careering

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It's the question, apparently, that is important when you are not grown up. And talk about pressure! What does a pre-teen, or even a teenager know about what they want to be when they grow up? Sure, they have an idea - one that they believe, in their starry-eyed vision, is a simple matter of choosing. Some common choices are:

Doctor
Fireman (come on, seriously now)
Police officer
Sports champion

I never understood the allure to some of these careers. I'm not one to shoot down such ideas because, you know, sometimes these kids do actually go on to be what they said they were going to be, but the time for proof is too far down the track. I wouldn't be the one to say, "I told you so!" if they didn't do it, or "Well, gee, you sure showed me!" if they did. That kind of gamble is too long in the making. My incredible memory would forget the whole thing anyway.

Now, being a doctor isn't as glorious as it might seem to someone young enough to still enjoy Christmas for Santa (doctor also sounds important). You see, there's a long, long road to travel and it's full of textbooks and things like "study." Added to that, surviving the same amount of years as you were aged when you decided you wanted to be a doctor grants you the incredible of honor of being a walking lawsuit. You don't have the respect of earlier doctors, because in modern times everyone is apparently a medical professional and has these bizarre rights that let them be complete tools about, oh, anything. But at least you get the opportunity to save lives, right? Sure, why not. I suppose that fits in somewhere.

A fireman is a little less tedious and much less prone to lawsuits. Nobody can complain much when you've just stopped their house/tent from burning down and dragged their arses out of it. Well, I suppose they could complain if it was their workplace or school. That doesn't mean you won't be sued for something ridiculous. People can be irrational when it comes to disaster. Best to suck it up and be content knowing that you get to work with fire, and that's awesome. Failing that, if you suspect the person you're rescuing is likely to sue, don't drag them out and let the fire burn a little longer. It may sound as if I'm leaning more towards this as a career, but I'm actually not. It might appear fun to be involved with the big red truck, the suits, the super-powered hose and the alluring fires, but it's not. You're probably never not on call and you could burn to death at any moment. Even while sleeping. Fire finds a way.

Police Officers attract kids with guns, batons and authority. I know I planned on being a cop once, because the idea of it seemed pretty okay to my buddy and I. Then I discovered the internet and that, like most things, faded away. The problem with reality is that it introduces things like paperwork, policies, laws and procedures. As a law-enforcer you don't technically fight crime, you kind of just stare at it menacingly and will it to surrender. If it doesn't and you need to take action, you have to write a journal about it, then fill some more paperwork out and justify why you did something crazy like defend yourself/the people around you. Still not convinced this is the right choice for you? Nobody respects cops. They, like any employee, do their jobs. Apparently if you break the law (eg. you went over the speed limit), you have a right to complain with your buddies that it's all just a money-grabbing scheme. Because, you know, you shouldn't be punished for doing something that is considered punishable and that everyone knows about. On the amazing flip side, if you are cop and don't have the ability to sense danger and teleport to its exact location in the time it takes someone to get bashed, you are a failure and waste of resources.

The final career I mentioned is a bit generic: Sports' champion. It's a broad category and we've all, at one stage, probably decided we want to be famous. Sports seems the most reasonable pursuit of such fame. It seems good, but what you really end up doing is selling your soul to training and sponsors - Training because you have to be at your peak all the time, sponsors because money makes the world go around, even for someone jumping into a pit full of sand or chasing a ball around. You're also vulnerable to scrutiny if you are extremely good at what you do. I'm talking about the kind of scrutiny that create its own scandals. It searches so hard for something to make you look like a cheater/drug addict that illegal substances just appear in your blood and/or apartment. Right?

Once you grow up, the question turns to "What do you want to do with your life?" and usually involves earning money in less obvious ways. Maybe you want a small business selling shirts. Or maybe you're a teacher asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, knowing how you went from choosing a doctor to being a teacher. It takes you around 12 years to even get to the point of being able to pursue your career. It's like throwing someone onto a street full of distractions, crime and traffic and poor signage and expecting them to reach the place they wanted to go to. Maybe specialised schools should be introduced so you don't waste so much time learning general nonsense (like Shakespeare, come on. It's not relevant now, talented as he was in his era) that is forgotten the moment you enter the next level of education. It's all an illogical street that doesn't make sense.

It's fair enough to read this and think of me as an anti-every career guy. You'd be right, but also wrong. It's not so much the careers that make me twitch and want to say, "Good luck with that!" It's more the people who aren't what you are that make it a tiresome, frustrating and violence-inducing scenario.

For careers to be as awesome as they used to be, people's rights need to be disappear or be culled severely. I am serious. This is a serious comment. Maybe. Either way, rights are ruining just about everything. From teaching to healing to rescuing; it's all limited by the fear of being sued. And it can be for the most ridiculous thing. You've all read and heard stories about it - "Such and such sued for not being sued enough in the last year."

Talk about a cramp in progression. Actually, talk about a cramp in everything. Give any idiot the ability to gain money or power through some retarded fine print that nobody is supposed to read and we're going backwards. Excellence isn't even awarded anymore, because somebody might get upset, since they're almost always "disadvantaged."

Personal responsibility has been buried deep underground, chains and all. It's always someone or something that is to be blamed.

Racism is the most ridiculously over-used trump card. Arrested for breaking the law? Call it racism if you're anything but white. Not hired because you didn't have the right qualifications? Racism. Prejudice falls into the same area. But believe me, nobody knows prejudice like the white, married male.

I just want to know what the deal is behind giving everyone the ability to do something stupid, escape it through a mind-boggling court system and then blame something/someone else. And also, what the deal is with rights anyway. It's gone way too far now. I don't want or need so many rights, and if I do something wrong it's not going to be anyone's fault but my own.

I demand that the response to every lawsuit, complaint, cry of prejudice and anything else exaggerated, unnecessary and stupid to be: "Big fucking deal."

And maybe they get a shirt that labels them as rights abusers, cry-babies or something. See how they like that label (it's funny, actually, since most labels are given to so-called minorities by themselves and then used against everyone else).

Someone needs to go early-era iron fist on this stuff.

- G ζ.

Give the people what they want
And it's not good enough; they want more
Deny the people what they want
And eventually they'll want something else
The latter is best because it prevents greed,
Expectations and bloated rights
Too late for us, we're in the former