Hey, it's Major. Today's episode is courtesy of the poet Jason Schneiderman.

Don't worry, I'll return to your feeds on June 12th.

I'm Jason Schneiderman, and this is the slowdown.

Vocational tests in high school are becoming less and less of a thing.

In my parents' generation, the joke was they were all told to become forest rangers.

I mostly remember taking a vocational test in high school because the test suggested that I

become a florist or an airline attendant. I had been expecting diplomat, or a college professor,

or something I would never have thought of, and instead I felt I'd been put in a box of gay

stereotypes from the 1980s. After two tests are now mostly about ones innate style of work.

I took one recently, and while I had expected my results to say that I'm a natural leader,

who is driven by what's right, the result said that actually my top priority is for everyone

to get along, and that my secondary preference is for nothing to change.

I was shocked, but the more I thought about it, it's true. I do hate change, and I do want everyone

to get along. The test worked. It showed me something about myself that I didn't want to know,

and forced me to think about my inability to control what's coming.

We take these tests to plan for the future, when we have all sorts of hopes for,

but what really happens is often a surprise.

In today's poem, the poet looks at what it means for things to change,

what it means to live in the present and to plan for the future,

and how painful and destabilizing it can be when what we expected,

plan for, worked for, and dreamed of, is suddenly taken away.

To the friend who is crying on the phone, by Vanessa and Helica Villarreal,

...