To All High School Students Seeking a College Counselor ...

If you're a High School student who needs counseling on which College to go to after graduation, and the first words out of a College Counselor's mouth are "You can be anything you want to be," then you need to avoid that Counselor as though he or she were the Plague. That's because he or she is really saying, "I have to counsel dozens of other students who look and smell just like you, so I really have neither the time nor the desire to get to know you better as a person, find out what your true gifts and talents really are, and sincerely spend the days, weeks, or months it really takes to point you in the right direction for a successful life before, during, and after College." Saying "You can be anything you want to be" makes as much sense as saying a fork can be a plate, or a knife can be a cup, or a washcloth can be a pneumatic jackhammer. Every individual human being was born with a unique set of innate gifts. Focus on those gifts, and you maximize your life, fulfilling it with purpose and meaning. Ignore those gifts, and you waste your life, wallowing in frustration and mediocrity. If anything, that lackluster College Counselor took the job as a means of paying bills or affording a new luxury car, and not because he or she really cared about any High School student's future. And his or her choice to become a Counselor probably resulted from having long since ignored his or her own true gifts, wasting his or her own life, and wallowing in frustration and mediocrity. You simply cannot expect excellent advice from a mediocre Counselor.