Launching

     Dam!  It's tough being a twenty-something year old these days.  Frankly, maybe it's always been hard - or at least since the 1960's when opportunities and choices began to explode for young people launching out on their own.  In the 1970's though, you could still go to college for a reasonable price, you could pay $75/mo to share a two bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley and it might cost you $5 or $6 to fill up the 1965 VW bug you purchased for $650.  Sure, you went to college, generally clueless about the next step post college, but there were jobs that you could land that would give you some direction, some idea if this field was a fit for you.
     Not only is the cost of living sky high now, but the job market is discouraging.  To complete a BA or BS is simply not enough to get a position that will allow you to live in the community in which you work and pay off the student loans you have likely acquired.  To know yourself and to predict what sort of work will make you happy is asking a lot of a 20-something year old.  Many of these people simply haven't had the experience to know what opportunities are out there or what field might be best suited for them.  There are few resources available to assist them and little room in the budget to explore carer fields.  I imagine they feel a ton of pressure to get on with life but the overall picture is discouraging.  Tough to find a job, impossible to buy a house, daunting to pay off student loans.  What is there to encourage these kids?  Let me think about that.