Graduation season is, of course, a time for celebration of the hard work students have put in to earn their diploma or degree.

But anybody finishing their education in 2026 is graduating into a weird employment market,

full of upsetting rumblings about AI taking over the chores of what were once entry-level human jobs.

And even in the best of economies, plenty of people reach adulthood without knowing for sure what they want to be when they grow up.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. When we're not sure what to do with our careers, it can be tempting to just figure out which fields pay the most. But while money does matter, choosing a profession that fills your bank account but not your soul is a recipe for decades of dissatisfaction. And in my experience, we spend way too much of our waking lives at work

to settle for something that makes us miserable eight hours a day.

Jody Cantor's day job is as an investigative reporter for the New York Times.

Lately, she's been focused on covering the Supreme Court.

A few years ago, she won a Pulitzer for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story.

She loves her work. But in her new book, she won a Pulitzer for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story. She loves her work.

But in her new book, she shares it wasn't always clear what her mission should be.

And she has some advice for people still trying to work out what it is they are meant to do.

The book is titled, How to Start, Discovering Your Life's Work.

Jody, welcome back to think.

It's great to speak with you. How did you realize many

young people are experiencing a kind of existential dread about what happens after they finish school?

Well, it was a couple of ways, but it crystallized in one moment. About a year ago, I got an

email from Columbia, which is my undergraduate institution,

asking me to give the undergraduate commencement address, which is a huge honor, obviously,

but honestly, it was not that good an offer because you remember what was going on at Columbia

at the time, real chaos, real dysfunction, real rancor. And my friends were like,

call in sick. Don't do it. You're going to get booed. But something in me said, give me those kids

...