I have a teenager in my life who is in the midst of making decisions about college, career, and the future direction of her life. As I watch her go through her struggles, I find myself wishing that I could just take all the wisdom I’ve accumulated in my 38 years and transfer it to her. It’s probably lucky that I can’t - she deserves her own chance at learning her own lessons, and, anyway, who am I to say that my wisdom applies to her life. But I still couldn't help myself, and, I figured, blogging is less intrusive than a brain download... So my dear teenager, here is my unsolicited advice on your dilemmas. Take whatever you find useful and ignore the rest. May you be happy!
And for the rest of my readers: What other advice would you give a 16 or 17 year old who is just embarking on her or his adult life? Please chime in.
1. Decisions are revisable and, a lot of the times, reversible. Although you may feel as though the decisions you're facing right now are final and irreversible, you are actually not determining the direction of your life for the rest of your life. Nobody goes through life executing on a plan hatched when they are sixteen. People change directions all the time, and that’s the beauty of life. Nothing is ever final, and there are always options. Right now, you are just making your first steps. The plan will change many times. You will review your decisions and change your direction, and you’ll find yourself in wonderful places you never planned to go.
So remove that pressure from your life. Make the best possible decisions you can in each moment, follow your intuition to reach out for things, people, subjects, opportunities that seem fun, exciting, and interesting, and always keep your eyes open for new gifts from life. And if you make a decision that doesn’t feel right, know that you can always change it.
2. Grow into your true self. Follow examples of people you admire, but don’t forget that you need to grow into your own true self. Your path is your own. You have unique gifts to offer the world that nobody else has. These gifts may not be apparent to you, and that’s normal: we all tend to take our greatest gifts for granted. But they are apparent to me and to anybody else who truly loves you. And the world can't wait to receive those gifts. Don’t withdraw them from the world by choosing a path that doesn’t feel like your own.
3. The only person you need to please in life is you. As a 16-year old, you have a lot of people trying to direct your life. As a kind and compassionate soul who likes to create harmony, you are trying to find a happy medium between what you want and what the people you love want for you. That’s a beautiful quality. But remember that you are the one who will live with the decisions you make. Remember that if someone is unhappy with your choice, their unhappiness will fade as they turn their attention back to their own life. You, on the other hand, will have to live with the consequences of your choice every day. So make sure you are pleasing yourself more than you’re pleasing others.
4. Liberal arts education is valued, and highly. I know that some people you love think that science, engineering and computer programming are the only worthy majors, because they are supposed to lead to sure-fire jobs with guaranteed high salaries. I also know that a poster in your science-specialized high school reads Liberal Arts: Want Fries With That? And I know that this creates an impossible dilemma for you: you’d like to follow your heart into liberal arts, but you are worried that you will be condemned to a life of poverty if you do.
Well, my dear, this is not a dilemma at all, because the idea that liberal arts majors don’t pay is just not true. I wish I could introduce you to every friend I have who studied liberal arts and went on to run an international consulting firm or a major division of a global headhunting company; become a risk analyst for a global banks or a senior economic advisor to a nationally-known political figure; produce films for the world’s leading television channels or run a foreign bureau of a major newspaper or cable news channel; teach at a prestigious academy or Ivy League school or impact national education policy in an advisory role. They live lives that are rich in rewards, both creative or financial.
In fact, CEOs of major companies have said for years that the skills they’d like to see more of in their companies are creativity, imagination, and innovation. They want communication skills, people skills, and the ability to analyze and synthesize large amounts of information. They also want strategic, big-picture thinking. All of which comes with liberal arts territory – with majors in philosophy, psychology, history, arts, and literature. People with liberal arts degrees go on to some of the most interesting jobs and lives: just check out Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads by college career experts Sheila Curran and Suzanne Greenwald for a small window into that.
Remember that your parents wish the best for you, but that their knowledge is based on their experience, and their experience is grounded in the past. You, on the other hand, are entering a world of the future. Listen to your parents, but also study this new world. Talk to people who inhabit it, and form your own opinion. Did you know, for example, that more and more people refuse to choose and are following several careers at the same time? Of that 60 percent (!) of Generation Y (those between 18 and 29) own their own business or non-profit in addition to having a job? The possibilities are literally endless for people who think creatively and have multiple interests.
As for the poster, remember where it hangs. Would it hang at a Liberal Arts school? I didn’t think so. Which reminds me: always check the biases of those giving you advice (yes, that includes me too), and take the message on board only if it rings true for you personally.
5. There’s never been a greater need got right-brain professions than now. The world of professions changes all the time. New professions are born every day, while old ones - even those that seemed a sure-fire thing just a few years ago - get outsourced or automated. Just ask my Dad who opened a science center in Russia for his employer, a Fortune 500 American company. The company is now getting outstanding scientists in Russia for a fraction of the cost, which is not news for those American science graduates who were hoping to work for his company. Or ask computer programmers whose jobs have left for India. Or lawyers who’ve lost clients to LegalZoom. Or tax accountants whose jobs have been taken away by TurboTax. Or ask Dan Pink, who's written the best-selling book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future and who argues that demand for right-brain skills – compassion, creativity, innovation – is rising, and that since these skills cannot be outsourced or automated, they provide greater security than the left-brain skills.
6. Your choices are only limited by what you choose to believe in. We each have a set of beliefs that we’ve assimilated from our environment and take as universal truths. Many times these beliefs are extremely limiting. Believing that people who study liberal arts will always be poor is one such belief. Believing that people who do what they want in life are selfish is another. We may believe that if we follow our hearts our family will stop loving us. We may believe that the world doesn’t need our gifts or that we must marry at a certain age or that we shouldn’t want too much. Or we may believe that we are not good enough or that we don’t deserve to choose things that make us happy.
But a belief is nothing more than a point of view. For each one you hold, there is an opposite one, and you can find supporting evidence for both. So if there is something you believe in that doesn’t serve you, change that belief to something else. This may seem too facile or spineless (we’re taught to hold fast to what we believe in), but look at it this way. In the past people – including women – believed that women couldn’t do the same work as well as men did. That kept many women from even trying. It took a lot of work to dismantle that belief. But once it was gone, it turned out that the only thing that prevented women from doing the same work as men was that – the belief. The reality – their actual ability – had nothing to do with it. So whenever you find yourself saying that you can’t achieve something or that you’re not good enough for something, begin by challenging that belief. You’ll see that the actual change will follow quickly.
7. Your life's journey is just what the word implies - a journey. Our lives are never straightforward, and they are never predictable. We have to make choices based on the best available information, but we also have to be prepared to explore and adjust to circumstances, absorb new learning, and go with the flow. Live life for the sake of the journey, not a promised paradise of an accomplishment. An accomplishment achieved at the cost of suppressing your own spirit will feel prove illusory, and the victory - hollow. You must have fun along the way, and the only way to do so is to follow your intuition toward things that draw you and to be present to each moment of your life as fully as you can.
8. You don't need to be rich and famous to have a great life - you only need to be happy. Happiness is the only currency worth having, and it’s the real reason anybody does anything. We may say that we want a big house, but the real reason we want it is that we believe it will make us happy. We may say that we want a lot of money, but the real reason is that we believe it will buy us happiness. Be careful about what you believe will make you happy and always try to live so that you are happy in every moment – not at some distant point in the future.
9. Whatever you choose, everything is going to be just fine. They say that there are only two ways in life to make decisions: based on fear and based on faith. Right now everyone in your life is trying to scare you into making a choice that they think is right for you. In fact, the entire culture has conspired to tell you that if you don’t find a sure-fire way to get rich and famous, you’ll be a failure.
Don’t listen to those voices. They are the voices of fear. Trust that the Universe will support you in your best aspirations. You were given certain gifts because the world needs them, and you will be supported - materially, emotionally, and spiritually every time you make the decision to use those gifts. Have faith in yourself and remember that everything is going to be just fine.
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What else would you like to add to this list? Chime in with your thoughts.
As I read through this list, I found myself wondering how anyone could add any comment at all, you just seem to nail the advice so completely, Izabella. Your daughter is a very lucky young woman. Chances are good, I am betting that she would take this advice even better if it came from someone else, being a teenager and all. So, if you want, you have my permission to put my name on a copy of this and give to her to read.
Posted by: GL HOFFMAN | June 05, 2008 at 12:26 PM
Hey GL, thank you for your comment! She's not my daughter, actually - which makes me think, as you suggest, that she might actually listen to the advice :)
Posted by: Izabella Tabarovsky | June 05, 2008 at 05:04 PM