Scott Adams of Dilbert Blog wrote recently:"When I was a kid growing up in a small town, and I imagined my future, I could think of maybe fifty types of careers. They were all the obvious ones: lawyer, doctor, veterinarian, banker, store clerk, mailman, cartoonist, etc. I always wonder how different the world would be if kids knew there are a million jobs in the world to choose from, and not just fifty. Would kids start early to prepare for careers as videographers or dolphin trainers if they knew how cool those jobs were?"
I didn’t know that sort of thing back 25 years ago. Nor did I know how things would change in:
Choosing a profession
My fellow high school graduates and I choose our future by following certain criteria:
- Being influenced by our fathers’ professions
- Deciding whether we wanted to go to university or not
- What subjects we like (e.g. sciences, language, history)
- How much status or financial success did we aim for
- Did we want to be a part of the System or against it
I went on and danced for a few years after high school and then decided that the whole profession was too much for me. Financially, psychologically, and emotionally, it was unpredictably harrowing.
When choosing my second profession, my father advised me to add another item to the list:
- How do you want to live in the future?
After the ballet experience, I knew I wanted secure employment (see yesterday’s post), the ability to work in different countries (wait for tomorrow’s post), make my own career decision and not have to depend upon any choreographer’s preference of length of legs, height, or type of stature.
If I see any difference between choosing a profession now and then, it is in the extra item that has arisen in the last ten years:
- What good are you doing for our planet and mankind?
Even as teenagers, my children already have a sense of social obligation. (A concept I only developed after I had put children onto this planet.) When we talk about certain professions, global projects, and community leaders, we talk in consideration of the good these things or people are trying to do.
The fact that there is an element of altruism in choosing a profession, whether it is a social, political, scientific profession, is very different to what I experienced 25 years ago.
I agree that there's a sense of altruism in job choices now that didn't exist when I left school 21 years ago. My brother now runs a tree nursery for indigenous South African trees and plants - that was not a job description that existed when he left school.
ReplyDeleteLoving this series, Lia, thank you!
I find that my students still think about choosing a profession in a very limiting way. When I was still at school I didn't know that one could make a living the way I do, and without formal training. I thought the only way to become a musician or a music teacher was to start at age 6 and then be the best always. Since then I found that most people I know arrived at their jobs sideways.
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