Career Councillors and aptitude tests are evil

I had a friend share a thought that was profound. It was that before we go and change something, we have to wait.

At the time this didn't really make sense to me. I guess I think there are a lot of people that are just not doing anything to figure out who they are. Which I think is also a valid point, but not the idea that is contained in the concept of waiting.

Waiting doesn't mean stop trying to figure out what your doing, it means stop doing and start thinking.

The times in my life that I have really figured out what I want to do, and there have been two of them, have come during times in my life where I don't have a plan. There is no way forward. The first time was when I got back from overseas and needed to figure out what I wanted to do because I had nothing to do. The second was within the last month and I am finishing university and need to find something to do.

Both of these decisions have been deep, gut decisions. Actually, the word finding is more acurate than decision in describing the experience. Further, they have been when I am not on a track or as I like to call it, in an institution.

What I mean by institution is the Orwellien idea of taking an aptitude test in junior high and having that tell you what you will do with the rest of your life, then go to school for that thing and when school is done, have a job, paycheck, house, car, etc. waiting for you. Essentially, having all of your life planned out and not having to struggle with identity.

But that struggle is what makes us who we are. It is a journey of self creation. We have the freedom to creat something devine or evil. But that is another discussion (existentialism/creation theology).

The point is that waiting is an important part of the journey of creating/figuring out who we are. And it is off the institutional track.

So career councillors and aptitude tests are evil because they tell us who we are (external authority) and allow people to avoid the proccess of self creation.