At young age I used to hear from adults they used to ask me about my dreams and what I want to become when I grow up. The common question was “What will you do with your life?” as I was a teenager it felt like I should fix it now and have a clear choice about it. So, as others I was expected to choose the right college for the right career. Also, I had to have it figured out that where I was heading in life, everything felt so rushed as if the time was short.
I'm in my 50s now and I know now how unrealistic my dreams were. I feel it was a wrong thing to do to a child, when we are young, we are forced by people to have our entire future planned earlier. I was supposed to know what career I would have in the future, where I should be living or how much money I should be earning. But there's no way a young person could know all of these at such young age.
People don't understand that we change when we grow up and our interest also changes based on the situation. Even my dreams changed when I grew up. The idea of happiness can change too. At young age things feel easier because we didn't have knowledge about the futuristic stuffs. So, when we are at the age of 18 what we thought that may not feel right at the age of 30. That does not mean the earlier decision was a mistake. It simply means the person has grown.
The choice of education should be ours, we should be able to choose science, arts or commerce not because of others expectations. There should be room to explore and make mistakes. I know time does not wait for anyone. I have seen how quickly the years can pass. One moment we are young and thinking we have plenty of time and before we realize it, many years have gone by.
So, I think we should not say that we haven't figured it out yet because it's an excuse for us to do nothing. We just need to have a goal and make efforts to make it come true. But we should also understand that our plans may change. As I have been living more than five decades, I have experience and I can tell life does not have a straight path for you, it can take turns to different paths and it may have unexpected delays and sometimes completely new directions.
The question is if it's okay to expect young people to have everything figured out? My answer would be "NO".
We can always have directions but we shouldn't feel afraid to change it when it's necessary. We should have dreams, but not punish ourselves when life takes us where we did not expect. We don't need to have the whole future figured out.
Credits: The thumbnail picture is generated by chatgpt.
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