Tim Gouw, Unsplash

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Maybe you want to be an astronaut? or a doctor? Firefighter? Artist even? These answers all seem plausible… until you reach the age where you’re told that the next few choices you make, will determine your life. Most kids are 15 when they are told to choose what to do for the rest of their lives. Do you want to know what other things 15-year-olds tend to do? Make bad choices.

Although later you might be able to change your mind, most people don’t have the luxury of doing so, and if they do, they’ll start from behind the rest. Once you’re at the end of year 11, it seems like it’s your last chance to change your mind… Until you realise that you’re still only 17 making these choices. And this isn’t even a recent problem, this has been a problem for a long time. Many adults hate their jobs and aren’t interested in the work they do. A depressing way to spend our lifetime. So what makes me old enough to know?

Nothing screams maturity like a 16-year-old. As someone who only really interacts with 16-17 year olds even the best of us aren’t that responsible. Why are we suddenly allowed to make all these choices about our future when most can’t even drive alone? When most can’t rent a car, rent a house, donate blood, vote and be trusted to live independently? But we can be trusted to choose a career that will determine how the rest of our lives unfold. Even when 18-year-olds choose what they want to do in university, their brains aren’t fully developed. How can we make the choices now, that will so largely affect the money we will make in the future?

What about being in year 11 or 12 suddenly makes us know what we want to do for the rest of our lives? Why am I suddenly faced with what seems like the most important decision of my life? because if I change my mind will I be able to succeed? I see this in real time with my Dad who made the choice to drop out of high school when he was 15. My dad will often tell me he regrets dropping out, he missed out on so many social aspects of high school and has not stopped working for 26 years. He says that he should have just enjoyed being young, but due to his warped way of seeing the world, he jumped into working.

Anyone over the age of 25 will say that they made silly choices when they were young, but why don’t we change that? Why do we continue this cycle of premature choices?

What makes us old enough?