prepare you to make the decision of what you SHOULD do for the rest of your life. Does it allow you to make a decision on what you COULD do? Of course! But maybe it's also stifling all of our true potentials at the same time.
When I was young we took a career aptitude test-- maybe 5th grade or so, when you're still so young you can be anything when you grow up! The test essentially measured your interests and hobbies (which at 10 years old mine definitely included drawing and stuffed animals) with some intelligence questions sprinkled in along with a basic skill assessment. Well, way back then my career aptitude test told me I should be a farmer.
Yep...a farmer.
Now, I'm certainly not a farmer nor am I aspiring to be one, but I'm also not the type of person to sit myself at a desk for 10 hours a day destroying my retinas staring at a computer screen with little to no interpersonal contact and stressing out over someone else's success. I love being outside, it's one of my absolute favorite things in the world and I think if I could work outside, at least for a good chunk of my day, I'd be a pretty happy camper. So how'd I end up at a desk...and how come nothing ever came of that aptitude test? About a year ago I took another skills assessment test through the University I graduated from- want to know what that test told me I should pursue for a career? Sales.
Oh and I should mention I went to a business school.
So you tell me, how is one person prone to a career in sales AND farming? I'm not quite sure but I have a feeling it has to do with that plan-- the one everyone else feels so entitled to make for us.
What was your 5th grade destiny?
