Sold A Bill of Goods and Becoming Fearless

I was told from the time I entered kindergarten that I had to get a college degree. It wasn't an option. I had to get one. So I did. And frankly, fat lot of good it's done me. $40,000 over four years for a $12/hour job.

My generation, perhaps more than any other, was sold one expensive bill of goods. We were all told this: "Go to college, get a good job. Earn money. Everything will be fine." No it's not. Or maybe it's because I majored in something I actually liked and not something that bored me out of my mind. I had a friend who majored in something that would guarantee her a good job. That's all well and good but she wasn't happy with it. It wasn't what she wanted to do or enjoyed. It didn't make her excited. It made her stressed. She has a good job now but I can't tell you if she will be happy in the long run. That's something she'll have to determine.

Stupidly, I majored in something that I loved. Something that made me excited to go to class, to write papers, to discuss and debate. It was a sensible major, one that conceivably get me a job after earning a master's degree. So I guess we'll see about that in a year. But am I happy with my decision five years after I made it? By and large, I think I'm not. I'm not because it was safe. That doesn't negate the fact that I enjoyed studying what I did or cause me to enjoy it any less because I still do like politics and international relations but truth be told, if I had it to do over again and was fearless in the face of job prospects I wouldn't have majored in it. I would have followed my gut instinct and said "I want to be a writer". And an English major I would have become.


I spend a lot of my free time writing. Half-finished stories and screenplays and plays and thoughts on whatever flits through my mind litter notebooks, legal pads and documents on my coffee table and computer. When I think about the people I most admire and want to be like I think of writers. Well, the ones who didn't kill themselves or become alcoholics or drug addicts. And they're writers of all types. Hemingway and Camus. Chechov and Mamet and O'Neill. Avika Goldsman and Tina Fey and Dustin Lance Black. Hell, bloggers and journalist are lumped in there, too. How great it must be to write for a living.

But my point is that I wasn't fearless and now I continually second guess myself at every turn. I wanted to go to law school. I wanted to be an attorney. That not working out wasn't so much of a lack of desire but a "you're not good enough". I'm probably not as good of a writer as I believe myself to be. Then again, I never made less than an 'A' on any paper I wrote in college and distinctly remember a time in high school when my English teacher told me I had written one the best conclusions she'd ever read. So, all right. I'm at least as good as I think I am. But am I good enough for anyone else? Will I ever be fearless enough to actually write the way I want to? Will I finish those screenplays and stories and thoughts? Probably not, but maybe some day. I have to at least try. I have to stare at the abyss that is the blank page and step off into the deep unknown, relying on the pencil in my hand and the paper beneath to save me.