Tell It Like It Is

Contrary to what most people have been told their entire lives ... they cannot necessarily be whatever they want to be.  What we should really be telling our young people that they can be whatever they want to be within reason.  Whether or not today's youth enter the profession of their choice depends on which profession they wish to enter, their abilities, and their willingness to work for it.  My good friend tells her students, "barring an act of Divine intervention, some people cannot be whatever they want to be."  Let's consider the students I have that wish to play professional football, something I often get when I ask my students to identify some of their long-term goals. Now, do my male students have the ability and drive to make it to the National Football League?  I'm not sure about their ability; I have never seen any of them play football.  I work at a community college and we have no football team.  As for their willingness to work for what they want, I don't think so; many people are only willing to "pay their dues" if someone gives them the money and another someone holds a gun on them to make them pay their dues.  Even if they have the ability and the drive, let's consider the mathematical probability of some of them entering the NFL  – no I won’t really work out the mathematical odds, but think about these tidbits: In 2011 the NFL had approximately 1700 players, and according to the 2010 census there are nearly 11,014,200 males between the ages of 20 - 24 (1.5%) and that is not including any of the 10,635,600 males aged 25-29 who may want to be in the NFL as well.  Over the last 5 years, the NFL drafted an average of 254 players per year.  The odds of becoming the next Payton Manning would be, what I think most gamblers would call, a long shot.  So ... should we discourage (not disencourage – a word I heard a high school student use when she was being interviewed on television by a journalist the other day) someone that could possibly become the next Tim Tebow? I do not necessarily think so, what we should do is encourage our students (and other people) to have a "back-up" plan; unfortunately, many people have no plan at all.  The truth is people can be whatever they want to be, within reason.  Every semester I tell all of my students, "find what you like to do, then figure out a way to make money doing it; then when you get that job that allows you to do what you like to do and earn money, it will be like getting paid to have fun."