I am haunted by an alphabet soup of plans, and Ira Glass of “”This American Life”” is to blame. In program number 205 he opened with a quote from a story by the writer Ron Carlson, in which a guy loses his job after 10 years. His boss tells him, “”OK, go to Plan B,”” and the guy says, “”This WAS Plan B.”” Glass said he thinks this is the way it goes for most of us. I am deathly afraid he might be right.
Vocation is one of the most daunting decisions for anyone, because one’s occupation is never just a job. Your profession is a core part of your identity. It’s how you’re introduced, it’s how people remember you, it keeps you from starving, and it is looming just beyond graduation. It’s never, “”Meet Susan, she likes Almodóvar movies.”” It’s always, “”Meet Susan, she’s a professor at UCSD.”” Perhaps the former is how introductions should be done, but they rarely are. In college, this pigeonholing exists in its protoform, by way of major.
One of the most salient characteristics about an acquaintance is his or her proposed field of study. This singular piece of information buys you a laundry list of stereotypical characteristics, valid or not. If you’re a chemistry major, we assume you are insufferably meticulous, can do mental arithmetic at lightning speed and need help writing anything lengthier than a paragraph. If you’re a literature major, you’re not even fit to calculate the tip at a restaurant. If, horror of all horrors, you’re a science and nonscience double major, well, let’s just say you ought to be congratulated for overcompensating and hiding your intellectual incompetence by sleeping your way through two different campus departments. What if, when we finally can control a life-altering choice, we screw it up? We have to abandon a dream and settle for Plan B. Which might fail, and then we’ll need Plan C, followed by D, E and F.
There are no waitresses in Hollywood, only struggling actresses, and telemarketers don’t exist – only salesmen. I suppose settling doesn’t automatically make you Willy Loman, but I’m not eager to find out firsthand.
Aristotle said, “”Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.”” I suppose it’s easy to come up with pithy quotes when Alexander the Great is paying you to do what you love, but he may have been on to something. I’ve been thinking about that quote ever since Andy Ceperley, our well-spoken Career Services Center director, brought it to my attention. I’ve never had a clear idea of what I should be, only a foggy, hazy intuition. I know very clearly what I don’t want to do. Like Lloyd Dobler, “”I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything sold, bought or processed.”” I hate selling things, asking for money and sitting in front of a computer from nine to five. I hate standing for eight hours straight, punching numbers into the cash register. I once fell asleep filing people’s optometry insurance paperwork. There usually isn’t a box labeled “”things you hate”” in the vocational test questionnaire. I am faintly aware that I’m probably better at biology than any other subject. I think I like challenges, fast-paced environments and keeping track of multiple things at once. At the same time, I don’t think a medical school essay explaining that I hate lab write-ups, but really like dicing things up and sewing them back together, would be well-received. Defining yourself by what you don’t want to be is approaching the problem backwards and has left with me the most incongruous alphabet soup of plans: B: journalist; C: teacher; D: chef; E: failure.
At least I’m not the only one wondering where the crossroad between my talent and the world’s need lies. I have a friend who always thought he would be a mathematician, but saw a below-average math GRE score as a wrong-way sign. He is going to Boalt Law School instead. I have a feeling that very few of us actually know what their calling is. A portion of those who claim to, I suspect, are faking it. I’m hoping that in the end, things will work out, and if they don’t, it’s not the end. The world seems to have an unfortunate excess of ballerinas, firemen and astronauts, and a dearth of talented toilet cleaners, but maybe it’s all about framing. Idealism is for the rich, and maybe Plan B will eventually lead to Plan A. We rarely describe Aristotle as a tutor to a 13-year-old brat, and often as a philosopher. I guess he turned out all right.
