When I was in high school, I went through so many career options. My freshman year, I thought I wanted to go to Vanderbilt University for pre-law. Then, I took the Ohio Graduation Test sophomore year. In the social studies portion, we had to read a tiny part of the constitution. I thought to myself "I literally couldn't give two shits about this information" and decided that being a lawyer would not be the path for me.
I think it's pretty unfair that at sixteen years old you should know what you want to do with the rest of your life. I was still caught up in questions like what color prom dress I wanted or what senior boy I had a crush on or what I wanted to do after softball practice that night. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life?
I have been singing since I was eight years old. I sang "The Start of Something New" in the second grade talent show with a boy I had a crush on because I thought his hair looked like Troy Bolton's. Singing and music had always been a part of my life. I traveled around to different county fairs, singing and playing my guitar just because I loved it. Freshman year, I got involved in my high school theatre.
I found who I was in acting and musical theatre. Ironically, I felt the most like myself when I was playing someone else on stage. Somehow I knew that I had to do theatre for the rest of my life because that was the only career I could see myself truly being happy in. Coming from a small town in Ohio, I didn't really have access to a lot of theatre. However, I managed to get into AMDA in Los Angeles and made the leap to move out there in fall of 2016.
As of a few days ago, I just graduated with my Bachelors of Fine Arts in Music Theatre. I have so much support from my family and friends to live my dream. And I plan on using my degree everyday in some way or another.
So to anyone who thinks that what they want to do with their life is not practical, won't make you enough money, your parents don't support it, etc: just do it. You don't want to be 50 years old, waking up to go to your 9-5 job that you dread because you decided that being a social worker is more practical than being a performer, an artist, a video game designer, whatever. Just do what YOU love. What YOU want to do. I can't promise that there won't be ups and downs, but I can promise that you will feel more fulfilled in your life. And if it doesn't work out (which, ultimately, means you just got tired of hustling to do what you wanted to do), at least you can say you tried. Do it for the people who didn't even have the courage to try. Do it for YOU.
