Passion

Some young people, like the irresponsible Richard Carston in "Bleak House," just can't seem to "settle" into an occupation. Others have always known exactly what they want to do. A friend was telling me that her son, who will graduate this year with a mechanical engineering degree, just landed a job designing equipment for a major farm-machinery manufacturer. As a boy, she said, he loved tractors, to the point that he would haunt the local lawn-equipment store and deplete their stocks of promotional literature. As a teenager, he even became certified in the products made by what will soon be his employer. That might just have clinched the job interview, don't you think?