But none of these people are the smartest person that I went to high school with.
The smartest person I went to high school with, for the sake of this story let's call him Terry. Now Terry was never the top student in the class, he was great at other things, athletic, well liked, I think he did good in classes but we didn't exactly have AP Chemistry where I'm from.
I worked with Terry and one day while we were probably supposed to be working we were talking about what we planned to do after graduating. Terry could probably have got into one of the major universities around, but he told me that he wanted to be a plumber. Plumbers make good money, they can find work in any city or town, there's always work, you can work for yourself and set your own hours.
It took me 4 years of university, 3 years of grad school, and 2 years working to learn what he already knew at 16.
Well, at least I'd like to think he thought this at 16. But what I'd like to think he thought is that being a plumber would let him have the security to pursue the lifestyle he wanted. What I've realized is that life sucks. Being a kid was WAY easier and way more fun than being an adult. Life is hard and to keep up, to keep passion for life you need to feed yourself.
I'm not talking about literally feeding yourself, that's pretty straight forward, if you don't eat you'll starve. As sappy as this is going to sound, I'm talking about feeding your soul. I'd like to think that Terry realized that work was never really going to fulfill him (or maybe it would), things outside of work would make him happier so he should choose a career that "feeds" him the most and let him do what he wanted to be happy.
It took me 7 years of post secondary education and 2 years of "on-the-job "training"" (yes, "training" gets extra quotation marks) to learn that I like learning. To keep myself happy in my career I need to keep putting myself in situations where I can learn. When I can't learn any more, it's time to put myself in a new situation.
I didn't go to my high school reunion. I'm sure all of my old classmates found success in one way or another. Terry is a plumber, and I think he works for himself. I'm still learning and I really hope it pays off with success in the long run.
