A Future Pill

If you’ve already read my first book in the In the eye of the Storm Trilogy, Spirit Dance, you know about the prophetic pill that is a window to the future. (If you haven’t read what a future pill reveals, please go back to the Home page to buy the book.)

I spend a fair amount of time talking to young people about how being strong in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can lead to exciting and dynamic careers. A topic that comes up in nearly every conversation is the future. Some teens say that they’re looking forward to the next step, others are kind of scared to grow up, and wager it’s much easier to remain in school, being supported by the safety net provided by their parents. Once in awhile I come across kids that admit they avoid looking ahead altogether, claiming they don’t really know what career they want to pursue after high school.

Lately, though, I can’t leave a group of high schoolers without being asked, “How in the world am I suppose to know what kind of job I’d like, never mind be successful and make enough money to live?”

From these conversations came the idea of an idyllic pill; one that, once swallowed, reveals the future. In Spirit Dance, the coveted slots at the uber Pioneer Academy come with an powered covered answer to every high schoolers’ what am I am supposed to be when I grow up question.

The idea of knowing your destined career seemed to me the perfect way only take away teen angst and also eliminate the perceived time suck of studying subjects that have no practical application to daily life. (Another common thread during the youth breakout chats.) In the story, incoming students are given the choice. To learn their destiny and be bound to the Pioneer Academy with all it’s codes, rules, and secrets, or, walk away and stumble through school, gambling on the fact that this random approach will lead to an occupation that fits.

So my question to all of you is, if at fourteen-years-old you were given the opportunity to take a capsule that revealed what you were meant to do when you grow up, and you were aware that once having swallowed the prophetic pill you would be committed to whatever job came from the flash forward, with no exception, deviations or changes, would you choose to take the pill?

For those of you who have seen fourteen come and go:

At this moment, if you could go back to freshman year of high school and have the same choice—take the pill and see your future or not—knowing that every career redirect, misstep, job change, skill, degree, you’ve experienced and earned would be erased from your memory forever?

Thoughts?

Tailwinds,

Erin

Read Spirit Dance and see if Tana & Trigger decide to take the guesswork out of their futures.

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