Allene Swienckowski
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

To begin, there is nothing wrong with you taking the time to present to people younger than you a rationale for life. So kudos!

On the other hand, the two of you are still so very young. You have learned a thing or two and you feel empowered to guide others on their life paths, and perhaps you are correct. I have worked with young people and their families since 1988 in an attempt to help the young people and their parents achieve acceptance at a college or university.

Your manifesto, a series of questions, can on scratch the surface of an, as yet, unrealized life. Not recognizing who you are and where you wish to go s part of growing up. You feel that you have uncovered the mysteries of what and where a young person will proceed to success on their terms in their lives.

Most of us, that is, if we are lucky, will have multiple professions and not just the one we prepared for and thought ‘this is the one’ in college. Maturation occurs on many levels throughout and individuals life. Some of us, even past the age of fifty, walk around life handicapped because we still have not mastered the self-reflection and found ways to effectively live in a community while attempting to acquire some form of happiness in our lives.

Living a full life, an interesting life, comes with the burden of disappointments and failure. How we handle life, in all of its chaotic landscape, is how we mature and grow.

I sincerely hope that you both are able to give some guidance to young people. Their lives are fraught with performance anxiety as well as incredible hormonal changes. Believe it or not, way, way back in the day, there was a time when you could walk onto the campus of USC and/or UCLA, go to the registrars office, fill out a really brief application, pay your fees and then adjourn to the gym to pick your classes that were located on huge black boards with chalk dust permeating the air.

I wouldn’t go back to be a young person today for all the tea in China, a terrible terrible reference to be sure. I come from a much simpler time when children played in the streets without adult supervision and schools did not operate with zero tolerance nor policemen walking the hallways. Yes we took “college prep” courses and the SAT (only once was allowed back then) and assumed that college entrance was pretty much applying to any non-public high school. No one that I knew stressed about finding a job after college and no one lived with mom and dad, unless that was a cultural norm.

After college many of us sought adventures and therefore joined the Peace Corps or simple traveled to foreign lands, that is, if we didn’t get married, bought a home and started a family. So, as I stated earlier, life was far simpler way, way back in the day.

    Allene Swienckowski

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