I’ve recently come out of an intensely withdrawn phase, following the realization that seven years in college has been far less academically beneficial than I would have hoped. And that left me feeling defeated and disillusioned, knowing that my existence is pretty insignificant.

From a young age, we’re taught to be dreamers, and to follow those dreams to the ends of the earth. That’s all fine and dandy and whatnot, but more often than not, time spent dreaming is far less productive than time spent doing. It’s that whole actions speak louder than words business.

So we have all these delusions of what we want to be. Some of us want to be environmental scientists, others want to be musicians, others just want to be happy and stable. The grim reality is that achieving these dreams requires faith, patience and a whole lot of tenacity. Oh yeah. One more thing. In order to get to a comfortable place, enduring grievous hardships such as poverty, stress and depression is just a fact of life. This does not account for how long hardships will be present in one’s life until the dream comes true, if it does at all.

Inner city streets are flooded with failed seekers, many of whom possess a great amount of talent, but were unable to break through into the working class of artists, musicians, actors or whatever their passion is. Some are more fortunate than others, and have a passion that is likely to yield a steady income. For example, a world-class unicycle rider is bound to make less money than a world-class F1 racer. Why? Because of the way society allocates investments in entertainment, and how entertainment is marketed. I can see it now… “World class unicyclers! Live at the THUNDERDOME!” … Doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it, huh? The passion and level of skill is roughly the same, but the payout is incomparable, so while the F1 racer is living the high life with champagne and caviar, the unicyclist sleeps in alleyways, with ambient noises lulling him to sleep.

I guess now you have to ask, “how does this affect me? I’m a political science major, there’s definitely a future for me!” Well yeah, there’s a future, if you want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans on grad school, only to have to work medial jobs to pay said loans back for the rest of your life. Otherwise, you’d better start practicing your shorthand, those order books aren’t going to fill themselves.

It’s not to say that we have no future, but it’s not looking as bright as it was when we were blissful children, thinking all dreams come true and everything is always beautiful. The truth is that in order to get anywhere, we’re going to have to throw our lives to the winds of fate, and hope they carry us somewhere near our destination. If they do, great! If they don’t, that’s life.