High school kids stressed by pressure to have a career plan

WE'RE NOT allowed to talk about it. Even though Kelsey knows that Brad and I are haunting the mailbox wishing that the rest of her college acceptances and rejections would just show up, we're not allowed to say so. We're not allowed to mention "summer" or "college" or "decide" without a worried little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows.

We type instead. We sit in waiting rooms or on a plane or on the couch and pass the laptop back and forth with our high school senior. I type furiously, urging her to choose something, anything. I tell her she is smart and organized and original and that she will be fine whether she goes to college or gets a job right away. I tell her that if she makes a mistake she can transfer to another college next year. Big flippin' deal.

But to her it is a big deal.

"I do hate making mistakes," she tapped last week. "I really can't stand the way it makes me feel or the way it sets me back. I know no one wants to fail at what they do, and neither do I. I want to know what I want and do it."

She writes this as if she is certain she will end up with a cardboard sign on a median if she doesn't know her complete destiny right now. Did I want that when I was her age? Should I have wanted that?

I think my grand plan was to get a job that would "help people." I didn't know I was supposed to be "following my dreams." Or working in a career in which "the job felt like fun." Or "devoting myself to my passions." These days, kids are coached from grade school to have magnificent career plans.

I used to think that was a great idea. Maybe if I'd had some career worksheets, I wouldn't have spent my college years tumbling from major to major, withdrawing from classes, standing on the bridge drinking beers with cute boys instead of sitting at my desk. Maybe if I'd had a plan, my career would have gone a little smoother.

Now I'm not sure. Now I'm seeing that Kelsey and her cohorts are convinced they need to have a career plan right now. The perfect career path. How is that even possible? It's like asking a kid to pick an outfit to wear at her 35th birthday party. How will she ever know what will be in style? How will she even predict what size she will be?

No wonder these kids can't make a decision. They think they are choosing the rest of their lives when they are not. Because no one ever really plans her destiny, no matter what her revisionist history might tell her.

The truth is that many of the gifts we have for doing good work are in their embryonic stages when we're in our late teens and early 20s or 30s. The truth is that most of us make some random, ill-planned decision at 18. One decision leads to a new bedroom. A semester of classes. A group of dormmates and classmates and friends and boyfriends. Those experiences lead to other classes. Those classes lead to other jobs.

We succeed and we fail and we move on. It may look like there was a plan and a path, or that there should have been a path. Really, there wasn't. There couldn't have been.

I don't know what other parents or teachers will say, but I'm telling Kelsey to choose to go to college or not. To choose five classes interesting enough that she will attend without fail and turn in the homework on time. I'll tell her that the only choice she must make right now is how to spend the first six months out of high school.

And to believe, to truly believe, that is what destiny looks like.

Jacey Eckhart, jacey87@mac.com