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Old 12-26-2009, 09:16 PM
 
297 posts, read 897,945 times
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The ability to choose our own career path ~ was this beneficial to us?
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Old 12-26-2009, 09:31 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,758,429 times
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To me it was. I had the good luck to believe that I could live by my wits alone, and so far it has worked. With no formal education (3 years of free electives), I drifted in and out of careers that I could succeed at with minimum effort, never really "worked" for a living, and am now retired and as successful as I could have ever hoped to be. Could never have done that without a non-rigid fluidity of career opportunities.
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Old 12-26-2009, 09:32 PM
 
Location: southern california
61,289 posts, read 87,247,282 times
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per op
no i dont think it was. i think that dreaming should be done at night when asleep. reality dictates a trade vocational education- debt free- is needed by most americans. they continue to go to college to get advanced degrees and debt they can never pay off to obtain jobs that are not available.
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Old 12-27-2009, 10:44 AM
 
Location: A Nation Possessed
25,477 posts, read 18,607,227 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948 View Post
per op
no i dont think it was. i think that dreaming should be done at night when asleep. reality dictates a trade vocational education- debt free- is needed by most americans. they continue to go to college to get advanced degrees and debt they can never pay off to obtain jobs that are not available.
I've stated many times on this forum that we don't need a nation of rocket scientists. Clearly, there has to be normal people doing normal, everyday things to keep a society 'solvent.'

But, I can't say that I agree with you here. Who do you propose mandate an individual's career path? The government? Parents? Family? A lottery?

Here is the problem I see with that: in dictating a persons livelihood, you will often get a very dissatisfied person--dissatisfied with his/her work, his/her place in society, his/her life in general. You will often get an individual with poor aptitude and ability in the mandated career. You will often get a very poor productivity out of that person because they have no ability or interest in what they are doing--they hate it. In dictating life direction, you are never going to get the 'great minds' that have changed history in a better way. You'll get da Vinci shoveling ****, you'll get Newton cleaning bathrooms, you'll get Einstein roughing in plumbing at a construction sight, you'll get Hemingway picking tomatoes, you'll get Michaelangelo digging ditches.

Their has to be a place for truly talented individuals to contribute their brilliance to humanity with whatever talents they were given, be it something grandiose like the Sistine Chapel or something as useful as framing a house. Can you imagine the anguish and misery someone like Leonardo da Vinci would have had if his mind was full of great wonders and brilliant ideas, and he is forced to shovel **** ? Can you imagine the loss that humanity would suffer when those types of individuals are not allowed to offer their great gifts to all of us?

I say, let the individual find his/her own way in life. It is his/her success or failure, but at least he/she was given the chance in the first place. Some folks are happy subsistence farming their entire lives, others building things, others crunching numbers, others writing your literature, others painting the pictures you see hanging in your local bank, others keeping your sewer system flowing. It takes ALL kinds. Let the person find out where they fit by their own design.
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Old 12-27-2009, 10:48 AM
 
Location: Sango, TN
24,869 posts, read 24,340,579 times
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When did it stop becoming a good thing?

Even if you want to be in a career thats overly populated, you need to do it better for less.

My grandfather always told me, find out what you love, then figure out a way to get paid for it. While I'm not 100% behind my job, I wanted a job that allowed me to be outside, to change all the time, and require some physical requirements as well as a strong focus on the mental.

Thats exactly what I've got, and I'm in a area of the country I love. Everyone can do the same thing. Thats the wonderful thing about the free market, it forces you to try harder, or fade away.
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Old 12-27-2009, 11:05 AM
Status: "117 N/A" (set 2 days ago)
 
12,920 posts, read 13,609,232 times
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I instruct my kids to find out what is is they want to do after 5:00 pm and on weekens, find something that supports that
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Old 12-27-2009, 05:30 PM
 
297 posts, read 897,945 times
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Yeah, but how the hell are you supposed to somehow figure out at age 20, what you want to do for the rest of your life?
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Old 12-27-2009, 05:37 PM
Status: "117 N/A" (set 2 days ago)
 
12,920 posts, read 13,609,232 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by avant-garde View Post
Yeah, but how the hell are you supposed to somehow figure out at age 20, what you want to do for the rest of your life?
those were the olden days when you worked one job your whole through
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