TODAY'S CHOICE
If you were a teen-ager today, what occupation would you choose to be your life's work?
We make such a choice whether we do so actually and technically with formal announcements or not. We make such a commitment – with variations – even if we simply just allow things to happen.
I feel the usual path is something of a combination of both methods. We see other people who have become successful workers in such-and- such-a line of business and we tend to concentrate on the good things which result and overlook the less fortunate circumstances. That can take person into a deceptive tangent. That’s where the elements of chance and of circumstances enter in the equation.
The factors of “income, money, moola” can cause dramatic changes. The circumstances which evolve from “romance” in ourselves also has major control over what happens. With sufficient fund readily available we can consider all sorts of attractive possibilities; without such funding we are much limited. It has long been that way, I think, save for a very few “rich kids”. In those cases the family traditions or the sometimes rather fickle moods of the “holder of the family purse” which so often decides - -even dictates – what young members of the family must “do.”
It may appear that young people today have an advantage over our generation, but the entire field of what we call “the market place” has changed so dramatically that it is difficult for older people to comprehend what the young person wished to do ... become ... or be. In so many cases the very nature of work to be done has mutated into forms we do even recognize, much less understand.
And, this is as it should be, I feel. I dare say it has always been that way, but the changes have not been as frequent, so volatile, so dramatic as they have commonly become in recent decades. It seems only yesterday that the young boy or girl in our community finished high school with an ingrained idea of getting a job with one of several major manufacturing plants in our area and to - as the almost general maxim was - to “work his way up”. At then, there would be a generous retirement, plan in the future, as well.
Once this plan was in place, the element of romance became difficult for young people to turn aside and this ideal often led to an early decision to take this route. It made sense in it's day. So often those who were happy with that sort of life work had a second job they enjoyed doing ...farming, a real estate interest, crafts, hobbies, antiques and that sort of endless potential of serendipity.
I am glad I do not have to face the problem of “what shall I do with my life?” We should realize it is one of the major problem's facing youth today. We should be aware of it, and help when possible, mainly by butting out when we don't understand exactly what they are trying to do.
A.L.M. November 27, 2004 [c519wds]
