alt Hacker Newsi think youre right that unpacking could get in the way of enthusiasm. speaking for myself i simply enjoy the challenges of software development and enjoy most new challenges the deeper i go
on the other hand i think unpacking is good because most people dont really know what they want to do coming out of high school, at least in the USA. in america adult jobs are a nebulous concept: i did well at accounting in DECA because i could do mental math better than peers. i assumed id be an accountant because i had to get some job. i assumed id wear a suit and do some math. its a good thing to tell adults because they approve. i took one database class and bailed on accounting to teach myself to code
maybe unpack a career path if there isnt passion and enthusiasm for the process
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my daughter loves chemistry and says she wants to be a chemist. she does great ai it at school. so mom and dad helped her find an unpaid spot in an actual lab. so far she loves it but has also learned that it means working all day at 18 degrees c and constantly smelling her colleagues’ lab animal feed. we’ll find out soon if that was too much reality too soon. i hope it will lead her to double-down with the full reality in sight.
Like many things in life (including those we end up succeeding at), if we knew what it would entail (and already had the experience), we wouldn’t go at it with the same vigor - and might fail outright. Or maybe it would be easier.
I suspect there is a strong evolutionary reason why Mom’s tend to forget the really tough part/pain in having kids though.
There is the anti discussion, about where to know is to be ruined in some way, which is valid, the inference I get is that there is merit in engineering your approach to a career in engineering, and for some fickle few that clearly works, everybody else has to self decieve or seek help in that, or the world would grind to a halt. The game is stacked for those who can chanell there primal urges into abstractions and other disiplined outlets, the rest end up represed , acting out or some combination that is less "efficient"