When I was younger, I was never one of those kids who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I always hated that question, because, unlike everyone else, I never had a real answer. As a senior in high school, I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to college, so I took a year off and worked a full-time job after I received my diploma. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
While still in high school, I remember how much I hated talking to teachers and even my classmates about my post-graduation plans. I told them I wasn’t going straight to college because I was completely unsure of where I would go or what I would do when I got there. “Oh, that’s one way to do it,” was a popular sarcastic response I received. I could just hear the condescension in their voices. I even remember my best friend at the time telling me that if I didn’t go to college right away, I would never go. “You’re wasting so much talent and intelligence,” she drilled into my head repeatedly. I can’t even describe how disheartened that can make you feel, coming from one of the people who is supposed to support you the most; but I pretended it didn’t bother me.
That year I took off school to work provided me with exactly the enlightenment I needed. It made me miss my education. I began to dread going into my boring job every morning, and I hated following the same monotonous routine every day. This experience gave me that extra push I needed to get myself into college, and I stopped worrying about trying to impress anyone by going to school just to get an impressive degree. This was for me, because I didn’t want to be stuck in that rut for the rest of my life.
Now here I am today, happy to be in college. But not much has changed concerning my career path of choice. Ask me where I want to be five years from now, and I’ll tell you that I have no idea, other than I hope to graduate, find a decent job and maybe do a little bit of traveling before I settle down to raise a family. Call me a dreamer, an idealist or even stupid. Call me what you will, but I believe that life has some wonderful things in store for me, and that it is okay that I’m not exactly sure what those things are yet. Having only lived 20 years of my life, I like to think that things will keep getting better. I am happy with the choices I’ve made in my life, and I trust that the decisions I make from here on out will place me on the path that I’m supposed to be traveling.
Every now and then, you read something that truly speaks to you, something that reflects your own philosophies. William Zinsser, former English professor at Yale University, wrote an essay that did that for me. In his essay, “College Pressures,” he speaks about students who are going to school only to earn themselves the biggest possible paychecks. He says, “They want a map – right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security, and, presumably, a prepaid grave.”
I am attending school to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. I’m even considering a minor in Philosophy or Art History. Why?Because that’s how I will earn big bucks someday? No. Because I love those fields of study. I love any product of human imagination. I certainly don’t want any sort of map. Instead, I want to experience life as it approaches, not worry uselessly about it twenty years ahead of time. I’m much more interested in the journey than the destination.
In a time when a shrinking percentage of society shares my view, Zinsser’s words solidified my cause. He’s rooting for the kids who follow their passions, even if they lead into a field that a lot of people consider impractical. “The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics – an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective – are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field,” he argues, defending subjects in the humanities. Not everyone was meant to be a big businessman or a doctor or an engineer. Many of us are much better suited to become artists, poets, designers, musicians, or writers. The world needs us just as much, if not more.
Some people will assume this increasingly money-driven, business obsessed world will swallow me up. But I know differently. I know that one day, all the knowledge I acquire here and within other areas of my life will help me find my place in the world. My life holds endless opportunities for happiness and I believe I will discover them all. I enjoy having the freedom to pursue my passions. It is something we are blessed with in this country. And I fully intend on exhausting that right and making something of myself in the process. You can too.