Future, v.2.0

Hey guys! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since my last post.  This is one that I’ve been intending to write since the beginning of the blog, and I couldn’t seem to get it right. I finally decided that “imperfect and out there” is better than “perfect and never shared,” so here it is.

I’ve played music for sixteen years now, and for much of that time I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else with my life.  One of the things I’ve struggled most with over the past few months is coming to terms with changing my goals, and particularly with accepting new goals as being as valid as the aspirations I’ve held onto for most of my life.

As a point of clarification, in planning to be a musician, I didn’t have any particularly grandiose ideas about being wealthy or famous or even particularly successful.  I’ve always known how difficult the music business can be, and I’ve always assumed that I would, in all likelihood, have to have a non-musical job to support myself.  In my mind, though, there was a difference between the starving musician, doing other things by necessity, and actively choosing to pursue something other than music as a career.

My last two semesters of college, when I had to stop playing, my secondary major, Spanish, became my primary focus.  Applying to grad school for my master’s degree in translation felt like admitting defeat, even though it’s something I could easily see myself doing and enjoying. As I submitted my applications, I worried that the admissions people would see something in my essays or letters of recommendation that would tip them off that I was applying only because I didn’t know what else to do.  I had no idea how, but surely they would know that graduate school was just a poor substitute for what I actually wanted to be doing.   Despite the fact that my new plan for my future was more feasible and probably objectively better in the long run, I couldn’t see past my old goals and how my life wasn’t heading towards achieving them anymore.

I’m a different person today than I was when I was five and first learning the piano, or at seventeen when I applied to the music school, or even a year ago when I started planning for the senior recital I’d later be forced to cancel.  While my love for music hasn’t diminished, I’ve discovered other interests and passions that I never could have imagined would captivate me.  The future as the younger me had envisioned it isn’t my best option any more, and the fact that it’s the dream that’s been around the longest doesn’t make it okay for it to eclipse other possibilities.

With a forthcoming move to the United Kingdom for my master’s degree, the possibilities for my future are less limited.  I can travel more, continue to study other languages, and I’ll have the opportunity to get a job in a field I love, instead of slogging away at a day job to pursue music on the side.

It looks to me like it’s anything but settling for second best.