Cautionary tales about going with the flow

My very messy studio space which doubles as our guest bedroom. Apologies to anyone who has to stay in this chaos.

I am not going to say I regret going to college, because I did enjoy playing lacrosse and learning a thing or two, but lately it has been on my mind how things would probably have all ended up the same if I hadn’t gone; I just wouldn’t have the student loans. Not going to college was not presented as an option to me and I was a bit too “go with the flow” so I just accepted I had to go somewhere and followed along the path laid out for me.

And that, the path just kept unfolding in front of me so I figured I should just keep following it even though I didn’t get much satisfaction out of it, and often times just didn’t enjoy it. And so I went with the flow for years and years and years. Regardless of what “success” I was achieving in my career, the flow I was riding just wasn’t hitting the mark. I was unhappy, dissatisfied, and down right angsty about life. My outlet was art and I just kept leaning harder and harder into it.

I finally decided to take some control and left my coaching job to pursue the teaching job which my degrees promised me. A career switch that I thought would bring me closer to art ended up unraveling me and being one of the least creative periods of my last decade. I lost sleep, was in the worst physical shape of my life, was unable to find the energy for a social life and was putting everything, even art, on the back burner just trying to make it through the year. The first year I allowed the possibility of growing pains with the hope it would get better but by year two I knew it wasn’t the career for me. All the while, it seemed like all signs pointed to investing in myself and pursuing my own passions.

So, here I am. Moving on from the flow I allowed myself to get caught up in, and finally forging my own path. Could I have done it without college- most likely. Would I have wound up in Savannah anyway? Also, most likely. Did the last 15 years do anything for me? I suppose it did, because now I value my own free will and ambition and accept that going with the flow isn’t always in my best interest and if you want to be happy sometimes it pays to steer your own ship.