How would you like to spend the rest of your life?

Recently, I was engaged in a conversation with a young friend of mine regarding how he thinks he might like to spend the rest of his life. Trying to figure this out as a young person is a tall order. I'm 50 and I'm still trying to figure it out.
You've got to believe the vast majority of young folks fresh out of high school, aren't able to know what kind of career might best fit them. Even with their limited life experience however, they probably have an idea of what they'd like their overall life to look like in the coming years. Here is a suggested way of approaching the rest of your life: Get off the couch!

A good starting point is to determine what things are important to you in your life, and decide what you are willing to give and give up in order to achieve it.
For example, if as a young person you know you'd someday like to get married, have children, live in a nice house in an upper end neighborhood, drive nice cars, wear nice clothes, go on nice vacations, eat in nice restaurants, send your kids to nice colleges and retire nicely before you're too old to enjoy it, there's a few things you'll need to consider. For starters, you'll almost certainly need a college education and maybe even a masters degree. With a degree, you'll have at least a chance of getting an entry level job with a viable and growing company or organization.
Among other potentially undesirable things, you'll need to pay attention, work long hours, put up with substantial corporate politics, perhaps spend time away from your young family on business travel and of course outperform the vast majority of your contemporaries.
Over a period of time, you'll need to prove to the company execs, that you are head and shoulders above most of your co-workers.
This is the absolute minimum it will take to get recognized and promoted. If you're fortunate, by the time you're in your mid 30's, you'll be making the kind of money that will allow you to borrow the kind of money that will allow you to live the life style you've determined ahead of time is important to you. After obtaining the needed level of experience, you might even be able to start a business of your own, where the sky is the limit.

Another option would be to find something you're passionate about and get involved in an industry that revolves around that passion. For example, if I was a young person with a passion for video games, I might try to get a job somewhere in the video game industry. By doing so, I could immerse myself in the thing I'm passionate about and at the same time, surround myself with people in the video game industry who make decisions and make things happen. Although I'd be starting out at the very bottom rung of the ladder, I'd be headed in the right direction. If my goal was to someday be a video game designer, I'm going to have a much better chance of reaching that goal if I'm actually working in the industry as apposed to just being a customer of it. I might get better at playing video games by sitting on the couch practicing my trade, but the odds of an industry chief coming to my house and saying, "Hey Ralphie, how'd you like to be a video game designer", are pretty slim.
On the other hand, not everyone has a need or desire to own a bunch of really nice things. If as a young person I know it won't be important to me to have all the stuff our society uses to measure success, like a big expensive house and a new BMW every couple years, then I might not have to knock myself out like the other guy who spends most of his time trying to get ahead. In my humble opinion, there's nothing wrong with any of this. We just all need to be honest with ourselves regarding what we want out of our physical life. If I want all the stuff then I have to realize I'm not going to get it sitting on the couch watching Ridiculous House Wives and playing Super Kong Dong on my X-Box 3000. I have to be willing to go out and get it, and that's for sure going to mean giving up some stuff for a while and maybe for years. Stuff like Friday nights and weekends, sleeping late and taking off early, and laying around wondering how long I can maintain my current fully funded life style before my parents give me the boot. If I think I'll be able to satisfy the expectations I have for my life by unloading trucks at Walmart for $10 bucks an hour, that's great. But if I know I want more out of life for myself and someday my family, I have to be willing to get off the couch and start something. I need to realize most good things in life don't happen by accident--they happen because someone somewhere, made a decision to get off the couch and make something happen for themselves.