As a 16-year-old with my head in the clouds, I discovered Adele's "Chasing Pavements" and found it timely. That was the age I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of following in the footsteps of my father and pursuing the business world. Naturally, as an old-fashioned man who just wanted his daughter to be successful, he rejected my dream. It was a crushing blow for me, the girl who loved making her father proud, to see his face fall when I told him. Though it hurt me, I understood where he was coming from. It's not easy to achieve dreams of any kind, and I was afraid myself.

I was afraid I'd fail. Whatever that means.

But without my dad behind me and such a hard, possibly disappointing future ahead of me— I was unsure.

Maybe I should throw my dreams away. Maybe it'd be better for everyone if I just stayed quiet and live the life society tells me to live.

But my hands wouldn't stop typing. Every day, it was normal to see me in class typing at a word document with comically small text. Each school year I started a new one and it would grow so large that I'd eventually I'd have to move it off my cheap Netbook's memory hard drive and onto an SD card. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't some genius and it was all cheesy garbage I'd be nuts to show someone but I loved it. I couldn't help it.

And I couldn't stop reading, either. In sleepy, foggy mornings I'd read on the bus and I'd pour over my Pulitzer prize winners and classic fiction towards the end of lunch (I had the second to last period lunch and my friends would literally just take a nap on the table, so I read).

So, on a sick day from school where I was stuck in my bed and thinking way too much about the future, this song was comforting— or so I thought!

A refrain where Adele sings the lyrics,

"Should I give up

Or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Even if it leads nowhere

Or would it be a waste?

Even if I knew my place should I leave it there?

Should I give up

Or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Even if it leads nowhere yeah"

As someone considering to "chase" her dream and afraid that it may "lead nowhere" and that she knows her "place" and feels like she "should give up," these lyrics really hit a nerve.

So I listened to this song everywhere, for years. Whenever I was nervous about my life choices, this song was one of the ways I coped.

So, naturally, when my English Professor in college asked me to do a contextual analysis of a text, I decided to analyze this song's lyrics. I didn't even look up a biographical evidence at first, because I thought I had it down packed: she's a singer who didn't get famous till she was much older, and there were many times she wanted to give up. Writing this ballad and performing it was her way of expressing that emotion. But then, I figured I'd look it up, just to get some specific details I could address and I saw it— the truth.

Independant.com writes, "Adele Adkins had an argument with her boyfriend in a London club," for its first line. I read the line over and over. Then I skimmed down to where the website reports the song was " declared by the singer to be 'heartbreak soul.'"

Well, after reading that, I certainly was heartbroken. Luckily, this truth has come to me in a time where I'm nicely entrenched in working towards my goals and my goals are slightly more reasonable, although in the same vein. At the time of writing this article, all I am now is disappointed that Adele, a person who I had built up in my mind as a strong female figure to look up to, is not quite as goal-focused as I had projected her to be. I guess that's contextual analysis for you.