Something inside of me leaps when I hear a perfect chord. It is as though my ears are making love to the decadence of the sound before it fades off, disappearing as if it were never there. When I sing, my body electrifies with a passion that evades the simplicity of simple English adjectives. In the moment when my voice escapes my soul, it is like a wild beast being released from its cage; the entire world disappears and I experience a feeling of pure serenity. It would be far too simple to say that I adore music.

Likewise, I would never be content slapping the label “fun” on an entity that consumes my being with such intensity that I am stuck imploring to never be set free from its grasp. For me, music is oxygen to a woman who is suffocating beneath the weight of a world filled with greed and malice and pain. Music is an endless and clear ocean to a woman who has spent a century crawling along the hot, desert sand. Music is my salivation, and yet, I have been taught that in the “real world,” music is nothing more than a hobby that distracts a person from what is practical: money.

I suppose the question that haunts my heart the deepest is whether the people who preach the pursuit of the practical have ever fallen in love with something the way that I have. As someone who has only been alive for 20 years, who am I to fabricate arguments against the teachings of those older and wiser than myself. For one thing, I am not brave. I can tell you that. I envy those who have left their homes and traveled to pursue what they love, whether or not they succeed. It is absolutely cowardly for me to sit behind a computer and proclaim, “woe is me” while not actually taking the leap of faith or risking everything to make my aspirations a reality. And yet, here I am. Sitting in my school library at 8 p.m. discerning what I want to do with my life, knowing full well that I am scared to actually pursue what I know I am meant to do.

But why does that happen? I remember being young and brave and ready to take on the world. What changed? Sure, we learn that the world is tough and we get our first few tastes of rejection, but I do not think that is what stops us from doing what we love.

I think that we push our dreams aside because people tell us over and over again that it is impossible or wrong or different from everything we believe with our entirety. We hear warnings from people who have absolutely no idea what is going on inside our mind, and suddenly, everything changes.

Suddenly, after overhearing people at the table next to us talk about how bad the restaurant’s food is, we cannot enjoy the meal that was originally delicious. After hearing random criticism about our employer from people we hardly know, we find ourselves questioning our satisfaction with our position in the company. Suddenly, and without notice, everything changes.

Suddenly and without notice, I can hear myself thinking, “I do not even like music anyways.”