Preparing for Life!

This post is for a very specific audience: students in college or university; or parents of students in college or university.  Knowing what you want to be once you finish your education has often been praised as indicating a person's future success.  I will add an asterisk here: congratulations; it is good to have a goal in life.  But prepare for anything.  Be prepared, as British Boy Scouts (or boy scouts anywhere) take as their motto.  Most people with moderate intelligence unconsciously prepare; they learn first aid; they learn CPR; they learn how to calm a hysterical person down, how to change a flat tire.  I think most people need to learn more than this first layer of general preparedness. 

Learn as many skills as you can.  There's no way to predict the roles you'll be called upon to play.  Entertain children.  Cook meals.  Camp in the woods.  Sew or mend clothes; do complicated laundry: colors, delicates, knits.

Teach unexpected subjects.  This is something I had to learn, being a mathematician.  I had expected to have to teach people of roughly the level at which I had been when I was a freshman.  But standards always change, and I had to adapt. 

Once you're a parent, your responsibilities become a far- reaching array of demands, and you'll be remembered for the most unexpected jobs you did. 

It will be the rare person who earns adulation for their main occupation; usually, praise is only earned for the most tangential services you may have performed in passing.  The more intelligent, the more public-spirited, the more outgoing you are, the more enthusiastic will be the praise you receive for some inexplicable service. 

Be interested in as many things as you can, and learn what it takes to be helpful in those areas. 

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