Following the status quo won’t automatically provide you with security.
Sometimes we compare the risk in our pursuits with the perceived safety of other paths. We imagine those paths to be free of the angst and uncertainty characterized by our own.
Many of my aspiring actor friends love to speak of “corporate america” as if it were a place reserved for those who posses no creative abilities or tolerance for uncertainty. When times get hard and they consider backing out of their own dreams, they say things like “maybe I’ll just do the corporate america thing.”
This implies that the corporate america thing, unlike their risky and creative thing, would be a simple stress-free endeavor where success would be readily offered to anyone willing to sell their soul or dreams. Of course, those who actually strive to succeed in corporate america know better.
In reality, every path has risk.
There is no career path or life vocation you can pursue that will offer you some kind of result that you don’t have to create for yourself.
Comparing yourself to all the supposedly secure souls who experience the ease of not having to face the challenges that come with your particular dream is not only a waste of time, but it’s also an excercise rooted in illusion.
No matter what you chose or would have chosen, you would still be right where you are today: asking questions about your field, solving problems in your field, figuring out how to create what you want, figuring out how to maintain what you created, and facing the everyday challenges that come with making your way in the world.
There is no easy way out because the world out there is going to throw you curve balls no matter what path you take.
Playing it safe isn’t the answer if security is what you are looking for.
The only security there is, is the kind that comes from a creative imagination and a self-determined mind.
