It always seems crazy to me that we expect kids to choose what they want to do for the rest of their lives right after they finish high school. Most kids haven’t had enough life experience to know who they are, yet we assume that they know enough about themselves and the world to commit to a field of study that may well set the course of their lives.Craziness.When I graduated high school I had no idea what I wanted to study in college. I worked very hard in high school, and didn’t feel like putting forth any more effort. In the five years that I spent in college I majored in sports administration, business administration, English, and communications, before settling on history.I didn’t even begin writing for pleasure until I turned 19.So I had no idea what I wanted to do.However, thanks to an experience I had during the summer after my junior year in high school, I knew one field that I did not want to enter: politics.During my junior year in high school I was accepted to a program (I can’t remember the name of it!) that sent me to Georgetown University for three weeks in July. During those intense three weeks students complete an entire year of a college-level government and politics course, spend the evening participating in formal debates with other students, and in between attend meetings and seminars with policymakers in Washington, DC.It sounded like a great opportunity. I was excited. I’d been interested in politics and government for as long as I could remember. I’d visited Washington, DC in eighth grade and savored the thought of going there and meeting important people.I left on Sunday, July 9, told my parents I’d see them in three weeks, and flew to Washington, DC. On the bus ride from the airport I talked to other students about where they from, what issues concerned them, and what they planned to do after high school. I went to my dorm room, met Bill, the student I’d live with for the next three weeks, and a few other kids. I told a couple of them I planned to return to Georgetown someday as President of the United States.And I was serious.But after an introductory gathering, and a dinner, we all returned to our rooms to begin reading in preparation for the first class the next day, and a funny thing happened.I hated it.It was summer in DC. The temperature was ninety degrees. I didn’t want to spend the evening reading. I wanted to explore. Hang out. Talk. As interested as I was in government, I didn’t want to waste a perfectly good summer night reading about it.I thought maybe I just needed to get into the swing of it since I’d been out of school for a month, so I put my nose to the grindstone and did what I needed to do. But things weren’t better Monday. We had two four-hour sessions in the classroom, followed by a speaker later that night. We finished late, around nine o’clock, and then I had to go back to my room and read pages and pages and pages to get ready for the next day’s class.It was still summer.The next day should have been fun. We went to Capitol Hill after morning class, and listened to a speaker. I was antsy. Afterward, we were given appointment times with our congressman. One other kid lived in my congressional district, and since we had a couple of hours to kill before our appointment, we went to lunch. He spoke with a deep, serious knowledge of policy issues. I said I envied the kid from California whose congressman was Sonny Bono.We met our congressman. He said he had something candid to share with us. He was getting burnt out by politics and Washington, and that term in congress would be his last. Then we took our picture together in front of the Capitol, talked a bit more on the Capitol steps, and off we went back to our dorms in Georgetown.On the bus ride back to campus, I thought, “What the hell am I doing here? This sucks.” I didn’t want to read. I didn’t want to go to class. The speakers bored me. The other students seemed completely focused on politics to the detriment of everything else, and my congressman basically told me that his job sucks.I decided on the bus that I was going to leave.Actually, I just remembered that before we went back to campus we went to a mall to eat. Some multi-story mall with tons of selections. While eating I told some of the other students that I was going to leave. They were dumbfounded. All but two. One guy said he understood why I wanted to leave, and a girl said she wanted to leave, too, but she knew that her parents wouldn’t let her.When we got back to the dorms all the guys on my floor gathered to watch the baseball all-star game on television. I don’t remember anything about it because the entire time I was thinking, “I have to tell our resident head—some college kid—that I’m leaving in the morning.”After the game that’s what I did.He asked me why I wanted to leave. I explained it. Then he sat and talked to me for a long time. Asked me what I thought about a whole bunch of issues. What I wanted to do with my life. It was a nice conversation. Then he told me to sleep on it, maybe I’d change my mind. I told him I’d already made up my mind and changed my plane ticket. I was leaving the next morning.The next morning he and another guy, the director of the program, I think, drove me to Dulles Airport. We arrived very early. The other guy suggested we get breakfast, so we sat in an airport restaurant and talked. He told me I was wasting an opportunity. That I should give it a try, stick it out. Reminded me of how many politicians had come through this program.The dude was relentless. I remember thinking at one point, “This guy’s not going to let me get on the plane.”In the end, he let me go. Of course he had no choice. My parents supported my decision, so it’s not like he could just hold me against my will.I returned to O’Hare and my dad and sister were there to pick me up. I was about 105 degrees outside and we drove home and went to a hot dog place for a late lunch. It was fantastic.I don’t regret leaving. It’s clear to me now, just as it was then, that I’m not cutout for politics. I’d suck at fundraising. I’d suck at glad-handing. I’d suck at pretending I cared about idiotic issues. I’d spend too much time in DC doing touristy stuff.If I stayed, I don’t know what would have happened. Maybe I would have been sucked in by the bullshit, and launched a career in politics. I should see what the other kid from my district ended up doing. I bet he went into politics. I’m glad I didn’t.Oh, by the way, that congressman I met 22 years ago, who told me he was burnt out and would leave at the end of his term: he’s still in office, holding the same seat, uninterrupted all these years.This post was written for Blogapalooz-hour, ChicagoNow's community writing exercise in which we're given a prompt and one hour to produce a post based on that prompt. Tonight's prompt: "Write about a decision you made that changed the course of your life for better or worse."Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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