Graduation speeches promise you can be anything. The truer version: you can try a lot of things and find out.

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

Being told you can be anything sounds generous and lands as pressure, because it implies there is one correct answer in there somewhere and you are supposed to identify it. Almost nobody works that way. What people actually do is try something, find out what they can stand and what they are good at, and let the next choice be better informed than the last.

So stop auditing the whole list and run one cheap experiment instead. One term of a subject, one month of a club, one summer of a job. Decide afterwards, with evidence, rather than beforehand, with a feeling.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

What could you try this year just to find out?

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