In the last little bit I have been doing lots of interviews with people for my new book "Career Chaos: What the hell are you going to do with your life?" however there is one interview that continues to play over and over in my head. This interview comes from a 13 year old girl who when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up immediately answered-"a gym teacher" There was no thought, there was no hesitation, it was without a doubt gym teacher. Great!
That would be the case if I was a typical adult going about my typical ways. I would have said "Great, good for you, I know how much you love sports you will make an excellent gym teacher." This is not what I said though, because I was interviewing her and I had to dig a little deeper I asked, "do you think that will ever change?" Again a lightning response was shot back to me, "NO, of course not I love sports."
Then something really unusual happened instead of blabbering on, which I wanted to do believe me, I just sat there and stared at this young girl who was so sure of herself. In fact this girl had it all figured out. Or had she? During my pause this young girl had begun a whole new conversation by herself, she was beginning to convince me (or was it her?) that this would be an awesome fit for her. She told me (herself) that she did love sports, that she loved the energy and the enthusiasm but then she also said that maybe she wouldn't want to teach younger grades because they weren't competitive enough for her. Then she moved on to maybe not wanting to teach high school students because sometimes they can be rotten. But maybe she would like teaching middle school students especially if she got to teach outside. A few seconds passed with this young lady completely chatting on her own.
A few shorts moment later and all of a sudden it was like I wasn't even in the room, the girl had forgot all about me and that I was even there. Then at the end of this prolific monologue the girl stopped talking, dropped her head, spoke one last time "I really don't know", and then began to sob softly with her head pointed at the floor.
Immediately I jumped up and asked her why she was being so emotional and her response to me is what I have been thinking about for weeks and weeks-"I'm the only loser in my grade who doesn't know what I want to be." "Of course you are not" I said.
Is this where our systems have taken us now, to a point where we are becoming so stressed out about our futures before we even to the best playing years of our life. In a time when we should be venturing out into self-discovery we are worried about the hell we are going to do so much that we break down and stress out over the next 50 years of our lives.
There are so many things going on in this world but when a 13 year old can cry because she doesn't have life figured out I think that is truly sad.
It took only a few moments to rationalize this with the girl asking her if she really thought her friends truly knew before she realized that the answer was likely no.
Society is putting more and more pressure on us to "figure it out". Whatever the hell "it" is.
This is the true reason I am writing this book-because I think there are so many people who think they are all alone and are worried that they are the only "stupid" ones who can't get their life together, when in fact I know now for sure that there are literally thousands of people both young and old that are still exploring. But they are scared, they are scared because heaven forbid we show a moment of "weakness" in our life and we don't have a plan.
Yes I know it is strange for a life coach to be bad mouthing plans but hey that is why I'm the creative coach-because I love chaos and I love thinking about how life can take us on so many paths.
My solution to all this, start challenging people of all ages to explore, to be creative, to get comfortable with chaos. This is the only way that down the road any employed person when "let go" or quiting can be ok with that and not feel pressure.
So the next time you ask someone what they are going to be when they grow up take a pause and let them really think about it, let them think, let their minds wonder, even go so far as to challenge their path.
13 year old crying because she is a failure because she doesn't know what she wants to do for the rest of her life-who the hell does?
What do you think? What do you want to be when you grow up? What is a good answer? Or better yet whats a better question that we need to ask ourselves?
