| The world doesn't need doctors who don't want to be doctors. What we need are people who love what they're doing. If you base what you do every day on what you "should" do, you'll end up depressed guaranteed. My advice is to do as much of what you want as possible at all times.
Over on the doctors board they are not discussing how wonderful it is to "heal people" and have huge houses and a new Porche, I can guarantee. They are talking about audiophile grade speakers and $20K turntables--doing everything they can to buy that feeling they had when they were young and loved music. If you think rich (or even noble) people are somehow magically happier than other folks, you probably haven't known many of them. Ask an interning doctor about how 12 hour days in a studio sound-they'll probably say relaxing.
They actually have exercises in depression books to help people get the "shoulds" out of their lives. Nasty things. Should means that you're basing your life on what other people want or think. Not a great way to find happiness, true love, contentment or any of those other things we value so highly.
With that said, Grandma Moses started painting when she was 70 or something like that. The only time it's too late for change is if you want to coast and petrify the rest of your life. (And some folks do--god bless 'em).
I think the more important question is do you love working on your own music or other people's? Being an artist is different than being an engineer--which I think is clear from some of the posts here. If you love working on your own music and go into working on jobs for others, it won't feel the same. And can feel like a huge compromise. Your soul doesn't really care about the numbers--it just wants to do what it wants to do. And it only wants to do what it really wants to do. (Meaning that "being close" doesn't count for as much as you'd think.)
Oh--and by the way--I usually use the exact same words the previous poster used to identify my deepest desires: "it won't go away". Things that won't go away are an integral part of us and repressing them--no matter what else our plans are--is a recipe for illness and unhappiness. In my experience I've found that things I describe this was almost never go away. How we express those things that won't go away is, of course, up to each and every one of us. Hobbies, jobs, side projects, life's work, etc.
What would you do if you couldn't make a mistake?
I dropped a successful graphic design company at around 30 to write a book. I felt much older and stiffer then I do now at 40. The decision plunged me into poverty, uncertainty, doubt and fear--for more than five years--and it was the best thing I've ever done. It also gave me years of free time to figure, contemplate, relax, explore and create. I never starved, never missed a month of rent (though it was late once or twice and I had to sell some killer guitars). Though I certainly thought I was going to. My "successful" graphic design business means almost nothing to me now. I'm glad I did it instead of waiting tables, but it didn't mean anything for me like my book. Even though it made me a lot of money and gave everyone in my life an easy way to understand who I was and "where I was going". I'm much more clear on the truth that "man cannot live by bread alone" these days.
We're not here to survive or pay rent but to live. And no one can give you a job doing that. |