Advice for Young People Graduating from High School

deism, probability, risk, advice, lessons, choice, change

If you know a young person who is a high school junior or senior you might want to pass this advice on to him or her.

If you are a high school senior you are probably giving some serious thought to life after graduation.  And even if you are still a junior you may already be thinking about what you will do after you graduate.  Welcome to adulthood!

Quite often young people get overloaded with worldly advice. You may be advised to “choose a career that you really like.”  Or you may hear “pick a profession that you can excel in,” or even to “pick a profession that will provide you with a comfortable lifestyle.”  But the topper is “Get a college education. You can’t go anywhere in life without a college education.”

Thanks to ‘women’s lib’ young women these days have it tougher than young men. Being a wife and mom is looked down on. I don’t think the Mother of God would agree.  So if you are a young woman I urge to read “Advice to a Young Woman: Secrets That Feminists Don’t Want You to Know” once you are done reading this.

Career Advice

The problem with worldly career advice is that many 17- or 18-year-olds have no idea what they want to do for the rest of their lives.  So if you are one such individual, you are not alone.  A Career Counselor may be of some help, but Googling “How to Choose a Career” may only add to your confusion.

Many young people don’t know what field they might want to pursue a career in, or in what profession they may be able to excel.  And many don’t really want to go to college.

Of course, some young people know exactly what they want to do after high school.  They’ve wanted to get married and start a family, or they’ve wanted to become doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, electricians, or automotive technicians since they were in grade school.  If you are such an individual, good for you!  But read the rest of this anyway.

Wealth & Fame or Just Independence

Sometimes young people let dreams of wealth or fame take hold of them.  They just want to be rich and live in a huge mansion.  Any path or profession that may get them what they want is just fine.

For some young people, however, money and fame are not important; they just want to get out on their own, get married and start a family, or start earning a living.

Don’t get caught up in dreams of money and fame.  Also recognize there’s value in knowing that you are not university material.  The school of hard knocks – being on your own and earning a living – can be a good learning experience, too.

Realize that what you do for a living, or how much money you make, or how big your house is does not define you as a person.  It’s how you live your life that is important.  So here starts the advice.

One very important element is missing from all of the previous thoughts about life after high school – God.

Advisories 1, 2 & 3

So here’s Advisory #1: Stop thinking about a profession or a career.  Put those thoughts aside and go directly to Advisory #2: Ask God what He wants you to do.

If you have not been very prayerful throughout your life so far, now is a good time to get started.  And if you are a prayerful young man or woman, now is a good time to take it up a notch.  As the old saying goes, today is the first day of the rest of your life, so take to heart Advisory #3:  Start the rest of your life by forming an extremely important habit – the habit of praying every day.

We get to know God and His plans for us through prayer.  We talk to Him and then listen for what He might say to us.  Sometimes He does not say anything, but more often than not we only think He is not saying anything.  This is because He knows what is in our hearts.  He knows we already know the answers to the questions we’re asking.  And even if we are uncertain about the path we are on, it may be the path He chose for us.

Now don’t misunderstand this.  It does not mean take a year or two and pray every day and otherwise just chill.  At 18 years of age you are an adult.  Don’t expect mom and dad to support you while you wait for God to reveal His plan for you.

Work or College?

If you are not heading off to college in the fall, get a full time job – whatever kind of full time job you can get.  There is dignity in any kind of work.

But if you are heading off to college, make sure you hold on tight to your Catholic Faith.  Catholic author Matt Nelson offers a caution in this regard: “When I was in my early twenties, I suffered from a wicked bout of spiritual restlessness. After a couple years of university, my Catholic upbringing had lost much of its hold on me.”  Luckily he found his way back to the Church.  But not everyone does.

Don’t get caught up in the socialistic, atheistic, relativistic, ‘woke’ drivel that’s prevalent on so many college campuses today.  Always remember that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life” [John 14:6] even if some of your fellow students and professors think they know better.

Advisory #4

Whether you go to work or to college, start thinking back to something you should have learned in your very first Faith Formation class – the answer to the question why did God make us?  The answer is Advisory #4: “God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” We are meant become members of the Church Triumphant – the saints in heaven.  That’s our goal.

CS writer J.a.c. Man recently offered some wisdom in this regard in his article “Before You Start, Begin With the End in Mind.”  If your goal is heaven, you need to plan and live your life accordingly.

God calls us all to become saints in different ways.  Some are called to the married life, while some are called to live a single, chaste life.  And some are called to the religious life. These three paths are our vocations in life.

Choose Wisely

CS Writer Julie Machado recently wrote about being a mom and said:  “You did not choose to get married and have children, it is a vocation you were called [to] and you bravely accepted.”  The same can be said of men who become husbands and fathers.  But in both instances a choice really was made.  Married men and women chose to follow what God called them to do instead of turning their backs on Him.

And just as an aside here, if you are called to the married life CHOOSE WISELY.  Don’t settle for the first person who comes along.  Don’t rush into marriage!  Choose a partner with your head as well as your heart.  Pick a partner who is a good and virtuous person and who shares your values.  Better yet, pick a person who is a good Catholic.  Marry someone and who wants as many children as God wants the two of you to have!

Advisories 5, 6 & 7

But no matter which of these three paths you choose, recognize that path is your vocation.  And that is Advisory #5:  Your vocation is your path to sainthood and how you will give glory to God.

Like the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the Sacrament of Marriage should not be taken lightly.  Both are life-long commitments and both come with unique challenges.  Similarly living a chaste, single life comes with its own challenges, but it’s also possible this vocation is just temporary.  A call to matrimony or the religious life may still be somewhere down the road.

What you will do to support yourself is just the profession or the career you choose.  And that is Advisory #6:  Your profession or career is only what you do to keep yourself (and your family if you get married) fed, clothed, and sheltered.

Don’t get vocation and career confused because getting caught up in a profession or a career can get you on the ‘broad road.’  Remember Mathew 7:13,14 — “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.  How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Jesus is telling us to remember our ultimate goal.  He’s telling us not get caught up in earthly things like money and ‘stuff.’

Advisory #7 is that each of us has been created by God for a purpose, and God really does have a purpose and plan for each of us.  But sometimes it’s not easy trying to figure out that plan.  And sometimes God wants us to experience both joy and hardship before he reveals His plan to us.  So pray every day and don’t get discouraged.

Advisories 8 & 9

Along with daily prayer comes Advisory #8:  Keep God’s Commandments, live the Beatitudes, and partake of the sacraments of Confession (Reconciliation) and the Eucharist as often as possible.  All of this is ‘practicing your Faith,’ and the more you practice something the better you get at it.  Keep your ultimate goal in mind every day of your life.

Spending time in Eucharistic Adoration as often as possible is a good idea as well.  The big white host in the monstrance is Jesus.  Through the miracle of transubstantiation He is physically present right there with you in the church or the chapel.  How awesome is that!

Advisory #9 is:  Don’t worry or get anxious if God doesn’t seem to be answering your prayers for guidance on a career or a profession.  Remember the words of Isaiah 55:8,9 – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

Or, to use a line that you may have heard (taken and slightly altered from an old English hymn), “God works in mysterious ways.”  Just keep your ears open so you can respond to His call when He is ready to call you.

Remember too, that we have also been given the tremendous gift of free will.  And the devil is always trying to use this gift to his advantage.  He wants us to turn our backs on God and His plan for us.  Don’t listen to him.

Advisory #10

Advisory #10 is in two parts.  Remember these two things as you go forward with your life:

  • God loves you and He wants you to be happy – now and for all eternity with Him in heaven after you die.
  • Always trust in God. Trust that He will reveal His plans for you to you at exactly the right time.

And if you do happen to achieve fame or become wealthy, remember to use that fame or wealth to give glory to God.   And remain humble.  Chances are it was His plan for you!

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13 thoughts on “Advice for Young People Graduating from High School”

  1. Pingback: VVEDNESDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  2. Gene:
    Even someone well beyond high school age
    really appreciated your wise & helpful words.
    Will definitely be looking to pass them on and to act on them myself.

  3. Yeah, that’s the sort of response I expected.

    When Church activities resume, ask 100 people coming out of church what the word “vocation” means. Most will say “we need more priests and nuns”. And if you then say “well what about the rest of us?”, the answer will be about career choice. Virtually no one will blather from the catechism about any “vocation to married life” which may be true if you’re a theology nerd, but it just doesn’t apply to everyday life where vocation=career.

    1. Yeah, go with the herd, it’s a safe zone. Modernistic, secularistic thinking at it’s finest.

    2. Yeah, another non-response.

      Look, I responded to your article with substantive ideas. I think I did it pretty effectively, and I stand behind everything I said. But all you’ve done is dismiss it as “modernistic, secularistic thinking” which is subjective and meaningless and probably an attempt to discredit me although I truly don’t know.

      Unfortunately this site has very low readership so there won’t be any more substantive discussion. If you would choose to discuss actual ideas and your motivations for writing the article, I would be glad to participate. But if you only want to dismiss me out of hand again, don’t bother.

    3. Larry, your initial comment on the article was a purely argumentative one. You said the article was “a hodgepodge of questionable quality.” You said it need a complete rewrite. Then you offered a bunch of your own non-Catholic, modernistic, secular advice in response. This is not a basis for a reasonable discussion.
      Regardless, I suggested some additional reading for you which I’m guessing you probably ignored. You did not like my response because I didn’t take your bait. You responded restating your secular definition of the word vocation. Again, no basis for any kind of discussion here because you are simply holding fast to your own views.
      I’ll end this as I started it: I’ll pray for you Larry.

    4. It seems that you interpret every comment or critique as “argument”. Try posting your article on one of the more well-read sites, and you’ll see what argument really is.

      I was sincere. I told you I was sincere. You choose to fling insults at me. Now you step up your gave accuse me of offering “non Catholic” advice. Sorry, mister. I’ll bow out here. This isn’t worth my time.

    5. I hope you find your church activities, networks, and social opportunities, but thanks for asking lots of questions, Larry.

  4. There may be some nuggets of wisdom in this article but it’s mostly a hodgepodge of questionable quality. Rather than red-pencil almost every paragraph, I’ll try a rewrite.

    To start off, yes a young person should choose a career that he/she really likes, can excel in, and can provide a comfortable lifestyle. Absolutely yes, with no debate. And of course, most teens won’t know what that vocation is. For most, a college education is how you figure out what gifts God has given to you to make your life’s vocation. It’s through college that you make the connections and work the internships that help get a career started.

    And note that I only said “get a career started”. Just like good grades and SAT scores are essential to get a college education off to a good start, they mean nothing if you get into a great college and then slack off. Likewise, a good degree only means that you have arrived at the next step of putting in the effort and the hours required to start a good career.

    Can you start a good career without attending college? I suppose it’s possible, but honestly less and less so every year. Again, attending college gives you a leg up. If you _can_ do it, you _need to_ do it. Don’t deny the gifts that God gave you by making excuses like “there’s value in knowing that you are not university material”. Make the effort!

    Did you notice that I used the word “vocation” in connection with career? That’s because that’s the definition of the word that everyone understands. The career of a doctor or a teacher or a priest or a nun are “vocations”. Being married or single are not. It’s been fashionable in church-nerdy circles lately to say so, and really I don’t understand why, because it’s not. Develop your God-given talents and apply them to your career vocation. It will become the very core of what you are, and it is how you return to God the talents that he gave you.

    None of this is to deny the role that God can play in all this. But don’t imagine that you can “ask God what he wants you to do” by praying for an answer. Rather, think about the gifts that he has given you and think about where and how you can apply them. Develop a network of contacts, and ask a lot of questions.

    With all that said, any young person who truly devotes himself or herself to their education and developing their career vocation, is probably very very busy until their at least the mid or late twenties. He or she has probably moved far away from home and family. And if he or she still remains Catholic, a sad truth in Catholic life today is that parishes no longer provide any social opportunities, so the scarce single Catholics that exist in all parishes, have a very difficult time finding each other. And the Church does not really seem to care, even though the number of Catholic weddings has declined by orders of magnitude over the last generation or two. That’s unfortunate, and praying for an answer there does not really work either.

    1. I’ll pray for you Larry. And I suggest that you read 1 John 2:15-17, Romans 12:2, and Colossians 3:2. You might also want to read Part 4 – Christian Prayer, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
      We are on this earth for one reason, and one reason only: to know, love, and serve God. Everything else is secondary. Your secular definition of the word vocation alone suggests that you have either forgotten this or do not understand this. The only correct statement out of everything you said is develop your talents because God gave them to you. But they should be used to give Glory to God. This is how “you return to God the talents that he gave you.”

    2. “‘Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’”

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