What's The Timeline For Growing Up?

I can still remember back in middle and high school thinking about what I wanted to do as a career when I grew up.  Each year I kept hoping the idea would just hit me and my future direction would emerge; but that didn’t happen.  I saw my friends growing more and more fond of their elective classes, the ones they were passionate about because it was in line with their future plans.  Since I had nothing to grasp at, I would bounce back and forth between their dreams thinking their goals would make me happy and fulfilled.  Then next week I would choose another person’s aspiration and attempt to make that one fit me but the results kept coming back to the fact that I couldn’t place my finger on a particular career or goal.

I think this lack of direction is typically normal in students and that we shouldn’t try to limit them at a certain point in time to make such a monumental decision that will truly affect their entire adult life.  Of course there are those students who have a very focused career plan and seem to relish that early on but that same focus makes other non-directional students cringe and feel almost less than for not having a detailed plan.

I think it’s okay to not know what the future should look like…the fact was that I still knew I was headed into the next phase and motivated to get beyond school and that should be a good starting point.  The fine line we walk is how far to push them before they end up turning away altogether from a future.

What do you think?