Sunday, April 27, 2008

Live Your Dream?

One of the things I love about Facebook/Myspace is the fact that you can check in on what everyone you used to know is up to these days. Something I've noticed lately is that a lot of people from my high school class are "living the dream." That is to say, many of them basically decided to up and move to the state/country they want to be in or to go after the job that they really love. Although I know none of the details surrounding most of their decisions, they strike me as the "starving artists" type. Most of these people are classmates I don't keep in touch with, who I was never very good friends with in the first place.

What strikes me is the vast difference between those people and my close friends who I *do* keep in touch with. Nearly all of my close friends are in graduate school, or taking time to decide which type of graduate school they want to go to. I never cease to be amazed by my brilliant and talented friends, but in my Facebook/myspace browsing, I wonder how many of us would describe ourselves as "living the dream." Sure, we want to be doing what we're doing because it will (theoretically) get us to where we want to be... our dream perhaps? But are we missing out by choosing to spend the bulk of our 20s in school when we could be off traveling the world, taking low-paying jobs that we love (oh wait, I guess that kind of describes grad school too! :-)), meeting new people, exploring new places, working our way up the ladder of fame/fortune?

I don't necessarily regret choosing grad school (and I don't mean to imply that any of my friends should either!) because I know it is the road I want to go down to get me to where I want to be in the end. But I do often wonder about these things... Really, what it boils down to is that I think I play the "what if" game far too often for my own good.

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