The 16-Year-Old Who Taped His Future to a Lamppost

In The Wall Street Journal, Joseph Pisani tells the story of a New York City high school junior in How New Yorkers Rallied to Answer One Teen's Cry for Career Help. Avi Lichtenstein is 16, and he worries so much about his future that he spent about $500 of his savings to put more than 300 flyers up around the city. The flyers ask people with interesting jobs to let him shadow them. So far he has spent time with a dog groomer, a radio show host and the co-owner of a ramen shop in the Bronx, who ended up offering him a part-time job.

His parents review every request, and he screens volunteers by video call before meeting anyone in person. He keeps a spreadsheet of what he learns. After all of it, he told the Journal he still doesn't know what he wants to do with his life.

The Worry Is the Common Part

Avi's flyers are unusual. His worry is not. In a nationally representative survey of 1,545 teens ages 13 to 17 by Common Sense Media, Harvard's Center for Digital Thriving and Indiana University, 56% said they feel pressure to have their future figured out, more than any other kind of pressure the researchers measured. Among those teens, the most common source they named was adults at school, at 48%.

We ask young people to choose a direction before they have seen much of the world beyond school. Then we hand them career assessments and lists of majors, as if the right answer could be found by filling in a form. Avi did something different. He went looking for real people in real rooms and asked them what their days are actually like.

What He Is Really Discovering

The most revealing detail in the story is what happened at the ramen shop. Avi didn't just shadow and leave. He began showing up with ideas: a flyer for a lunch deal aimed at teachers and students, a branded tent for food festivals, a funnier approach to the shop's TikTok videos. The owner used them.

No career quiz would have surfaced that. In a kitchen in the Bronx, a teenager noticed problems nobody asked him to solve and couldn't resist working on them. That is an early clue to what he brings, and it may matter far more than whether he ends up in hospitality, aviation or marketing. The clue will keep evolving as he grows. The habit of noticing it is what lasts.

He is also keeping an open mind. He has ruled out his parents' line of work, yet he admits he might still fall for a desk job. That openness is exactly the right posture at 16.

This is why exposure matters so much more than early certainty. A young person can't recognize what energizes them until they have stood close enough to different kinds of work to feel the difference. I made a related case in Before Choosing College or the Trades, Ask Who You're Becoming. The path matters less than the self-knowledge a teen brings to it.

Don't Wait for a Flyer

Most teens will never print 300 flyers, and they shouldn't have to. The adults around them can open those rooms instead.

Parents, ask three people you know whether your teen could spend a morning with them at work. Afterward, skip the question about whether they liked it. Ask what they noticed that they wanted to fix or try.

Keep a running list together, the way Avi does, of jobs that sounded interesting and what stood out about each. Over a year, patterns appear.

Educators and counselors, treat shadowing as part of learning, not an extra. One real morning in a workplace can teach more than a semester of planning worksheets.

Professionals, say yes when a young person asks. The ramen shop owner told the Journal she felt the same way he did at 16. Many of us did.

Safety belongs in the plan as well. Avi's parents vetted every request, and any family following his lead should do the same.

His mother told the Journal that her son is "so independent." I would add that he gave himself permission to explore before anyone told him he was ready. In Room to Roam Is Not Enough. Kids Need Room to Be Themselves., I wrote that young people need room to be who they are, not just room to move. Avi found both on the streets of New York.

He may still not know what he wants to do, and that is fine. He is learning something more useful than an answer: how to find one. Every teenager deserves adults who help them do the same, long before an application asks them to declare who they will be.

A teenager doesn't need to know the answer yet; they need enough real rooms to recognize it when it shows up.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.