Student considering spending rest of life in a remote cottage in a Nordic country after being denied from the Toronto Public Library’s 'Leading to Reading' volunteer program

After the Toronto Public Library’s “Leading to Reading” volunteer program rejected her, Tess Eract must make a choice. Society pressures many students to follow the “correct” or “most promising” paths in life, but many merits reside in less prestigious occupations, like apprenticeships, trades, or living in a remote cottage in a Nordic country.

Our society emphasizes academic achievement as a measurement of one’s worth or success. Young people are taught that you need a good job for money to survive and to get this good job, you need to graduate from a competitive and renowned university program with, at minimum, a four-year bachelor’s degree. But what of surviving on the fresh danishes picked off the trees of Denmark? What value does money have when the barriers of preconception and human connotation are peeled away?

Would you rather slave away at your desk, writing a fifty-thousand-word dissertation on the ethical implications of a hospital supplier offering a fifty percent discount on IV stands, or to frolic in the grass as Johann offers you a platter of Swedish meatballs?

Sure, a degree from the University of Northern British Columbia could offer opportunities. But how do these so-called “opportunities” compare to savoring cheap Havarti while watching the children yodel and wear their lederhösen?

And as Tess would recline on her Omtänksam armchair, sipping away at her non-alcoholic Skåne Akvavit, she would reflect and give thanks to the library for rejecting her from their program, launching the true beginning of her life: one of luxury and SAKS POTTS. And all because she was “too young to qualify for the position”.