Here's where many of us work. Those 10 jobs represent almost 20% of the U.S. workforce. Yeesh. If you're reading this, you're probably part of a non-representative sample, so you don't need to worry too much about that particular quagmire.

Here's some 2009 data that reflects employment across all occupations. Circling back to my point in the first paragraph, look at the 5 tallest bars (Education, food preparation, sales and related, office and administrative support, production). If you're like most people I've asked this question of, you probably named teacher, lawyer, engineer, doctor/nurse, etc.

The sad truth is that interesting careers are few and far between, and interesting careers that will support you are almost non-existent.

High school students would be better served by a focus on directing students toward paths in one of the handful of viable fields, rather than cultivating unrealistic expectations.