Dear Dr. Capello,
Dear friend Jill,
thank you very much for another important impulse and at the same time fun post!
It has something of generalized space-time travel, both into the past and into the future.
In my answer I would give a slightly indirect, but not necessarily (much) worse answer.
In fact, the fundamental personal question of who is our own "self" is one of the most difficult and, for many, unanswered questions - not only in the case of young people in their training courses, career and job decisions, but also for middle-aged or older people.
That self can then include our interests and talents, what shaped us, what drives us, and what we could or would like to commit ourselves to from the heart.
Progress in answering the question of one's own self can be achieved more readily in valuable and trusting, even loving family, friendship or social contexts or environments with their accompaniment and support, especially with regard to possible future crises.
These advances may even include an answer to the question of our self, which can or will change and adapt over time as we change ourselves, as does the world around us, both constantly and sometimes abruptly, while the core of our self, as we are understood as a unique idea, remains intact or even persists.
To put it somewhat simply:
The more and more qualitatively the question about the self is answered in order to serve a fulfilled and truthful life, the better and more valuable decisions (and also advices) about careers can be made.
We ourselves also belong to these contexts or embeddings, individually and together, also through INFORMS and our encounters of various kinds with young people.
Thanks a lot to the INFORMS team for making this discussion forum possible and hosting it so kindly.
With best wishes,
kind regards,
Willi (Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber)