Good grief, how the tempus does fugit! We were discussing career planning and all that a while back, remember? And I asked what kind of advice you’d gotten, best and worst? And geekgirl99 gave this as her worst career advice ever received: “If you could be happy doing anything else, you shouldn’t go into music,” and I got all excited and agreed with her loudly in a subsequent post. And then Shmeepod wrote a really interesting comment disagreeing with us, that I said I wanted to respond to, and never did, until now. Here’s what Shmeepod wrote:

At one point in my life I was very close to going to conservatory and embarking on a career as a professional musician. Now I am much happier doing something else and I have the “If you could be happy doing something else…” advice to thank for that. So I don’t think I am a person in the field who wants to feel special and I am not a non-artist who doesn’t realize that you can’t make a living in the field.

Many people in the fine arts community have had to overcome nay-sayers who have told them they could never make a living doing music or theater or whatever it is that they now do. I’ve noticed that this tends to create an attitude among career fine arts people that anyone who encourages a bit of thought or consideration before embarking on an arts career is just an uncultured meany who thinks that “no one can make a living as an artist”.

The problem is that young artists and musicians who are not sure whether or not they are suited for or even want to go into an arts career have no where to turn to get objective advice because their arts mentors will just think they are being influenced by uneducated nay-sayers. When I was making my decision, almost everyone I went to for advice (including my parents) encouraged me to stick with music for a career even after I expressed my dislike for rehearsals and practicing (both essential components of a music career). There is an overwhelming attitude that if a young person is good at some artistic endeavor then they must pursue it as a career.

Some young people, even though they may be incredibly gifted in the arts, would really be happier doing something else for a career. I think that thoughtfulness about what your passions are and what things really motivate you should be encouraged before deciding to embark on any career, but arts especially require real passion in order to be successful. You can still get by as a doctor or business person or scientist if don’t eat sleep and breath your career every minute of the day.

That is a really good counterpoint, and frankly, Shmeepod, I don’t think we disagree at all. (Except possibly about your last statement, but I’ll leave that to any doctors, businesspeople, or scientists among my readers to determine. If you want a career as an academic scientist, you really do have to eat, sleep, and breathe it every minute of the day.)

I’m sorry your advisers were idiots, which, frankly, they were. You don’t like rehearsing and practicing? Well heck no, you shouldn’t have been a musician! Your advisers sound like the kind of people who are so insecure in their own life choices that they have to continually push those choices on other people in order to validate themselves. If I can make Shmeepod become a musician, then that will prove that I was right to become a music teacher. It’s about the fears and hopes of the adviser, not the true desires of the advisee.

Because if you don’t like the process of a job, but only enjoy its final product, it’s the wrong job. I wrote about this kind of thing a year or so ago, and said, in part:

But here’s something to keep in mind: all jobs, all fields of endeavor have their drudgery, their boring side.

Choose one where you like the boring parts.

When I was in college, I was torn between journalism and theater (no surprise there, I suppose). What finally swayed me is that while I could see myself running the Op-Ed page of a major metropolitan daily, or going undercover to expose corrupt industries, or writing a wildly popular humor column, the idea of fact-checking obituaries made me want to scream. And that’s pretty much how you start out. I didn’t want to climb the ladder in journalism; I wanted to start on the middle rungs. But theater–oh, hell, I was happy just to be sweeping a stage. Cleaning paintbrushes. Running sound cues over and over and over. Bringing coffee to the director.

We have this weird notion in America that if you are good at something, you should do it, and if you should do it, you should do it professionally. How bizarre, really. For one thing, making money off something isn’t the only reason to do it. (Many of us enjoy the act of love; that does not mean we should join the oldest profession.) For another, let’s say you have Talent X. The official job for Talent X, however, will involve a lot of other skills and requirements that have nothing to do with X. How many of you good home cooks or bakers have been told, “You should open a restaurant!” or “You should be a caterer!” as though cooking talent is all that matters, as though people skills and entrepreneurial ability are just afterthoughts?

I think what I object to about the “If you could be happy doing anything else …” mantra is the notion that for each of us, there is One True Calling. For a few people, maybe, that’s how it works. For most of us? We could be happy doing a lot of things. It’s like the idea that there is One True Soulmate for each of us — a silly notion that has probably done a lot of harm, if people go around questioning the perfectly valid choices that they’ve made by thinking that having an awareness of viable alternatives means that they aren’t committed.