“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take chance at doing what you love.” This is a quote from a graduation speech Jim Carrey gave at Maharishi University School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. It circulated the internet in generic social media fashion. I was so enamored by this graphic that it was my iPhone lock screen for several months. It was during this time that I decided to change my major from Broadcast Journalism to Screenwriting. Five years of time and nearly forty-thousand dollars would behold a degree that most commonly is sought by somebody privileged, -or just with a lot of nerve.

Especially during my time in college, I have had a rather advantageous social circle through being closely connected to fearless, cultured and complex individuals with interests that range from musical theater to graphic art. We were told that we could be anything we wanted and didn’t forget it. Even in the more dismal times of my adolescence, the promise of being able to create grandeur in my future experiences kept my heart afloat through a constant stream of cynicism, recession and discouragement. I cannot imagine how much more terrifying the post-graduation world would be if we had not followed a path that wasn’t true to what could keep us wanting to get up in the morning.

I’ve seen innumerable articles on the millennial generation and how weak we are in the face of mundane tasks our elders accomplished. Those tasks were, after all, what fed us as children and put us in this position now to truly decide on a destiny. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering, “who I am to declare that I don’t belong in a cubicle?” I’ve woken up in a sweat with the threatening realization that I would be lucky just to stand behind a cash register after graduation. It took years of manic deliberation and wide-eyed talks of “worst case scenarios”, but I can finally firmly say that my hardworking single mother wouldn’t feel satisfied of her work if she found that she raised a fragile person who is desperately compliant with the world and it’s tedious monetary competition. The truth is we can flop on a compromise even more disastrously than the original dream. This indifference has given my inspirations more longevity than any flash of motivation. It is in the spirit of this indifference that I want to remember a few prior epiphanies that may assure me that I haven't made a huge mistake by deciding I was momentous enough to chase a difficult dream.

So, to the college grad with a degree in the arts:

You didn’t choose a higher-level dream quest on a whim. Hundreds and thousands of experiences led to your hunger for a creative life. You didn’t fall in love with one view. You didn’t hear one piece of tantalizing music. These experiences built upon each other and grew with you to help you identity yourself in the form of something else. You grew conditioned to receiving life-giving energy from creative outlets until you could only imagine a future where you were cultivating it too. You needed to be a part of it this entire time. Why would that stop once you need to make money?

"People are making money doing it. Why shouldn’t you be one of them?" This is something my current supervisor said to me in an extensively kind effort to inspire me in a time of need. You may not be the most polished version of yourself yet, but constantly and fearlessly revamping is in the nature of a creative career. Write the bad first draft. Perform the unfinished product. Sometimes you’ll grow expeditiously. Sometimes you’ll backslide. Sometimes affording life might stand in the way. Feed the dream like a plant that doesn’t always have guaranteed sunlight, treat your attitude toward your future like a muscle that needs strengthening and insist to yourself that it was no accident that you found this journey valuable.

Remember that 100 dollars once felt like a lot of money. Accept the fact that expensive experiences that came with college may be momentarily neglected in the effort to reach for a more meaningful future. You can live off a minimal amount of money when your gratitude is in check. Acquaintances from high school will be purchasing houses, starting retirement funds and taking vacations. Congratulate them authentically and understand that you’ll get there if you keep working. Identify ways to poke around the dream career if the end goal takes decades of experience. It won’t feel like a compromise when you consider it career advancement from the start. When you get good at your side-avenues, remember you are not an imposter to your dream; you are bringing more life experience and wisdom to it.

The last single most important thing I want to allow myself to realize when that degree is in hand, is that it’s okay if a change in plans takes place. This seems contrary to this entire letter, but at the end of the day, an accountant could live a more passionately creative life than a movie director if

his or her heart is in the right place.