Do What You Love

Last month, I started teaching in the Communications & Media Department at SUNY Oneonta. I was incredibly nervous - my impostor syndrome kicked in big time. And all the decades-old shame and disappointment of being unable to finish my doctorate because of health, life and finances came to the surface. But teaching is what I love to do, and I'm pretty good at it. 

At the end of my very first class on my very first day, a young woman tentatively approached me. "How do you get to be a writer?" she asked me.

It's a question many of us ask ourselves. We believe that to be a writer, we need an agent or a publisher. We need perfect grammar or syntax. We need to write a masterpiece or be on staff at a swanky magazine. But none of those things are needed to be a writer. You get to be a writer by writing. 

I asked the student what she's working on and she told me - in great detail - about the book she's writing. I assured her that she's already a writer. 

She smiled at first and then her face turned. "But my parents say I need to do something practical." 

Ah, practicality, my old nemesis. Oh, the decades I spent being practical (hello, unfinished doctorate) only to find myself wishing I could have been...perhaps a bit less so.

"I never like to go against parents," I said, "but my advice: do what you love."

Life catches up with all of us. Some amount of illness, loss, disappointment are unavoidable. We might as well start with doing what we love.