Retrospective: When You Were 18, Where Did You Think Life Would Take You?

I  just read an article about a small, private high school in California that each year asks their graduating class to video tape a message to themselves to view ten years down the road.  The idea is to get the kids to try and set goals for themselves and start a life plan. When I was 18 I thought I wanted to be a zoologist.  Looking back on that, I still wouldn’t have minded doing that.  What got me off track?  One word…math.  I just couldn’t handle the math.  I should have known I couldn’t cut that part. Location and timing did me in on the math.  I was raised in a small town of around 800 where most of the kids were raised on farms.  I also spent my high school years during the 60’s.  Women’s lib was just in its infancy.  When I took a test to see which field of work would be best for me, guess what the results were?  Teaching.  Well, sure be either a teacher or a secretary.  You don’t need advanced math for that.  Let’s just say a career beyond those two fields was not expected.  Like the people in the article, my career path has had several twists and turns.  I did teach, then became a seminar coordinator for a software firm and finally ended up in a field I truly loved…travel.  I never thought sales was in my future.  But I loved it.  Retired now but still travel.  I asked my husband what he was thinking career wise when he was 18.  I had to say career wise because if I didn’t he would have said something like “finding out if prolonged kissing was truly a mortal sin” (he went to all Catholic schools).  Actually, he followed his career path as he set out to do.  He went to college, got a business degree and emulated his older brother by joining the same company, American Airlines.  He stayed in the airline industry until retirement. That kind of thing is no longer the norm.  The work force today changes jobs every 3-4 years. I wrote a blog awhile back on forks in the road.  As Yogi Berra famously said that when he saw a fork in the road, he took it.  Sometimes choosing which fork is not left as an option.  As the people in the article stated, sometimes things just get in the way.  It was math with me but for them it was the recession, high unemployment, unexpected pregnancies, accidents, ill parents, any number of obstacles .  I don’t normally quote the Bible but I did read this quote in a book I’m reading on explorers.  Life is full of hard knocks and broken pathways.  Stop and halt signs all along the way. I think this quote gives us good advice on how to handle those times.  From Romans 5:3-5: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.  And hope does not disappoint us.”

Just a few extra thoughts.  Dr. Charles Krauthammer had his future all planned out.  He was going to be a medical doctor.  He was at Harvard.  He decided to go diving with a friend.  He broke his neck.  He was/is paralyzed from the neck down.  He had his text books taped to the ceiling so that he could continue his studies.  He not only became an MD but graduated at the top of his class.  It’s never too late folks to do what you want.  Just because you dreamed it at 18 doesn’t mean you can’t dream it when you’re 80…