I think we should stop asking people in their 20s what they 'want to do' and start asking them what they don't want to do. Instead of asking students to 'declare their major' we should ask students to 'list what they will do anything to avoid.' It just makes a lot more sense.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes focusing on what individuals want to avoid rather than what they aspire to do.
Amy Poehler suggests a shift in how we guide young people in their educational and career choices. Instead of pressuring them to declare a specific path or ambition in their 20s, it may be more beneficial to understand what they find unappealing. This approach can provide clearer insight into their values and preferences, ultimately helping them find a more suitable direction in life.
In practice
In a classroom discussion about career choices, a teacher could reference this quote to shift the focus from ambition to personal values.
Be easy on yourself. Have fun. Only hang around people that are positive and make you feel good. Anybody who doesn't make you feel good, kick them to the curb. And the earlier you start in your life the better. The minute anybody makes you feel weird and non-included or not supported, you know, either beat it or tell them to beat it.
Anybody who doesn't make you feel good, kick them to the curb. And the earlier you start in your life, the better.
Open-faced sandwiches take risks and live big and smile with all their teeth. These are the people I want to be around.
You become more attractive when you love yourself. You ATTRACT the right things when you have a sense of who you are.
We don't want to be afraid to make a choice because we're afraid to make a mistake because most decisions aren't final. Feelings change all the time. You can always change your mind and taking risks and making choices is what makes life so exciting because we never know what's going to happen. Every day something new comes our way.
It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
It is easier to go to the Internet than to go to the library, undoubtedly. But the shift from no libraries to the existence of libraries was a much greater shift than what we've seen with the Internet's development.
When you're writing for the Internet, you have the analytics, and you know that people are bailing every second. But various people kept reminding me that once people have bought a book, they're in. You don't have to be selling them on every page.
The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.
Surely, we've got a way that we can tinker with this system that shuttles our children from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.
Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.
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