I haven't written a heart felt journal for years =_=; I don't know why. Ok I lied, in truth know exactly why. Anyway, after reading many personal and emotional journals by others, I realized that people appreciate seeing heart felt journals.
So I thought, maybe I should learn a little bit from my old self when I actually wrote all of my thoughts onto my DA posts. (If you go back to my posts from before 2005-ish you'll see that they're um... very personal... but in a bad and emo teenager way. So please don't go reading them all unless you're actually THAT bored XD;; )
I've been preparing for school in September, and that kind of got me thinking about how I got to where I'm at:
Towards the end of highschool, I actually really wanted to go to some kind of art school. Well, I wasn't too goal oriented back then so I guess I can't say I cared THAT much about where I ended up. But nonetheless, I wanted to do art. My parents are... Let's just say I have family issues like many others. They didn't think I can make anything out of myself doing art. So ok I ended up going the science route, which still worked out pretty well for me. However, during my "suppose-to-be" last year of undergrad, I realized that I cannot not do art. I looked at all the graduate programs that are related purely to my major and simply did not want to make the effort to apply to any of them. For a period of time I tried to force myself to just forget about art because I thought that I had to do that if I was to do science for the rest of my life. Well that didn't last long. Soon I was looking at artsy-er graduate programs because I realized that it's not possible to cut myself off from my passion, at least not if I wanted to be joyful and be true to myself.
Fast forward to this day. I am on my way to do art as a profession (if all goes well of course), and the salary for this line of job is actually pretty sweet. I just had to look really hard, and ask around. Oh, and I had to stay behind for a year. But hey, I'm so much happier now and I don't have to try and be something that I am not.
Another friend of mine was in the same situation as I. She really loved literature but her parents (I find this to be very common with Asian parents) wanted her to do science. So you know, since she was dependent on them financially, she ended up entering a science undergrad. She did really well in science in gr 12, but unfortunately she did really really bad in university science. She just couldn't force herself to study it when she really didn't give a damn about it. So, some wasted tuition later, she switched to a French major.
A good number of people I know are/were in a similar situation. Maybe you can relate to this too. The pattern I've found is that people who forced themselves to ignore their passions in order to pursue something that others told them to do never ended up successful in doing that. If you have a dream, a passion, follow it! Of course, listen to others' suggestions but don't let them stop you from doing what you truly want. After all, this is your life. If you are really passionate about something, just go for it. If you have a dream job, keep pursuing it. You will find a way to realize your dreams if you don't give up. It may not be a conventional way, but there will always be a way.
Cheerz!
