Do what you love

I want to start with a tiny apology.  Ever since Heather and I officially decided to make this trip a reality, my life has been consumed by that.  School work has taken a bit of a back seat (I apologize to any professors reading this), and spring break in Colorado with two of my roommates was a much needed break.  All that to say, I’m sorry that I have not been keeping up with writing here.

It’s 2:45 a.m. EST, and I’m on the plane from Denver to Boston.  I’m writing now in an effort to kick start myself into paying more attention here.  Anyways, tangent over, and let’s get into it.

When you’re growing up your parents and teachers tell you that you can “be whatever you want to be”.  That’s the American Dream, too, right?  We start life out with a blank slate, and we can choose how to fill that space.  Then, you start to grow up.

My cousin is in 10th grade.  Jake’s a very unique kid in that he’s incredibly smart, and he’s amazingly creative at the same time.  He has the brains to be an aerospace engineer at Boeing and the creativity to write the 2025 Oscar Best Picture.

He’s very bright, as I mentioned, so he gets a lot of pressure from teachers and administrators to start preparing for a career in engineering.  Why?  Because we keep hearing statistics about how the U.S. is being outpaced by countries like China and India in producing jobs that drive the economy like engineering.

But here’s the thing.  Jake doesn’t want to be an engineer.  He takes math because he has to and does well because he’s a good kid and always does his best.  He doesn’t love it or even particularly enjoy it.  He spends his free time playing every stringed instrument I can think of and making videos with his Canon T3i.  He’s a creative at heart, but he’s constantly hearing the world telling him to be an engineer or a doctor or something with the “hard sciences”.

There are two very important voices in his life that don’t pressure him, though.  They let Jake be Jake.  That’s my aunt and uncle.

My parents were exactly the same when I was going through high school and even college as I was trying to figure it all out.  I left high school thinking I wanted to be a chemical engineer, mostly because I felt pressure to be an engineer like Jake does now.  But it wasn’t where my heart lies.  Could I have done it?  Probably, but after two weeks in Vector Geometry my freshman year, I called my mom and told her engineering was not in my future.  Without a second thought, she was on board.  After quickly dropping that class, I started exploring my options.  Two major changes later, I’ll be graduating with a Communication degree in May.

It’s one of the best decisions I have ever made, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my parents.  That sounds really cliché, but it’s so true.  If they would have scoffed at my decision, I probably would have stuck with something that I hated.  Instead, I love the thought of going to work every day in the communication field.  Doing things like directing live television, writing a feature story or managing social media gets me fired up.

To this day, when I tell people that I’m a “Comm major”, I get that look that says they’re thinking, “Well, you aren’t going to get a job, and if you do, you won’t be making any money.”  To those people, I’ll get a job.  God has a plan for me, and I’ll find a job somewhere doing something that I love.  Will I be making a lot of money?  Probably not, but I don’t care.  I would much rather be doing something I love day in and day out than going to a 9-5 and hating every minute of it just to get a big paycheck.

Sure, my engineering friends have jobs lined up that pay significant sums, and I’m incredibly excited for them.  They were wired to be engineers.  They’re doing what they love, and that just happens to be something I hated.  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with engineering or any other hard sciences.  I just want people to realize that it’s not for everyone.

The world needs people who write exciting stories, produce the news, paint, draw, sculpt, design and bring joy to others through their art.  Imagine a world where no one creates things like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the 20/20 Experience or even a smooth-looking newscast.

Ever since day one, Jake’s parents and my parents have been supportive of us choosing what we want to do.  It’s meant the world to me, and I know it will to Jake, too, even if he doesn’t realize it yet.

I don’t think that this post is going to change the pressure that parents, teachers and the current economic culture puts on high school students to go down a specific path, but I hope that it will encourage those of you who know you want something different.  And hopefully, one or two people will be able to take some pressure off of some of the young adults in their lives.

Bottom line: Follow your dream and do what you love.  I haven’t been doing this for very long, but I can already tell you that “work” isn’t work when you enjoy doing it.