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Helping future generations who do not know what they want to do next


I often have to remind myself that my mom’s generation was the generation that came in after World War Two. My mother is a baby boomer and for her, her generation had very specific lanes for success. I often joke with some of my friends that when I was coming up, the lanes of success were fairly limited to three things: Community College or technical school, college, or the military.

 

My mom’s generation probably could not wrap their brain around someone making a living playing video games, or riding a skateboard, or riding a snowboard. Those career paths for pathways to earn revenue just were not present during their generation. Which is why talking to future generations is tough if you’re a member of generation X because our parents came from that generation and they had a different pathway to success than the millennials have today.

 

Which is why focusing on giving guidance to the next generation has to be a serious endeavour when children today are faced with so many more possibilities than their parents and grandparents have but still have no clue what they want to do.

 

When I graduated from college, like most college graduates or graduates of any institution, I was solely focused on my accomplishments. I had completed my journey through the academic arena and I was happy to accomplish my goal. Now for the countless number of students out there who are graduating from high school or college, graduating is a huge milestone.

 

But the one thing I remember during all those times was that I never had anyone who sat me down and asked me, what was I doing next?

 

Sometimes when we focus all of our attention on giving kudos and accolades to people who have accomplished something, we want to give them the fullest opportunity to embrace and bask in the glow of achieving such a huge milestone. But I often wonder how many students out there would have much rather valued getting insight and into what they’re going to do next.

 

I’ve spoken about this on numerous occasions but the reality is when I graduated from college, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do next period I had no vision for my own future, my own profession, or anything other than just getting out into the workforce. I always knew I was going to go to Graduate School. I even knew in my mind that I would eventually pursue a doctorate in some area. But the hard reality is that when I got ready to walk off the campus, I had no clue what I was going to do next. And it wasn’t until the dust settled, family members left, and your friends have moved on to the next portions of their life, that you realize that there is no next portion for your own life. It’s terrifying.

 

And what’s even more terrifying is when you come to the hard reality that you have no plan for your future at all. If you started your collegiate journey with one thing in mind but you ended it with something else completely different, it can be unnerving. It can be unnerving because if you had not planned on being where you are, then how can you plan on where you’re going.

 

So today I spent a good deal of time talking to a young man who is getting ready to graduate from high school and I realized as I was talking to him, how frightening and must be when you don’t totally know what you wanna do. You have all these different thoughts in your mind of different things you’d like to try but you don’t really know what you wanna do. And it has to be frustrating when you were a teenager and you have adults trying to guide you the best they can but they can only guide you in the direction that you want to go. So how can you go in any direction if you don’t know what direction you want to go?

 

The biggest struggle that I had was reminding myself that today’s generation is not the generation of baby boomers or generation X.  And even though our pathways to success was very different, we do have the ability to share with future generations the ability to plan and strategically attack whatever dream they wish to pursue.

 

  



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