"Ham, can I ask you something?"
I'm at my desk trying to finish my lesson notes so I can finally get to lunch. Everyone else has gone. He's still standing there.
"Sure."
He pulls up a chair. Then he asks the question I've heard a hundred times.
"Ham, what am I supposed to do after school?"
At first I think he means graduation. University. A job.
But the longer we talk, the more I realize he isn't asking about school at all.
He's asking about life.
What should I do? What if I choose wrong? What if everyone else works it out before me?
Some students ask it straight. Others bury it inside a different question. Underneath it's the same fear every time.
And school doesn't prepare anyone for it. School teaches you to pass tests, write essays, solve equations. No one sits you down and explains how to build a life.
You get: "Work hard." "Get good grades." "Be successful."
Successful according to who? Your parents? Your friends? The person online making their life look perfect?
You can spend years chasing somebody else's version of success and only notice at the end that you're living a life you never chose.
So direction matters. Not a perfect plan, there isn't one. Just knowing roughly what kind of person you're trying to become.
I'm not going to tell you what to do. I can't. No one can.
You don't need to know everything yet. You just need to start paying attention to where you're pointed.
And trust me. Almost no one has it figured out.