Went back to campus to order transcripts and decided that being there in any kind of authoritative capacity would never work. There's no way I could resist that sweet teenage ass for the rest of my life. But what if you're too old/ugly you say? Nonsense. There’s always someone fatter than you with lower self-esteem than you. See? I’m a terrible person. At least I acknowledge it.
While I was standing in line at the registrar’s with all the listless undergraduates I had something like an epiphany. For too long I’ve been wondering, “What kind of career is right for me?” This is a dumb, bad question because there are way, way too many variables that come into play. You either have a good answer for this question by age 20 or you’ll never have one. Good news is I devised a system for those of us in the latter category to navigate this thorny but important issue.
I call it the Keener Scale. Let me show you how it works with an example.
1. Free associate a bunch of professions that might appeal to you. This means ignore qualifications, aptitude, time investment, financial investment, etc. Just clear your head and daydream. If money and talent were no object, I’d do blah blah blah. Here’re mine:
Astronaut
English professor
Lawyer
Novelist
2. Now you rate each profession on a scale of 1-10 on how much of a keener you’d need to be to succeed in that field. Ignore all other variables. Just use your common sense. If you live in a blue collar city that’s flush with cash and has lots of crime, it’s probably a lot easier to become a cop, for example than a professor of indigenous anthropology. Here’re mine:
Astronaut – 11
English Professor – 9
Lawyer - 2
Novelist – 8
3. Lastly, qualify your numerical ratings with an explanation. This is a self-check to make sure the quantitative (numbers) side of you isn’t messing with the qualitative (words) side of you.
Astronaut – There’s only been 321 astronauts chosen ever, including all the inactives who faked moon walks in the 1960s.
Like NASA says, thousands apply and only a few are chosen. Anytime the odds are stacked against you like that you’re going to need to deploy a freaky mix of talent and cocksucking. Since there’s no inherent “astronaut” talent, I’m banking heavily on the latter. Pass.
English Professor – Unless you’re on the tenure track (and you won’t be if this is your second or fifth career), you’re going to be lucky to break $50,000 a year and you’re going to have to suck a pound of dick just to get your teaching contracts. What’s more you’ll get no respect from the keener faculty nor from your friends with nursing degrees, who are making 20k more than you and worrying less about their lives.
Lawyer – About the only balls you’ll ever lick as a lawyer as those of the person who hires you at your firm, should you choose to go that route. You’ll probably chew less cud being self-employed, having escaped all the vagaries and meat-sucking of the employer-employee relationship. This doesn’t mean you get to be a total asshole—you still have to win business and all that—but relative to every other occupation where you’re swatting pouch every other second, lawyers have it pretty good. (I’m biased in this regard.)
Novelist – There’s definitely more talent than cocksmoking required in being a successful novelist, but you’d be a fool if you thought that being a writer was a peaceful, solitary life. If you achieve any kind of success you’ll spend your life at book signings, giving talks to listless undergraduates, shredding other writers’ work at retreats and generally mingling with and choking on the blood-engorged members of other writers, whom you may or may not respect.
Last word: So an occupation’s Keener Scale is through the ceiling. Why can’t YOU compete with these people? Easy. You’re reading this blog and they aren’t. They’ve been dreaming of this their entire lives and you haven’t. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. It’s just that they want it more, they always have, and they always will. Get over it. I have. GO LAW.
