The Path that Forks About 9178395012349 Different Ways

The following is a reprise of my side of a conversation I pretended to have with a few dozen of my closest friends.

Hey. *shifty eyes* Are you alone? *cranes neck up and down hallway*  Okay...

You can't tell anybody else about this, understand? 

What do you mean "why is it in a blog post, then?"  That's totally not the point.  You can tell whomever you want.

The thing is *starts eating peanut butter sandwich* I like writing.  I really do. *takes another bite of sandwich* But I don’t see the point of majoring in it at college anymore.  *astounded gasps from all writers within earshot* (dude, you don’t understand how passionate we can be) *light cursing by writers* *one or two writers start to smoke cherry pipes * *etc*

This shouldn’t be a huge shock to the people who really know me, but I want to be a teacher, *knowing nods from about sixty people* or maybe I’ll work in children’s ministry at a really cool church, like CCV.  *shocked looks from several, facepalms from one or two, extremely pleased nods from just a few*

You can’t be afraid to follow the path you think is right, even if you have to get airlifted over a few hundred miles of jungle to get to a new path once in a while.  We meet some good pilots in life.

*Most just shrug*

I mean, I’ve been writing for almost 12 years now, writing PASSIONATELY.  I’m not just gonna stop, but I want to do something else with my life.  And my college.  I’ve heard too many people say a writing degree will get me a “great” position flipping burgers.  And now that I finally have some notion of what I want to do as a real job, well, I want to head toward that.

You gotta do what you love, and I think I love teaching more than writing.

<{([So, technically, the pretend conversation ends here; I don't usually insert web links into my daily conversation])}>

On that note, I highly recommend this article.  It's actually quite insightful. WARNING: it contains some bad words.  But it's worth it.  Unless you're very easily offended, though it's really hard to live life like that, especially in college.

See?  It'd get weird. The thing about linking, not being offended. That'd be... bad... to draw.

But seriously, try and figure out what you want to be when you grow up.  I've been at it for almost 20 years and I still might not have it right. My mom has been trying for over 50 years and she's still looking. I think most people are looking for what they want, wishing they knew what it was.