AF: Period 5 Catches FIRE!

You kids are blowing my mind.  Honestly.  A sudden torrent of thinking going on out here.

Listen:  that article entitled "Not Going to College is a Viable Option" seems to have thrown a monkey wrench into your thinking.  You must know that there are many ways in this world to be happy and successful; however, if my own daughter had said she were going to skip college, I would have blown a gasket. And when I consider everything I learned and everything I came to understand through the process of battling -- yes, battling -- for my degree, I embrace it all.

But I started out clueless.  I really was clueless.  And my 20s were bump-ity.  So don't believe you are about to run a straight line to your perfect life.  Anyone who is honest with you will tell you the path is not straight, and even the people who seem like they completely have it together -- they secretly don't.  You make a plan, and you adjust your plan when life throws new stuff at you.  You work to avoid the pitfalls -- unnecessary debt, bad influences and addictions, negative attitudes and unproductive self-talk.  You have faith in yourself.  Learn to lead with your intelligence and your good intentions.  Figure out how to help others, even when you don't have your own thing completely worked out.  Look for problems to solve.  The best businesses and the best innovations come from people who attentively notice a problem and then who go on to figure out how to solve it.

Most of all, don't be so worried.  You're so shiny and young, and there's so much life waiting for you.  Your generation has the capacity to do great things, and you're going to witness momentous change in your lifetime.  I know I have.  And the job of the future -- well, we don't even know what that is going to look like yet.  You have to know how to learn new things, how to be resilient and flexible, how to finish what you start, how to be your own best advocate...these things matter.

You are going to be fine.  I promise you.  Just keep working and dreaming.  Have a little faith that somebody's got your back.

Keep writing!  Keep communicating!  Keep thinking.
AF