College is an opportunity to explore different paths of interest, strengthening skills necessary to get further ahead both in life and in your chosen field of study. Being argumentative as a kid leads to commanding a courtroom, making “potions” develops into evening out chemical properties to record the outcomes and the knowledge that comes with scribbling on the walls turns into finding the perfect gallery space to present your art. College is often a place where many come to grow.
That’s not always the case though. In contrast, some people come to college and develop feelings of inferiority, as if those around them are pursuing fields of greater importance.
It is impossible to keep up with the competition and when you filter in your hopes, dreams and ambitions; you might as well try to bottle a lightning strike or ride a rainbow. In today’s society and economy, it is downright impossible to do what you really want to do.
If I could truly do what I want to do, I would drop out of school and catch a plane. I would fly to either Athens, Barcelona, Capris, or Paris and open a small book/flower store, or move to the south of France and live off the land, or move to a small port city and sell seafood to locals and tourists like in Marcel Pagnol’s Marseilles trilogy. The possibilities are endless, but none of this is achievable because in this world money is everything and in this country, you need an education to have money.
If your interests align with a profession that will undoubtedly make you a lot of money, congratulations, you have won the lottery when it comes to living a happy and successful life. Your success can directly align with your happiness, your happiness being something high paying such as anything in marketing, medical, engineering and anything of the like.
But I pose the questions: “What if your major interests don’t align with anything that makes a lot of money? How will you achieve monetary needs and basic happiness at the same time?”
Speaking from personal experience, when you’re smart in a cinematic, expressive, linguistic and story-telling way, you can feel inferior to those who are smart in a statistical, rational and observational way. There’s no point in comparing apples to oranges, comparing two different but essential paths of intelligence. I understand how hard it is to find value in what you want to do when you feel there is no importance behind it.
My biggest piece of advice would be to simply follow your ambitions and not let your own personal insecurities get in the way of who you are and what you can accomplish.
“Just because my dreams are different than yours it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.” – Meg March, Little Women.
