When I was 10 I was certain that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up - my mom was a teacher and my brother was studying to be a teacher and I would have bet my life on the solidity of my plan. Fast forward just 5 years and high school was presenting me with a myriad of options. Suddenly my very incredibly solid plan didn't seem so valid anymore. Fast forward another 5 years and we're at today. I am 20 years old and I still have not pursued a post-secondary education because I still can't decide what I want to do with my life. In the mean time I have tried retail work, cooking, door to door sales, and residential cleaning. I can't even tell you how many careers I have considered, but my best friend could testify to the ever changing big plan for my life. And for nearly a year every time I came up with a new plan I would say 'this is it. I'm not going to change my mind again; this is actually going to happen!' and then two weeks or a month later Lyss would ask me about my plan and I would shrink back in my chair and go 'yeah, about that...' and I would shuffle back to square one with a sigh.
This morning I quit my job because after five long months I decided I couldn't handle the pressure and recurring rejection of door to door sales. The last three days I have had 5 interviews, and been offered three different jobs, so I'll be okay. I've realized that in this day and age no one stays at the same job for nearly as long as our parents did. Most of us have parents that have had the exact same career for their entire life, and maybe now they are starting to retire and move on to other things. But I am only twenty and my resume is two pages long for only the past 3 years, and I've never been fired from a job. Maybe it's just me {I get restless a lot!} but I don't think I've ever stayed in the same job for more than 6 months. It's something I need to work on. But it's also a reminder to myself that if I do decide to pursue a post secondary education it doesn't necessarily have to decide the rest of my life for me - it could just decide the next five years, and I could choose something else from there. I think when it comes down to it, I shy away from making the decision because I build it up too much. Oh, and the part where tuition money doesn't just drop from the sky.
I want everyone out there to know two things tonight. First of all, it's great to set goals, and achieve them! And secondly, it's also okay if you don't achieve those goals, or you change your mind. I think that there's too much of a stigma around career choices, and having everything figured out by a certain age. Believe me when I say that at least 70% of the people you see everyday that seem to have it all figured out, don't. We've become so adept at pretending to have everything under control that I think we forget that at the end of the day we're all just human. We're all just trying to make it; whether it be through the day, the week, the month - whatever it is, we're all just trying to make it. And I don't think it would be a gamble to say that most of us have secret demons, secret battles, secret secrets, that we deal with every single day.
So on this first day of a brand new, beautiful fall month, I ask just one thing from you. Look around you, and choose someone to talk to. It doesn't have to be a conversation about their entire life story, but you never know, it could lead to that! Just care a little bit for a fellow globe trotter, whether it be someone in your workplace that has seemed a bit distracted lately, a friend that has drifted silently away, a family member that doesn't come out of their shell much, or even the person you sit beside on the bus one day. Ask them how they're doing, and care deeper than the automatic, surface response of 'Good! How about you?'. I promise you it will make a difference, even if it seems small in the grand scheme of things, it will seem huge in their world. They'll look back on their day and think to themselves that there's still hope for tomorrow because there are still people that care.
