If there was a common theme between my education and those of almost all my peers, it was that we were taught to do what we enjoy doing. The rest would solve itself. What mattered was that we loved what we did. As noble as this approach is, in the blazing heat of reality, it simply has no place to live.
Throughout my time in school, we were encouraged to take on admirable professions, like being an astronaut, the President, a writer, a musician, an artist, an actor, a policeman, a firefighter, an athlete, a teacher, or whatever we really wanted to be, irregardless of talent, means or persistence. It seemed that passion could overcome any barrier. In the light of the recent statistics concerning unemployment in my age group, a harsh observation is revealed: Doing what you enjoy is a luxury. Not everyone can afford it. In fact, few are able to afford to do what they want with their life.
At this point, I do not know whether my teachers were right or wrong in promoting the things they did. On the one hand, they caused us to be optimistic, with high and deep ideals. We did not look at how well something paid as the motivation for us to go in that direction. We considered what that profession was, and how it benefited others. Much more importantly, we considered how we felt doing it. Being rich was nothing compared to being happy.
On the other hand, the world we live in is practical, and my teachers, in one sense, prepared us to fail. We were ill-equipped for jobs which the world actually needed, jobs which, coincidentally, required hard work and lots of it. Many of us were made suitable for jobs which either did not pay well, or which the world did not need many of.
On a semi-related note, there is now a stark contrast between the attitudes of those in the U.S., who want easy, high-paying jobs, and those in other countries, who are fine with doing hard work with little pay. It should not be a surprise, then that outsourcing continues to occur as more jobs are transported out from the U.S., where people don't want them, to other places, where people will gladly do them. There needs to be a re-adjustment, not on the environment, but on our expectations. Things are not as easy as we were led to believe.
Written on February 8, 2012