At this time of year, one of the places you will find me doing readings is for high school After Proms.
One of the things that I enjoy about reading at these events is that the students are always brimming with optimism and plans for the future.
This is one of the first big turning points in a person's life when their future dreams about businesses and careers will determine what path they choose, and how they begin to pursue it after high school.
It fascinates me to hear them talk about what kinds of plans they have and where they are going.
When I began high school, they were de-emphasizing trades, and shut down many of the schools workshops where skills like carpentry, metalwork, electronics, auto repair were taught, while encouraging us to go to college.
At the time, the ones who decide such things thought that the skills most in need would be management, marketing, publicity, finance, scientific research, and other topics.
Now here we are, decades later, and what we really need is more electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters, heating and air, all those skilled trades are what needs to be brought back, because for all the talk about AI, these kinds of skills are essential to building all these plants to power AI. Ironic, isn't it?
When I hear the young ones talking about going into trades, I hear them making good decisions that will help them get good paying jobs that will enable them to build a career that earns enough to buy a house, supports a family and enjoy vacations.
I see a lot more choice among them too, for example, with young men going into nursing, aesthetics, massage, or design, which young women are choosing to be engineers, construction managers, electricians, carpenters and welders.
And there are others exploring newer paths, going into careers like Internet security, stem cell research, selling their art on Etsy or making music videos on You Tube or Podcast programs.
I think back and lots of the jobs that might be excellent opportunities for them did not even exist when I was going to school.
Then again, some of the careers that we were preparing for were different than what our parents did.
Remember the choices you were making when you graduated from high school? Remember how we thought about what is next?
A few generations back, many in my family were farmers or ranchers. They also had bigger families, with some having 8, 10 or 12 kids. Then the next generation picked up skilled trades and had families with 3,4, or 5 kids. Then when we got to our generation and the next ones, we were more likely to have 1, 2 or 3 and work in an office job. And now the generations further behind are having 1, 2 or no kids and more technical jobs.
Plus, of course, there will be some who join the military, and some who will go to college. College, however, is not as great a choice as it once was, since it costs so much more now that they could end up saddled with a huge debt that might not even help them make a good living.
Seeing all of this is very uplifting to me. Seeing the young people preparing to enter into the adult world of work and career is futuristic and nostalgic at the same time.
I was in the generation that had to learn to use computers as they entered the workplace, beginning from typewriters, carbon paper, adding machines and copy machines to the first word processors then to desktops, laptops notebooks, pads and smartphones.
Now there are generations that never thought of keeping quarters in their car's ashtray so that they could stop at a phone booth and call the office. And now we all have GPS in our phones so that paper map books are no longer needed, and answering machines are built into them so that we don't have to check our answering machine for messages. These are all great advancements, and I am glad that we have them.
I find it fascinating to observe the changes how how people are choosing and looking at what we are creating and what kinds of career and life paths they are creating.
And yet both of us, younger and older, are not at all certain how AI will be impacting our careers, among other factors.
Nostalgic and futuristic at the same time? How does it feel to have read 1984 when you were in school, thinking it was just a far out sci-fi story and then find yourself living in it?
Science fiction writers have always been some of the best at imagining futures.
Does it prompt any kind of thought in your mind when someone tells you they were born in 1984?
Let me leave you with a bit of humor. This year, people born in 1984 are 42, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that 42 is that answer to everything. All you 42s are welcome to write me and tell me the answers to everything because I have not been able to figure it out yet. I am looking forward to hearing from some of you 42s.
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