Use of English

Career Scripts

It is often taken for (0) GRANTED that career choices are the outcome of personal aptitude and free will. In practice, however, many people find their decisions subtly shaped by social expectations that are less visible precisely because they are so widely (1) .......... . From an early age, children are exposed to a steady stream of assumptions about which professions are respectable, lucrative or suitably ambitious, and these ideas can become so deeply (2) .......... that they pass for common sense. By the time young adults are expected to choose a path, they may already have (3) .......... to a hierarchy of occupations they never consciously examined. Families, teachers and peers rarely issue direct commands; instead, they excel at (4) .......... disapproval through raised eyebrows, loaded praise and the occasional comparison with somebody else's alarmingly successful child. Under such pressure, people may (5) .......... away from fields that genuinely interest them and towards roles that appear socially approved. The result is that supposedly independent decisions are often made less on individual merit than on the desire to (6) .......... in with an approved narrative of success. It is therefore hardly surprising that some workers eventually (7) .......... into the suspicion that the life they built was designed more to impress others than to satisfy themselves. By then, changing direction can feel less like a choice than a belated attempt to (8) .......... back a sense of ownership.