DR. WALLACE: I'm a guy who is a senior in high school and I have a wonderful girlfriend. Everything about her is fantastic, but there are times she feels she needs my input when I would prefer that she just make her own decisions. For example, every time she plans to go shopping, she feels she needs to include me

She literally tells me that she wants my opinion because she wants to look as good as possible when we go out together. Quite honestly, I don't have a lot of opinions on women's clothing, and she always looks fine to me.

How can I let her know without upsetting her that she should make her own shopping trips and decisions? — I'm Really No Help Anyway, via email

I'M REALLY NO HELP ANYWAY: I can think of one way you might be able to accomplish your goal and be diplomatic and heartfelt towards your girlfriend.

You can mention to her that she always looks so stylish and does a great job selecting her wardrobe. Tell her that it's more fun for you to be surprised to see her in her new accessories, clothing or whatever purchase she is making.

This might solve your situation or at least give you an angle to present to her. You can let her know that for special occasions, such as a formal dance or something like that the two of you can certainly go together to select outfits. But for her routine purchases, encourage her to follow the excellent instincts she has already demonstrated!

MY UNCLE MADE ME AN OFFER

DR. WALLACE: I'm a guy who's 19 and I'm attending a community college. I'm kind of surveying different career opportunities.

For years, I kind of envisioned myself ending up in sales or marketing because I'm outgoing and I like talking to people. But an interesting thing happened last weekend. My uncle, who lives about 70 miles away from our family, came to visit.

He lives on a farm and has been pretty successful with it from what I can tell over the years. He sat down with me and basically told me that he would be willing to hire me at a very reasonable salary and teach me the trade of running a dairy farm. He explained that he has two daughters, but they both grew up, got married and moved out of state.

He told me that if I'm interested and too well, he might even consider letting me buy him out of the farm gradually over time if I would be interested in running it. This would solve my immediate problem of finding a career path, but my question to you is, would it be detrimental to my long-term success if I went and spent a few years on a farm? What I mean by this is I won't be in the business world. I'll simply be running a family farm in an isolated way. He's a good uncle and a great person, so I would have no problem at all working with him. What do you think? — Considering a New Opportunity.

CONSIDER CONSIDERING A NEW OPPORTUNITY: You should give it a try. It sounds to me that your uncle has given this situation a lot of thought and has hand-picked you as his potential successor. This could be quite an opportunity for you in terms of your long-term career path and earning power

You'll never truly know if you like this type of work or not unless you give it a try, so if you do proceed forward, give your uncle a reasonable amount of time that you'll commit to, perhaps six or nine months at a minimum and pledge to stay at least that long, no matter what. Then, if you do find you enjoy the opportunity, I trust you'll give you a more than fair deal if you eventually succeed him in owning the farm.

You also mentioned that you would feel isolated and out of the business mainstream if you spent a year or two in the farming business and then decided to move on. But I disagree with your premise here; running a farm is very much like running a small business, as there are sales, marketing and operational needs that must be met. Certainly, the dairy products are sold somewhere, and there's an opportunity for you to get involved and learn that. Plus, even having this background for a year or two may give you an opportunity to become a sales professional someday regarding farm equipment, which is a big business. Opportunities the one you're describing don't come along often, my advice is to grab it with both hands and give it a try.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Erik Mclean at Unsplash