What would you do?

You're seventeen or eighteen years old and you don't already have something in mind that you want to do?

Really?

What have you been doing with your life up to now? Isn't there anything that interests you? Which classes did you enjoy most? What hobbies have you taken up? What do you like to read about? What catches your eye in the news? What do you find yourself stopping to look at as you're walking along? What do you talk about with your friends? What do you ask questions about? Which of the forums on this website attract your attention?

Tell us what you do with your time so we can get some idea of what kind of a person you are.

 

If you don't mind some "elder" advice from a man old enough to be your grandfather, I'd say what you need most right now is to face the reality that everyone has to live their own life, regardless of how much it disappoints the people they love. I'm sure your parents and other relatives are really sweet and they only want the best for you, but the world is changing rapidly. We're living in World2007 and they're showing you the User's Guide to World1965.

There are lots of things you can do that will entail working with animals and spending plenty of time outdoors. You don't really have to be a "stable girl." I'm sure you know that, but the fact that you even use such a derogatory term for something that is dear to you shows how badly these well-meaning people have brainwashed you.

Have you thought about studying veterinary medicine? There is a real need for good vets in America. Their numbers are not limited by an old-boy network like medical doctors and dentists are, so a lot of people make it through veterinary school who manage to pass the exams but are either not very rigorous in their thinking and research or just not all that interested.

You can go into wildlife management, forestry, all kinds of (for you) fun stuff that they teach in college now. Sure, you might have to pay some dues and work in a lowly position at first, but I suspect you might not find it all that lowly and you'd probably even enjoy working your way up more than the desk job someone will eventually beg you to take. Of course by that time you will have learned that it's what you want that counts and you'll politely turn down the desk job so you can keep going out in your boots every day.

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Do you have any other interests that your family would disapprove, that you don't even remember to talk about? Do you enjoy singing or playing an instrument, painting or sculpting, photography or writing? Every single one of those activities is a profession and they are all taught in college.

You may be tied to your family's purse strings, but if you have any economic independence I would urge you to not start your university study right away. If you don't know what you want to learn you could waste a year or two figuring it out while you study something insufferably boring. Take a year, or six months, or three months, or whatever you can do, and travel. Go to some really foreign countries, not just places that almost feel like home such as England. See first hand how other people live, what things they are forced to consider important, how they think and feel about their lives and our world.

Have you ever been in a place where they don't have computers? Pasteurized milk? Disposable diapers? Would you believe that people live in places like that and they're really happy and not impoverished and pitiful? Can you imagine how much perspective you could get on your own future by talking to them?

I'm sure you know at least one foreign language, and even if it's only Latin, you have developed the skill to learn languages while you're young so picking up another one will be easy. Anywhere you go, you'll find yourself communicating with people in just a couple of days.

You have to start living your life for yourself right now, today, this very minute. Carpe diem, as they say, which you probably understand since all educated Catholics know Latin. If your family is disappointed, that's a lesson about life that you might as well learn right now. Sometimes people want you to live their dream, not your dream. Don't wait until they're dead to figure that out because you won't be able to complain about it then.