Something Funny Happened on the Way to My Future

I was supposed to be an engineer. I was raised to be an engineer. I was supposed to graduate college with an electrical engineering major, get a job that will allow me to own a Lexus, get married at age 23, have 2 kids, and barbeque on weekends in the backyard of my 3-bedroom home. It was all set.

But something funny happened on the way there. English happened. Art happened. The World Wide Web happened. And I listened to my instincts instead of my predetermined career objectives.

During Miss Rueweller's english composition class in 10th grade, I learned that I could write poems. Now, poems have nothing to do with engineering. Poems have nothing to do with making a living (or so I thought at that time). But writing poems was FUN. Also during Miss Rueweller's class, I learned that I can write a decent story and that I can communicate an idea clearly. And it was FUN.

During my senior year in high school in architecture class, I designed and built a model of a 2-story house, complete with drafted blueprints and schematics, which won at a local competition. Architecture was a bit closer to, but still wasn't, electrical engineering. But creating and building a house was FUN.

But I heard that making a living wasn't about having fun. It was about doing something tedious and boring for 40+ hours a week for the rest of my life. If it was fun, why would someone want to pay you for it?

And what about happiness? My happiest and most successful semester in college was when I got straight A's in four classes that had absolutely nothing to do with engineering. I took these classes to fulfill some General Education (GE) requirements. The classes were Poetry Writing, Rapid Visualization, Short Story Composition, and Class Voice. For one semester, I wrote poems and stories, sketched quick ideas and original inventions, and sang.

Fun and Happiness vs. Making a Good Living. To others, it's an easy choice, but to me it was tough. I had to choose between being rich and miserable or being happy and not having all the toys that I want. I liked being happy but I also liked toys.

So what did I ultimately do? I compromised. I switched majors and graduated with an industrial design degree, which in my mind was a compromise between art and engineering, appeasing my own happiness as well as my family's. And soon after graduation, I realized that compromises don't work, because I had no urge to work as an industrial designer for the rest of my life.

What I really wanted to do was a combination of all those FUN classes I took in high school and college, that let me write, draw, and think creatively. If it also let me sing, that would be bonus.

And then the Internet happened, and along with it the World Wide Web. All of a sudden there was this place that let me design web sites, write the words and content that will go into these web pages, and even (thank you, .mp3 format) let me sing.

Am I lucky? Yes, I think so, very much. But I'm also glad that I listened to my instincts instead of simply going by the book. It's taken a long time, but I'm doing something that I enjoy, that people (bless their hearts) are willing to pay me for, and that is FUN.

Disclaimer: There is absolutely nothing wrong with electrical engineering or any other type of engineering. The world absolutely needs engineers, and they are vital to our welfare. Some people have a blast being engineers. I have no idea how they do it, but they do, and I think that's cool.