In high school, nobody associated me with writing. I was decent at English questions in quiz bowl, but that was the extent of my involvement or lack thereof. Instead, I was known as “the artist.” I chose an art elective all four years and turned in a drawing every week, then every two weeks, and so on until I qualified for independent study my senior year. I thought I wanted to go to college for art, but I ended up in humanities and the rest is history. I packed a small bag of art supplies to bring to CMU, but barely used them. I doodled here and there, but never set aside serious drawing time, something I once could not imagine my life without. I thought, why should I? I was a writing major now, so why would I spend time dirtying my fingertips in colorful pastels or smudging graphite when I could be doing writer things like reading short stories or editing my work in a coffee shop?
When I met design and art majors at CMU, I was almost embarrassed to say I once drew, like a patient telling a doctor she once dabbled in medicine. Art was only a high school interest for me—now I was a writer.
Then a very scary thought occurred to me the other day: what if writing is just a college stint? I am as passionate about writing now as I was about art in high school, yet I dropped that interest as soon as something else was expected of me. With graduation right around the corner and my desperation for employment increasing each day, who knows what field I’ll end up in? I didn’t forsee myself as a writing major when I was in high school.
I realize that after graduation, I could never write again—I mean the kind of writing where I have complete creative control, such as in Her Campus articles I post within CMU’s chapter or class assignments. Because as much as I enjoy writing, there has always been another factor to push me: a class grade, a competition deadline, an editorial calendar. And since I began writing extensively in college, there have always been professors and advisors to encourage and pressure me to write. And though I claim writing as one of my hobbies, it’s hard to motivate myself when I don’t have to turn something in.
If I am lucky enough to be an employed writer after graduation, I don’t expect my first job to have much room for creativity, which I’m totally okay with—I will be getting paid to create content for the company, not myself (though more experienced writers often have the privilege of taking on topics they enjoy).
I will be patient and work my way up to senior positions with liberal creative licenses, but until then, what happens to all my ideas my boss doesn’t care about? Like my opinion on YOLO or failed New Year’s resolutions?
Compared to college, there are fewer people in the real world who care about our professional advancement, and even fewer who care about our personal fulfillment (or at least, ones who care to commission it). We’re on our own to either continue or abandon our career paths and our passions.
But as college graduates entering the workforce, we must remember that our career paths do not necessarily define our passions. Just because we aren’t getting paid to do something doesn’t mean we should stop doing it. We shouldn’t need incentives to pursue our passions. They are rewarding in themselves. I hope I can remember that the next time I’m reluctant to write outside of a job.
Regardless of what jobs we end up working, we have to understand that it is work. If someone happens to love what he or she does, then that’s fantastic—few are so lucky. If not, then at least that person is earning a paycheck.
We do not have to be passionate about our jobs, but we do have to be passionate about our lives. We should do what we need to make a living, but we must make time for things that make us feel alive. We are more than the jobs we are paid to do, just like we are more than the majors we declared.
From being a student at CMU, I learned that our hearts are in the work. From being a person at CMU, I learned that our hearts are in other things, too.
Photo Source: http://lablog101.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/update-24/