"Don't go into a creative career. You won't get any money out of it and you will regret it."
This is something I've heard time and time again during my high school career and I'm sick of it. Success is defined by money rather than happiness. Yes, money can make a person happy, but that happiness cancels out when you hate your job. If I enjoy art and writing, it would make no sense for me to study something I hate - such as math - in order to become something I would find boring, like a mechanical engineer. This is basic logic— or inductive reasoning if you will. But we don't count on logic or the human heart to decide what we do; we let lifeless greenbacks take the reigns. This is what we are advised to do as students in a school system heavily influenced by STEM. "The future is in science and math," is what we are told. This is not true. The future is new thoughts and ideas. The underlying message of the earlier statement is that money is all powerful and you can only get that through careers related to math and science. This train of thought needs to change direction.
Money, through history, has been the main influence for decisions we make daily. These decisions vary from deciding to take over a country to exploit its riches, to what shoes to buy at the mall. We have given it a god-complex in our lives, which, as seen in example one, can cause a lot of damage. While choosing a career based on how much money it can get you isn't the same as taking over a country, it can still cause tremendous harm to yourself and those close to you, especially if you don't enjoy your job. Students who wish to go into creative careers face this dilemma every time they even mention the possibility of doing something unrelated to math or science.
"Oh, you won't get paid very much. Try thinking of something that involves business."
The glaring error in this statement is that the student may not like business. Maybe they want more freedom in their work environment and don't really want to worry about the politics of corrupt CEOs or the stress of trying to climb to the top of the promotion ladder. If they go into that career, the student may become miserable. But they're making more money than they would have if they chose the path of arts or humanities. That's only a small price to pay, isn't it? Not necessarily. Money won't make a difference if the only day you are happy at work is when you get your paycheck. The stress and misery accumulated throughout the workday, week, month, or even year will pile on. Then what happens when you get home? You explode on yourself, your family, your friends, even your dog. Depression and other mental illnesses can also stem from working at a job that you don't enjoy. This is why choosing a job you actually want to do is so crucial.
My father wanted to be an architect. They make about $50,000 a year and that's only when buildings need to be designed. There are dry periods. The advice my dad got from his guidance counselor was, "they don't make a lot of money. Go into business." So that is what he did. He hated every second of it until he discovered the design department of his college, so he ended up landing a career in business design. He makes pretty good money now, but sometimes he still laments over the fact that he never became an architect as he once dreamed. I was given similar career advice from one of my high school teachers about my future major. I wanted to be a publisher, which requires an English degree, and my teacher said that I should probably major in business instead. It's safer that way.
The irony of this advice is that she is, in fact, an ENGLISH TEACHER. It confuses me that counselors— and especially teachers— would give such advice when they have one of the lowest paying jobs in the country. Why, if careers are based on money, are they teachers? Certainly not because they enjoy it.
