I am graduating from college in 3 months. I am a little excited and a whole lot terrified. Terrified because I am not pursuing a career in the field that I’ll be getting my degree in. Excited because I couldn’t be more thrilled to escape the torture of engineering. 

When I discovered that engineering was not for me, I decided to just stick it out to the end and “figure out life later.” Well, now it is later, and I’m only just beginning to figure stuff out. After a few wonderful conversations with some truly wonderful people, I finally have a general idea of what I want I want to do with my life. 

I once heard a saying to the effect of: “Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This is my general philosophy when it comes to making a living. I entirely reject the idea that I have to spend 40+ years of my life in a job that I barely tolerate just for the sake of paying the bills. Or even for the first 5 or 10 years after graduation for that matter! Of course I understand that this is sometimes simply necessary, but when did I start believing the lie that this is absolutely how life has to be? When did I lose the courage to dream (and I’m talking about more than just “The American Dream” here)? Somehow, along the way in my educational career, my goals and dreams became distilled down to ‘get job that pays bills and just hope to tolerate it.’ 

Well, at the end of high school my dream was to be a concert pianist. I love music, and it would have been so amazing to make a living from it. However, as I considered applying to Juilliard, I was reminded that the only people who get into Juilliard, much less go on to become professional musicians, are virtuosos, and I was (and am not) a virtuoso. Needless to say, that dream was subsequently extinguished. So I settled on studying chemical engineering, and I planned on still taking music courses, just ’cause. I never ended up taking any music courses, partially because I didn’t have the time, and partially because I was afraid that once music became ‘schoolwork,’ I would start to detest it. 

This is my greatest fear. I am afraid that by pursuing a career in something that I really do enjoy and am passionate about, I will one day come to hate it because it is now associated with work (and potentially stress). It may seem silly, but for so long I have separated “work” and “fun” despite my philosophy of reconciling the two. 

Pursuing a career in writing/ editing is scary. I really do enjoy it, and I never want the day to come when I dread the very thought of having to write something. I don’t consider this an unreasonable or unrealistic goal either. I know that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to, but if I never try then I’ll never know. Maybe I could have been a fabulous concert pianist, I’ll never know. I’m not letting another dream slip away.