"I want to quit."
Not change courses. Not take a break. Quit. Completely.
I taught him for almost two years. Smart kid. Every week he'd turn up with some new technology to tell me about. He went on to study software engineering and I was proud of him.
Then the AI boom happened.
One day a message arrives. "Ham, do you have time to chat?"
"Sure."
A few minutes later: "Ham, I want to quit university. I don't think this degree is worth it anymore."
So instead of giving advice, I ask questions.
"What exactly is bothering you?"
We talk for a while. About AI. Jobs. The future.
And slowly the real problem comes up.
He isn't tired of university. He isn't tired of programming. He isn't even tired of software engineering.
He's scared. Scared that AI is going to make everything he's learning useless.
Those are very different problems.
I'd done the same thing years earlier. One of my first sales jobs, and I'd decided I hated it. Then I slowed down and noticed I didn't hate talking to people, or learning sales, or working hard. I hated the pressure, the rejection, and not knowing what I was doing.
The job wasn't the problem. It was just the nearest thing to blame.
It's easy to make a huge decision before you understand what's actually bothering you.
You think: "I hate my degree." You're afraid.
You think: "I chose the wrong career." You're frustrated.
You think: "This path isn't for me." You've hit a hard stretch.
So pause before you change everything, and ask: what is actually wrong? Am I tired? Am I scared? Am I comparing myself to someone?
Sometimes you do need to change direction. But often the path isn't the problem. The fear is. The pressure is.
We didn't sort out his whole future that day. He just stopped talking about quitting. He needed to name the real fear before he could face it.