the most important thing i learned from....decades....in school is the following:

if you're going to go to school with the purpose of doing something competitive with it (be that in employment or in academia), you have no option but to pick something you love to do. things may have been different in the past when the field was narrower, but nowadays living in north america means you're competing against two thirds of the planet for just about anything, and if you're not loving it then somebody else is going to mop the floor with you.

you might have a greater pure aptitude in the topic and in general. you might have higher test scores. you might be a harder worker, even. yet, if you're doing it for labour then the blunt reality is that you have no chance against the thousands of other people that do it for *fun*.

it's actually sort of an anarchist's ideal: the only kind of vocation any of us have any real chance in any more is what we'd love to be doing, anyways. the problem is that so few of us were raised with that mindset. we were told to do something we don't love because it is marketable (only to be outcompeted by somebody that loves it), or even to do something we loathe because it's profitable (only to run into the same problem). while that's happening, we're wasting developing skills doing things we enjoy, and getting behind those that figured this out.

if there are changes to immigration, or drastic improvements in living standard elsewhere, maybe it will once again make sense to tell your young, operatic nephew they'd be better off as a dentist. but, as it is, there's no deficit of kids that knew they wanted to be dentists when they were three years old and have spent their whole lives preparing, and the reality is that your nephew doesn't stand a fucking chance against them - he's really better off exploring his vocal chords.

i think that's a mass shift in social mindset that we need to have.