A Backward Approach to Career Planning

It all started just a little while ago, during the last week of August. It was “that time of year” again—the leaves were beginning to turn colour, in anticipation of fall, but my family's household was already becoming slowly engulfed in a multi-coloured avalanche, not of leaves, but rather, of various letters, forms, invoices, and registration paraphernalia, all politely announcing that they needed several thousand dollars towards my brothers’ and my respective educational experiences, and they NEEDED it NOW. This made the flippant person in me briefly consider asking if they also wanted us to throw in an Oompa-Loompa or two, but, since my parents were responsible for the lion’s share of the funding of this endeavour, they were (understandably) not quite as able to see the humour in the situation as I was.

However, I was raised to believe that every cloud has a silver lining, and this burgeoning thunderstorm of burdensome bills and demands was no exception. That’s what ultimately brought about my stroke of brilliance, on a perfectly ordinary late-August day, during a perfectly ordinary drive home from work with my mother, after a long day at the law firm. As usual, she was stressed out by some rude opposing lawyer or hysterical matrimonial client, and the steady stream of financial demands from Bishop’s and U of T must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, because all of a sudden, she started in with The Lecture.

Now, we’ve all been on the receiving end of The Lecture at one point or another, and I’m sure we all know that it’s never delivered with a malicious intent, but rather, it’s brought on by a normal, healthy, parental solicitude for children’s well-being. Because they have so much more life experience than we do, they become that much more convinced that the lifestyle that they’ve chosen to adopt can only be The Way, The Truth, and The Light—I mean, after all, it’s worked for them for the past thirty years or so, so of COURSE it’s what’s best for their children. Condescending as The Lecture may sound to our idealistic ears, it’s always delivered with the best of intentions. After all, all any good parent wants is for their children to be every bit as happy as they are, and to have all the emotional fulfillment that people get from living in big Victorian houses full of fancy knickknacks and artwork, that they’re inevitably too busy working to notice. It wasn’t always that way, though, and this revelation was precisely what brought about my stroke of genius. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In order to understand how I arrived at this stunning conclusion, let’s start at the very beginning, which is, according to my favourite musical,“a very good place to start.”

In the beginning, there was a word, and that word was “possibility,” and it was so, at least when we were three, and five, and eight, and twelve, and in some cases, eighteen. Keep writing, keep drawing, keep playing those instruments, and sing, dance, and slam-dunk to your little heart’s content, they said. After all, the world is your oyster, and you can do anything if you just apply yourself, practice every day, give one hundred and ten percent, do your homework, and eat your vegetables. And, in between the obligatory eye-rolling and door-slamming that punctuated the heavy-metal rhythms of our adolescence, we listened to them. We sang, danced, wrote, drew, and believed in ourselves (albeit cynically), until the time came to fill out applications for university. Only then did The Creators decide to change their tune, and the upbeat melody of positive reinforcement was replaced with a grim, ominous mantra of Reality, or so they said. Upon hearing their ever-so-observant offspring bursting with dreams of becoming artists, writers, musicians, Broadway dancers, and Olympic athletes, the bubbling fount of parental encouragement began to dry up, revealing the parched and desolate wasteland of dismal career options that await graduates of these programs, and we were expelled from the paradise of possibility in which we lived as children. Maybe it happened all at once, when you were in high school, and your parents sat you down for what would be the first of many rounds of The Lecture, or maybe it happened a little at a time, beginning when you were six, and found out that no, it would not be possible to pursue a career as a mermaid in the summer, and a Care Bear in the winter.

So, what happens now? Well, if you’re lucky enough to have parents who are willing to contribute to your education, or industrious enough to finance it yourself, it’s in your hands. Of course, that’s not to say that some people aren’t swayed by their parents’ words. It’s hard not to be, considering that those same people raised us to believe that anything was possible, only to reveal the truth at the exact moment we plan on testing that theory. So, some of us decide to do the practical thing, buckle down, and become business majors, with the briefcases and power suits and five-year plans, and, in the words of the irrepressibly irreverent Phoebe from Friends, “four-oh-oneks.” Some of us become doctors, making a noble living healing people’s ailments, whilst up to our elbows in their bodily fluids. Still others (like my parents, for example) become lawyers, and then burn out from working in a constant state of acrimony, before you can say “Please satisfy yourself.”

But, for the rest of us, who don’t listen, and obstinately insist on going the starving-artist route, we get subjected to Phase Two of The Lecture, in which our parents sigh knowingly and say, “Oh, well, you SHOULD do your FIRST degree in something you love, and then decide what you REALLY want to do.” Either way, it sounds kind of backwards—to pursue one’s passion single-mindedly for years, only to give it up the moment you earn the piece of paper that tells the world that yes, you’re really, really good. Imagine, for example, taking ski lessons, and training relentlessly from the moment you can stand up, in preparation for that perilously magical moment of trusting everything you’ve learned and worked for over the years, and taking that first, seemingly impossible leap of faith, with your heart clenched firmly in your mouth until you land solidly, comfortingly, on the pristine-white snow below you, textured with both slick, packed-down ski grooves from those who have succeeded, and shallow, heavily creased dimple-like impressions from those who have not. Now, imagine curling into a tuck and barreling down that hill, only to stop at that critical moment, pack up your skis, and walk back to the chalet. Sure, it’s safe, but what’s the point? And yet, that seems to be the message our parents are giving us. Do your thing while you’re young, get it out of your systems, and then put your toys away and be a grown-up.

So, what do we do about this? The solution is simple. If the present scenario seems backwards, the only sensible thing to do is to reverse it. Imagine if things worked the other way. Indeed, rather than racing to be finished doing what we love during those formative four years after high school, we could simply bypass that whole stage, and go straight to the soul-crushing Real World our parents keep touting, as a means to obtaining all the material goods that supposedly make up the very fabric of our happiness. Now, for this to work, there’d have to be some adjustments made. Sure, young Bryttknee may not have a medical degree, per se, but doesn’t she watch House, CSI, and Grey’s Anatomy every single week? Well, then, that’s perfect! She’d make an excellent doctor. What’s that? Tziphaknee can keep up with five different MSN conversations at once? Meet our new foreign correspondent. Dylan’s a Foosball superstar? Well, great, the Toronto Argonauts have needed a new coach forever. So, our friends Bryttknee, Tziphaknee, and Dylan will put in their time doing those things until they’re forty or fifty or so, and then, with the aid of their “four-oh-oneks” and their work-jaded worldviews, they’ll pack up their bags and head for university, so they can spend the rest of their lives doing what they love, with no worries about whether or not they’ll be able to afford it. Sure, it sounds kind of far-fetched, but think of all the problems it’d solve. The cacophonous jumble of bedraggled houses, mismatched furniture, and broken beer bottles that is the “student ghetto” would be replaced with a tidy subdivision, each pre-fab, cookie-cutter house resplendent with a minivan in the driveway, next to the uniformly-mown Astroturf lawn. The beauty of this? It’s all, completely paid for. Now that the the inhabitants of this new society have put in their time in the Real World, they can now focus fully on filling their minds with knowledge, or, in some cases, filling their livers with booze. They can change majors every other week if they want, and it won’t matter. They can blow thousands of dollars playing poker in the basement, or buying sports memorabilia off the Internet, and it won’t matter. And, for the ones who succeed, and indeed become the next Picasso or Glenn Gould (which is much easier without the necessity of flipping burgers or answering phones on the side to make ends meet), they’ll be able to look forward to the next phase of their lives so they can further hone their gifts—retirement.

So, step right on up, all you menopausers and “four-oh-onekers,” and come to the New And Improved Bishop’s University. Enjoy an exciting Frosh Week, where you’ll get to slide down a soap-slicked piece of plastic, shout obscenities at the opposing football team, and cavort in a wading pool full of cold, gelatinous poutine, all while painted a lurid shade of purple, which your frosh leader *swears* will wash out of even the blondest hair in oh, two weeks, tops. Park your minivans and sensible sedans, and drop your kids off at the day care, and don’t worry about getting hurt, Dr. Bryttknee will be there to heal all your aches and pains, and if things get litigious, here’s the number of an excellent lawyer, who’ll get you to the front of that hip-replacement waiting list in no time.
Just don’t call on Tuesday afternoons, that’s when she has cheerleading practice.