Sometime in my junior year of high school, I was talking with a teacher about my college plans. I don't remember who it was; it wasn't a teacher from my school, but a moderator on some Catholic youth conference I attended.

She asked me my college choices; I gave her the rundown: Penn was my number one, but also Brown, College of New Jersey, Georgetown. Penn State if I failed all my courses senior year. (Just kidding. "We are!") She asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I told her: I wanted to teach high school history.

"Oh," she said. "Go to College of New Jersey. Don't waste your money."

And this came from a teacher.

It wasn't her money. I don't mean any disrespect to TCNJ. I'm sure it's a fine school, and maybe in some other life it would have been the choice for me. But if Penn was my number one choice, and we -- read: my parents -- could somehow afford it, why wouldn't I go there? Okay, it was really my parents' choice, I suppose. But as long as they didn't need a house down the shore or something, I don't see why you shouldn't shoot for the stars.

The source made the comment weirder, of course. If she's a teacher, and Penn is the "better school" -- this, of course, being a relative term -- wouldn't that make me a better fit to teach high schoolers and help them out? Sure, you could say I was wasting money if I ended up making $30,000 a year teaching high school after spending $120,000 on an education, but isn't that a little defeatist attitude to take?

I ended up going to Penn, and sometime early in my sophomore year I realized I loved writing too much to not pursue that as a career. It was, of course, due to working at the college paper -- I hadn't written for my high school newspaper, nor did I really ever think of it as a job I'd like -- that I decided this was a career I wanted to focus on. And if I went somewhere else, somewhere without such a good college paper, I doubt I would have figured out what I really wanted to do. It all worked out in the end. (Except I'm making less than $30,000 a year after spending $120,000 on a college education. Shush.)

I thought of this recently when I was talking to an acquaintance who, after finding out I was in journalism, and a professional blogger at that, told me that I should be doing something better. "You're smarter than that," she said. Aside from being a total dick thing to say -- except for the "smart" compliment, I guess -- I don't really know if it has any merit. I'm doing what I currently want to do. I left another job for this one, even.

Those two comments that reminded me of each other are actually polar opposites. ("Take the extra step -- but no more steps than that" vs. "You can do better.") But I really think they do have a similar theme running through them: I know better than you. Which isn't all that surprising. From pundits to priests to columnists to bloggers to coworkers, people think they know everything.

And, obviously, I do my fair share of critiquing. But I never want to be seen as a know-it-all. If anything, I err too much on the other side, worried too much that I'm wrong. I'll take advice, criticism -- I relish both of them -- but, I don't know, sometimes people are a little too sure they have all the answers. There's not much I absolutely, truly believe in, but I do know this: I'm wary of anyone who's sure of anything.

But I could be wrong.