Recently, I watched the most soul-crushing commercial I have ever seen.

A father and a son sit at their kitchen table, each eating a pudding cup. The father tells the boy that he really loves pudding. The boy asks his father why.
The father then takes the boy through a step by step process of his day. Now dressed in a dingy button-up, a tie and sporting a comb-over, the son demonstrates the dad’s day, from waking up with less hair, commuting in heavy traffic and having a major project canceled by his boss.
“But the chocolate-y taste of this Jell-O pudding makes up for all of it,” the father says.

The son hands his dad the rest of his Jell-O pudding.
“Here, you need this more than me,” the little boy says.

The commercial seems sweet enough, but it’s veiled with a sad truth. Let your life pass you by too quickly and suddenly you’re balding, stuck in a demeaning and dead-end job with only the comfort of mediocre pudding to get by. That truth scares me to death.

So, how do we avoid this fate? While I personally know what I want to do with my life, many teenagers have no idea what they want to do in the future. According to the Huffington Post, less than 25 percent of all college students graduate. Does that mean that they’re doomed to be like the dad in this commercial?

The unemployment rate is at seven percent, and the job market is competitive. Sometimes, even if we do everything right like graduating high school, going to college and trying to do something we’re passionate about, it doesn’t work out. If we put ourselves out there, and we strike out, what then?
The biggest question of all is how are we supposed to navigate all of these fears and come out of it with an understanding of who we are?

I’ve found that one of the best ways to figure yourself out is to experiment with what you enjoy. For awhile I had the crazy notion that I was going to be a singer in a band. When I found out that I’m actually pretty tone deaf, I had to re-evaluate my priorities. Now that I’ve discovered how to combine my love of music and writing in journalism, I’m certain about my future. However, when trying new things, it’s important to remember that nobody is talented at everything right away. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Outliers, believed that if you practice something for at least 10,000 hours, you can become an expert.

I didn’t come to these conclusions of what I wanted to do just on whim. My mom and my older brother were both high school drop-outs. My mom went to college and eventually went on to earn her master’s degree in business and my brother is now working his way up the corporate ladder. Their guidance and support has told me that unless I want to struggle more than I have to, I need to set myself up for success.

Nowadays, there’s adversity standing in the way of teens. We spend four years working towards our goals, and then we’re out on our own. Something changes  in your life. Parents can’t always be there to help pick up the pieces.

Everyone has something going for them. If we spend our teenage years without motivation to try anything, we’ll never know what we’re capable of. It’s the optimal time to explore and figure yourself out. Life is about making mistakes, so make them now so you’re not 40, balding and relying on pudding to make you happy.