My sister's ex-boyfriend came to her for advice on an issue regarding his sister. He explained that Cookie has decided to opt out of attending college and is instead going for getting a managerial position at Chipotle where she works. Her reasoning is that she loves working at Chipotle and wants to only work part-time so she has lots of free time to hang out with her friends while also maintaining a leadership position. Frank, the ex, said his family is worried about this decision because Cookie tends to live extravagantly with her friends and he's afraid this life-path is just leading her to mooching off her parents. He wanted to know why she would think that's the life she wants to lead and what he could do to convince her to consider pursuing a genuine career that he feels she has the talents and capabilities for.
A question to ask here is: why did Frank come to Jess with this question? Well it's because Jess and I are currently on the same path as Cookie. We attend University, sure, but our goals are equally small. We want to work part-time jobs because a career just doesn't feel right for us. Jess and I have different reasons than Cookie, naturally. Cookie wants free time, and so do we, but Jess and I have been working since we were 14 years old and honestly we're sick of it. That's a bit of an overstatement I suppose. I love work. I work 3 jobs on campus and I love all three of them. But I love them because doing them still offers me a lot of free time to enjoy the rest of my life. I can't imagine myself getting up at 7am every day to go to work so I can come home exhausted at 7pm and immediately go to sleep so I can repeat it the next day. I did that lifeguarding at Wet 'n Wild one summer and it killed me. Never again. Some people don't feel that way though! My brother, Michael, is a lot like Frank. They both found their passion in a science field - Engineering for the former, Physics for the latter - and are pursuing that full force. They can't wait to work full-time in a career where they're able to get up every day and do what they love and I applaud that. But that's not the path for everyone, and it's not the one for me, Jess, or Cookie.
Frank's fears in this matter, however, stem directly from his belief that his chosen path is the only correct one to be on. His sister does, in fact, live with her parents who pay for groceries, rent, etc., but her 'extravagant lifestyle' is her spending the money she earns from work on concert tickets and day-trips with friends. While it's true that should she choose to follow this path, eventually she'll have to budget her money to pay for groceries and rent as well as fun times, which is something she needs to think about and consider saving up for. The complaints of her 'living off her parents' are actually rich coming from Frank, who his senior year of college began his first part-time job and who's entire university experience and rent was paid for via his parents money. His explanation for this is "eventually I'll have a 6 figure job and won't need their money, while Cookie always will". Putting aside my own eye-roll regarding not paying a cent of your college tuition and not working at all through college, this argument is completely wrong. Frank is counting his chickens before they hatch, as it were, assuming that because he is pursuing a career where people make 6 figure salaries he is guaranteed a 6 figure salary. In this job market? Yeah, sure. Even supposing he does achieve that, there is no saying that Cookie won't be able to live the life she wants off part-time jobs. She may have to economize, but everyone does when they become an adult, that's life. But Frank doesn't want that for her, he wants her to reach a standard he has set for her and the people around him: You go to college and pursue a career that makes good money. He fails to see how anyone could want anything and refuses to listen to why. My brother is much the same way. When I switched majors from Computer Science to a BS in Digital Arts and BA in History he was so distraught. He though I was throwing my chance at a good career away and dooming myself to a life of poverty and the lower class. It took Jess and I getting our own place before him, keeping ourselves far less into debt than him, and showing how all of this is right on track with our 5-year plan for him to understand that we hadn't doomed ourselves, but just chose a different path than him. Frank has yet to experience that with Cookie.
As of yet I see no issues with her chosen path besides it doesn't fit into the mold Frank wants it to and as a matter of fact, this is an ongoing issue with Jessica's ex. As stated before, Jess didn't fit into the above mold either. She is attending college, but her main goal right now is to work at the front desk of a hotel and see where that takes her. She lives with me and if we both work part-time jobs and stick with our current budget and situation we should be set to be content and happy with our lifestyle! Frank never saw it that way. He became increasingly bothered as he realized Jessica wasn't joking about wanting to work in a hotel and claimed their goals 'didn't match up' because he was going places and she wasn't. Degrading and wrong. He is going the direction he wants, and while Jessica doesn't see why he'd want that she respects that it's his choice to attend college out of his parents pockets until he's 30-something before he enters a highly competitive job market to become a Physicist while he doesn't respect her choice to live a simple life that requires some economizing. There are pros and cons to both, and the way I have framed it Jess's life looks like the better option the same way Frank tends to frame his as the better way to go, but it's obviously all a matter of opinion. Both are livable, attainable goals that, done right, are happy lives to lead. Not everyone wants the same things, not even people in the same family see eye to eye on everything and there's nothing wrong with that.
So, what advice did Jess give Frank about Cookie? She told him what you might have gathered from this post: He's thinking about what he wants and not what Cookie does. He's projecting hardships and fallacies in her plan that haven't happened yet and might not just so he can glorify the life he's choosing to live. There are issues with his lifestyle as well, but people need to be given the chance to lead their own lives, whether you like it or not. Not everyone wants a 6 figure salary, despite what ever TV show ever has told you, and not everyone wants a simple life like every YA novel has told you. Maybe Cookie will endure a series of problems due to her job, but then maybe Frank will too. It's not about how well paying your job is, or how large your aspirations are, but about how effective you are at maintaining your lifestyle. Cookie has a job she loves and an attainable goal for the future that will help her become completely independent. Frank lives completely off his parents money and will for the next 10 more years of school as he has no plans to get his own job. One of them is cause for worry, and it's not the future Chipotle manager.
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