It was somewhat of a reunion-filled weekend for me this past weekend. I met up with a good high school friend, some old friends of Michelle’s (who in turn have become my friends), and got together with a group of good college friends to celebrate Erin’s birthday. In seeing all of these friends, I’ve noticed that all of my long-term friends fall into one of two categories–the first group has stuck with their life goals from day one (either by choice or because they know no other way to live) and the other has let life lead them by the hand, having their careers/destinies determined by forces other than their own. I most definitely fall into this latter category.
I wasn’t always like this, and I’m not upset that this is where I’ve ended up. I’m quite happy actually. But I’m reminded of my life goals at 16, and that’s where we’ll start today’s story.
When I was in the 11th grade, we had career assessment day at our school. We were taken to the local military base and given a standardized test to help determine our career aptitude. If you’ve never taken a test like this, it’s pretty fascinating how blatant and subtle it is all at the same time. Questions were as obvious as, “Do you like to work with cars?” and as semi-obtuse as “Are you happiest at home, at the mall, at school, or at a party?”.
Overall it was a pretty sad career day. There were few colleges with kiosks to visit (apparently the NFHS graduating class of ’94 was not as ‘all that and more’ as we thought), and the only business that had a kiosk with which to visit was the local radio station “Kiss 98.5”, and the host at that stand (morning DJ “Rocky Allen” or some variation thereof) was clearly coming down from whatever uppers he had taken to pep up his morning Zoo crew and had very little desire to entertain a bunch of ignorant teenagers at partially defunct military base.
Weeks later we receive our results. My top 3 careers were “TV/film producer/director”, “museum curator”, or “priest”. It was then that I realized that maybe life wasn’t as easy and pre-determined as I was lead to believe. So seeing as how I hated memorizing history and that I was essentially Jewish, my only other option was TV/film producer/director, which having been obsessed with my video camera and film my entire life thus far, didn’t seem to be too much of a stretch for me.
Now none of my other friends seemed happy with their results. I don’t really remember how everyone netted out, but I do remember everyone generally feeling “I was kind of hoping for some guidance here and all I’ve been given is the recommendation to be a pharmacist”. So a lot of my friends spent the following few weeks moping about, concerned that the rest of their life would consist of dispensing analgesic creams and such. I, on the other hand, was quite proud that I had found a life-path that I was truly happy to travel down.
One night, a group of us had gathered at a friend’s house, and were discussing our lives. Everyone seemed saddened to think about their future. I, however, regaled in the idea that I would become a great filmmaker, as destiny (or the US military) had set this life in place for me. My friend’s mother had come into the room and mentioned that she was starting her career as (coincidentally enough) a career counselor for students, and did anyone want to talk about anything. No one really chimed in except me who declared, “I’m going to be a filmmaker!” and I beamed with pride.
Her response: “Oh dear, don’t do that. You’ll never make it. Try for a career in cable TV or something.”
My heart sank. How could destiny (or the US military) have been wrong? I’d taken their stupid test and they had looked inside my soul (or my markings from my No. 2 pencil) and found my true calling was film. And yet here was a live-person, a grown-up no less, telling me that this was not to be. I was crushed. I was crushed because I was impressionable and I believed everything she said.
Now, I eventually went to school to study film because there was a small part of me that still held on to the idea that the moving image was where my heart belonged. But I must say that ever since that day, the dream was never quite as strong.