A path with heart...

I skimmed over a post today that dealt with the young and their lack of work ethic. This led into a discussion about crap jobs, the applicability of college degrees, and the futility of majoring in theatre or...(insert any fine arts field here). Uncharitable responses to all the whining ranged from Suck it up, kid to Why do you think they call it work?

It's awfully easy to snarl at the young, with their clear complexions and lousy work habits, but I think we should refrain. The world of work can be its own little hell, and the first glimpse of it is heart-stoppingly traumatic. You mean they expect me to spend eight hours a day doing that? Jesus.

Anyway, as an ex-hippie, I'm the last person on the planet who should point fingers, even though I was a very hard-working hippie back in the day. Besides, kids today do have it rough, burdened as they are with mountains of college debt and not much to look forward to--for a while at least--except for long stints of cube farming.

My family, going back generations, has always been in the teaching, doctoring, judging or lawyerly professions. Every so often, someone like me crops up and announces--to everyone's consternation at dinner--that we plan to go into the arts. I haven't met all my actor, musician, and painting cousins, but I bet they faced the same blizzard of arguments I did. It doesn't pay. You'll never make it. You need to marry a gynecologist. You better get a teaching certificate.

But what if you just are what you are? When I was eight years old, I knew I was some type of artist. And that knowledge was as deeply embedded as my genetic code. As my parents slowly realized this, they were both predictably aghast and immediately enrolled me in typing and ballroom dance classes. Their thinking was that if I made an unfortunate marriage (and didn't land the dermatologist or tort attorney), I could at least scrape out a meager salary as an office worker. Hence the schooling in airs and graces, coupled with brain-deadening bouts of business skills.

Marrying for money always struck me as a deceptive brand of hookerdom. So I got the teaching degree and tried out the corporate gulag, but mostly I've been a freelancer, living by my wits. It's risky. I've had periods of complete self-doubt and raw terror. Sometimes I've hated myself for not settling into some comfortable corporate fiefdom. One thing I've always done though, is to keep writing, and writing, and writing.

And so, whatever happens, this is the path I've chosen--one I was trained in and one I practice daily. Now that I'm older, I'm not sorry I've followed my nose. It's won me my tiny kingdom: a skill that unfailingly supports me, a profession that never grows stale, and something worth doing even in the worst of times.

It's a path with heart.