Tommy on Purpose

I think we put way too much pressure on young people to know what they want to do before they’ve actually experienced much of the working world. One teenager I talked about recently wanted experience at a ramen shop in New York, so he went out and put up hundreds of flyers trying to create the opportunity for himself. The point wasn’t that he had already decided this would be his career. The point was to explore, get curious, and learn by actually doing something. We need much more of this. Let young people try blue-collar work, white-collar work, creative work, technical work. Let them shadow people, apprentice, build things, and figure out what they enjoy and what they’re good at. One experience doesn’t have to determine your career. Sometimes its value is simply helping you figure out what you want to try next.