By the time I graduated from college, I was up to here in credit card debt. Partly because of a couple of poor choices, partly because of the credit card industry preying on college students who hadn’t the income to back up the credit that was being extended, and partly because I had to live on something during college, because my part time jobs and student loans weren’t enough.

This forced me into a position where I had to get a job out of college making a certain amount of money, just to make sure to make my payments (both student loan and credit card, though the balances on the latter were much higher than on the former). I was forced to do any job that I was capable of doing, rather than examine what industries I might want to work in, or what positions I might want to hold. Forget about considering graduate school.

That began a cycle of not having the time or freedom to explore my interests, passions, and what I might have gotten good at, for work. And being too mentally and physically tired after working full-time to pursue anything on the side.

Though I was able to be at home (and not work) with the kids for a number of years, eventually I had to work again, and in the meantime I was busy parenting and homeschooling, not having the energy to fully figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

So when I had to start working again, I ended up in the same pattern as before, doing what was available to me to make money, rather than making money from what I wanted to be spending my time doing (for the most part).

If I’d been able to graduate from college debt free with a known direction in life, having had the financial and mentorship support that that would have required, with an education that helped me figure out what my interests actually were, rather than just a trial and error kind of situation, support from an actual adult human (or two or three or ten) with them asking me the right questions along the way, helping me consider and dig deep to figure out what I loved doing, I might have a work history to look back on that built on itself, rather than one that was a combination of a few things I really wanted to do and a lot of things that merely paid the bills (or didn’t quite pay them…).

This is why it’s so, so important to help young adults, from high school through one’s early 20s, I’d say, figure out a direction to start in life that’s compatible with their needs and wants, and why education should be more accessible (including living expenses while going to college). Those aged kids/adults need guidance, almost always.

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