There’s a story our year 11 and 12 students are hearing, one I heard at that age too, that isn’t true. The details change, but the take-home point is the anxiety-inducing idea that what they’ll do with “the rest of their lives” is a decision they must make now or very soon and that failing to make “the right choice” will have disastrous consequences.
The myth is so pervasive that they might not question it; might fail to stop and realise there is no singular “right choice” or that the “wrong” choice or even score needn’t rule out future flourishing. That choice is an important one, but whatever choice they make will lead to other choices and no single one will guarantee success or happiness.
One of the reasons the above myth is so enduring is that the “success stories” we’re most familiar with tend to be from people who “always knew” what they wanted to do. Maybe they faced setbacks and strokes of luck, but sooner or later, that knowing paid off. We also look at people who aren’t in jobs they love and assume that if only they’d made “the right choice”, they would be now.
The problem is that those success stories tend to focus on people who have obtained a level of fame that garners media attention, which means they only reflect the experience of a very small percentage of the population, while those “if only then” assumptions are only that: assumptions.
In fact, many students can’t know what “the right choice” is when all they’ve known is school. School only teaches certain subjects in a certain way; many of a person’s interests might remain undiscovered and untapped for years.
Since leaving school roughly 20 years ago, I’ve seen numerous friends find talents they didn’t know they had by trial and error, even chance. Some have mistakenly assumed they’re terrible at something they’ve turned out to be brilliant at. For others, the job they have and love was not an option when they left school because it didn’t then exist. Others have ended up pursuing more than one line of work at once.
A friend who works for a tech company springs to mind. He’s skilled at his job and enjoys it, but he gets restless too. Last year, he trained to be a snake catcher. Now, he’s doing both. If he types “BRB” to his colleagues, he might be off to lunch – or out to catch a venomous snake.
I also know people who have spent years studying and training to become lawyers or doctors then, having found well-paying jobs, quit to become ministers or missionaries. I know of others who thought what they really wanted was to be a paramedic or a pilot and, long after entering the workforce, left again to pursue those dreams – only to realise the reality wasn’t the stuff of (their) dreams after all.
‘Wasted’ time
This raises another problem with “the right choice” myth: the idea that time spent studying the “wrong” course or on the “wrong” ladder was wasted if we don’t then complete the course or climb the ladder.
In fact, skills and insight acquired in a previous career might be what makes a person shine in their subsequent one. And if a false start shows someone that the story they’d been telling themselves about their dream job wasn’t true, it can free them from regret, from thinking “what if” or “if only”, as they explore other possibilities with fresh eyes. In discovering their dream was not their dream, they might learn something new about what they’re good at or not, what they value or don’t, what they enjoy.
Then there’s the fact we can fail to find the “right” career, but love a job because the people are wonderful. Or find a job we love, but hate it because the work culture is soul-destroying. Or have a soul-destroying job, but stick at it, even be grateful for it, because anything that pays the rent is the “right” job for now.
I can see why students who are about to leave school and don’t know what they want to do – or lack the freedom or the means to have much choice – might envy those who do.
But not only might their decisive peers turn out to be wrong – not only might the jobs they plan to have prove unappealing or unattainable or no longer exist by the time they graduate – but their situations might change. No one plans to develop a chronic illness or have a debilitating accident or for this to happen to a family member who’ll then need their care, but these things happen.
It pays then to retain an open mind. To study hard, try to make good choices, but also to remember you might have to or want to change your mind – perhaps more than once – and that’s OK.
If you’re a student trying to decide what you want to “do”, why not do some real-world “research”? Ask your dentist, hairdresser, neighbour, barista, whether they love what they do and how they came to do it; ask them if they had false starts and what they learned from them; ask them what advice they’d give their younger self. Be curious, stay curious, keep learning your whole life.
Remember that it’s possible to have a crappy job and live a fulfilling life, or to have your dream job and remain unfulfilled, and that it’s possible to quit something and try again. Expect to face suffering and disappointment, but expect life to surprise – delight – you too. And don’t just invest in your work, invest in play. That play might just lead to fulfilling work. Even if it doesn’t, fun can be an end unto itself.
Whatever choice you make about what’s next, aim to keep growing as a person, no matter what you’re doing; and to keep investing in relationships – in having good, close friends and being one. What you “do” is not “your life” or a decision you will only make once. Life is far too wild, too rich with possibility to be tame like that.
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English (US)