Pursuing Passion and Failure
At the end of the first semester of my master’s I had one question for myself. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? If so, when does it start to show? I felt this way because I felt discouraged. This is true, and you may be asking yourself, “How does someone in their early twenties, halfway done with their master’s, and with a Big 4 job on the horizon feel discouraged?” That is exactly how. There are many things I wish to accomplish in this one life, but I feel as though where I am headed is either not in that direction or not visible to me yet.
Perhaps you feel the same way. Perhaps you are a recent college graduate who passed up a salary based position because you did not want to limit your potential to perform above salary. So you chose a commission based pay. Perhaps you decided college was simply not for you, yet you are struggling to find a path that aligns with a passion you have yet to discover. Perhaps you did everything just the way you planned, but you are finding that it is not at all what you planned for it to be. There are a number of scenarios that may leave you feeling discouraged, and although it is an awful feeling, I want to remind you that nothing is permanent. My parents used to joke that only one thing ever was: tattoos. To hell with that. Even today, not even those are permanent. And if something as little as a tattoo is no longer permanent, then we have the ability to change our minds and pursue any and all things we wish.
I woke up to two texts on the very day I decided to write this piece.
They were sent by two people who are very dear to my heart.
They read in their original form:
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“- didn’t get the LSAT score i wanted
- lost my 4.0
- got in a fender bender
- got bad grades every test i took the week before
- i keep just thinking im a terrible person”
“honestly i just have not been doing the best the past two weeks”
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“Deal i was working on that was supposed to close on the 22nd contract just got terminated”
“Not shocked since it happens a lot just hard not to get discouraged and question if there’s any light at the end of this tunnel”
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When I read these two texts, I knew the exact sentiment these two people were feeling. We all do. How? We have all been here. It reads a little like, “Why is this happening to me?”
This is a very normal feeling. In fact, I hate the usual response to the question asked above. There is always room for improvement or It happens. If the response is not coming from others, it is coming from ourselves. Ironic right? It is almost like we are trained to tell ourselves “It’s just life.” Those responses are not necessarily wrong, but they also aren’t the only truth. We are the only ones who have control over the way we view and react to situations.
As mentioned before, there are many things I wish to accomplish in this life. A few things include getting married by 27, having four daughters (that look on your face? yeah, I know it alllll too well), permanently residing in the southeast, and teaching or advising young individuals. How many of those things are in my control? One. To teach or advise young individuals.
If my first semester in grad school taught me one thing, it was that I am not built for the rigid nine to five Dolly Parton sings about. I recently discovered that I love writing, and I never want to stop learning. I love inspiration, and I love school. It is hard when the rest of your peers are making salary based jobs when you’ve settled for commission. It is hard when colleagues may be passing sections of the Certified Public Accounting (CPA) Exam when you are struggling to find the motivation to do so. It is hard to mustar up the courage to pursue something that you are passionate about but are afraid may fail. I fear that if all doesn’t go as planned, the one thing in my control becomes no thing in my control. When nothing is in our control, we start to doubt ourselves, our potential, and if that light at the end of the tunnel really exists. To be honest, I cannot tell you that it does. It may not, but that is not “just life.” Life is more than just what we cannot control; life looks a whole lot sweeter when we learn that nothing is permanent and our lives are completely up for change. The worst thing you can do to yourself is say “It happens” while ALSO leaving your situation to be permanent. Two things can be true. “It happens”... AND you’re never truly stuck.
