Still Water

The Difficulty with Forks

I really struggle with What to Be When I Grow Up.  In the few blog posts i have written to date, this topic keeps coming up in some form or another.  This is because it weighs heavy on my mind pretty much all the time.  Some days it consumes me.  This is one of those days. Idle minds, and all that.

When i was in high school, my friends and I had to think for the first time about What We Wanted To Be and start taking courses and making decisions to set us on that path.  For me, the options were pretty obvious based on both what I loved doing and (lucky for me) what i was good at: Art or Business.  When i look at the world around me today I can see many occupations and fields where these intersect nicely - but at the time they didn’t.  Universities don’t run joint Art and Business programs (the way they often do for Engineering and Business), so I really needed to make a choice.

I was a pretty practical teenager.  It seemed clear to me that i should follow Business as a profession (perhaps accounting? or marketing?) and do Art as a hobby.  This also seemed to be the socially acceptable choice.

Today, I am a 30-year-old married woman.  I have an undergrad degree in Business, as well as an MBA.  I have been working at a major financial company for several years. 

For the most part, i like it.  But something is missing.  And when there is a gap in the work load - as there is now - and i am left with my own thoughts, I have to admit that this is not enough.

I am very lucky to have a good job.  The job market is just awful right now, and I feel very lucky to have a stable, well-paying occupation.  It does not mean that I feel satisfied or fulfilled.  I have always been one of those annoying people that exclaim “do what you love! Follow your heart! Don’t work at something you hate because life is short!….blah blah blah.” 

What I am starting to realize is that this is easier said than done for some very practical reasons.  I have a family to support. I have bills, and commitments.  Sure, there are stories of people who put it all on the line and ended up a success - but i think there is a reason a lot of the great entrepreneurial tales of our time are about young people: when you don’t have any money or a family to support, you have nothing to lose.  I suspect the real reason more of these stories are not about older people is simply that they can’t risk it.

When I picture my ideal life, I picture running my own arty firm – like a graphic design firm, perhaps.  It’s a small operation – maybe 15 employees.  We have arty offices with exposed brick and glass desks – and we are mellow and happy.  We spend our days doing creative things for satisfied, well-paying clients.  I own my life, I eat what I kill, and I have a strong reputation.  When I want to go on vacation with my family – I just go, and leave the operation in the hands of my capable and loyal staff.  I spend lots of time with my family. 

I’m a pretty far stretch from this dream.  First of all, other than loving art, and enjoying drawing and painting – I have no formal graphic design training.  Of course, this is correctable – but not quickly.  The other thing that is true of adult people is they have very little “free” time.  I have a substantial commute, and I’m exhausted to my core when I get home in the evening.  I have done night classes in the past, and it can be done – but it hurts.  I don’t intend to sound whiny.  All I am saying is – did I make the wrong choice when I was 18 and starring at that fork in the road?

No one can ever answer that.  So many other things would have changed had I taken another path.  For example, I surely wouldn’t have met my husband – and that would be tragic.  And i am by all normal standards a success in my chosen path.

I guess the only thing I can do at this is stage is set a goal and make a plan to crawl there.  It is difficult when the goal is fuzzy.  But if you know that where you are standing isn’t it, then obviously you simply have to take a step.