"What would you like to be when you grow up?"
I was in the seventh grade when the Texas public school system decided to begin testing students for interest levels and career aptitude. Basically, these tests would measure what careers you would find most fulfilling, and then would match them with the careers you for which you had natural talent (aptitude).
These tests proved difficult for me, in that I both found just about every career intriguing, and I scored high on every aptitude test they threw at me, whether mechanical, mathematical, philosophical or linguistic. I remember very vividly, the counselor going over my aptitude tests, and saying, "Son, you've got the ability to do whatever in life you wish to do." He then flipped over to my interest-level test. "Now, we've just got to figure out what that is?"
Deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up was a problem. The interest inventory tests didn't solve that puzzle. Years in the radio-broadcast industry didn't help either. I was either being exposed to new lines of work based on my connections in the community, or I was finding new ways to redefine my existing work, thus keeping it fresh.
Once, I interviewed for a job at a radio group in Paris, Texas. The general manager asked me, "What would you like to do? Sales, on-air, news or traffic?" I replied, "I enjoy all of it, and I'm great at all of it. What do you need?"
He then lectured me for two hours on needing to figure out what I wanted to do in life, then dismissed me without a job offer.
Confusion over what to be when you grow up, historically, has been a problem unique to the American experience. In cultures prior to the founding of the United States, the expectation was that a son would follow in his father's footsteps. If Dad was a carpenter, Son would be a carpenter. Upward mobility was unheard of. You were either part of the noble class, the business class, or the working class. Within those classes were sub-classes of tradesmen and skilled workers. There was some mobility between the sub-classes, and maybe from working class to business class if you were so fortunate, but typically, one who was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. Furthermore, your occupation was determined at a fairly young age, and you didn't deviate from it as long as you lived.
As recently as the late 20th century, children in socialist countries were tested for aptitude and interests levels, and thus were placed on an educational track that would feed them into pre-determined career fields. There was not much discussion on what you would do with your life.
However, that all changed in the New World when America began to be colonized. Suddenly, there was no guild to regulate your craft, no societal rules to tell you how to live, no class that you had to fit into. You were free to determine what you wanted to do with your life. Suddenly, what you wanted to be when you grew up became a very legitimate question.
Many sons continued to follow in their fathers footsteps, and poverty was still a multi-generational issue. However, if a man had a dream, and wanted to take a shot at it, he was free to do so.
As a result, America fueled the industrial revolution as entrepreneurs saw ways to meet needs, and to establish their own financial security in the process. New technologies blossomed. New occupations opened. Even in agriculture, new farming techniques and technologies (such as the two-handled plow and the cotton gin) were invented. As this new economic engine revved, fueled by freedom, and accelerated by hope, people began to dream that their kids would have a better life than they did. And for the most part, that has happened.
Over the past two centuries, this freedom has been exported overseas, and we see it developing around the world. Even in some of the most repressive countries, the poor are finding their way into new opportunities, and making the most of what they have.
This new rise in freedom comes as a result of people who fought and secured the independence of the United States, then asked themselves, "What do we want to be?"
Some answered that question quickly. The rest of us are still trying to decide. And if you haven't arrived at that answer yet, don't worry. The great Benjamin Franklin suffered from career ADD himself. He was a newspaper publisher, writer, political philosopher, ambassador, politician, scientist and inventor. He excelled at all of it. Don't paint yourself into a corner. Try it all, and enjoy the freedom that is uniquely American. You just might be able to answer the great American question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?"
No comments:
Post a Comment