When is enough enough?

Graduation Day

I've spent the past three years finding my way. In the five years since college, I spent the first two years as a burned out musician in a full time day job, and the following three as an evolving musical masterpiece. When I started this blog in 2010, I had resumed serious playing and teaching to facilitate a return to school for a master's degree in flute. Boy, have things changed.

I'm still hopelessly addicted to music. I have really made strides in successfully overcoming the psychological and physiological effects of performance anxiety which reared its ugly head as a result of my hiatus. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together more fully for me and in a way that has been making me incredibly happy. I don't want to be known as just a flutist. My life has always indicated otherwise. It was when I stopped pushing forward in what I thought I should be doing was when I realized what I was meant to be doing.

Through this evolution and my incessant curiosity, I find myself questioning academia more and more. I admire and respect all my colleagues who have struck out on their own with only a bachelor's degree in music. While opportunities to perform and teach are limited with just this level of education, the real world experience gained is instrumental in shaping future life decisions. If you choose to stay in school and further your education to include graduate and post-graduate work, you could essentially be living in cloistered academic conditions for a period of upwards of 25 years before you even enter what I consider to be the real world.

When I think about these numbers, I cringe. How many talented musicians stay in school simply because it's what they're told they should be doing? If I had stayed in school to obtain my master's degree, I would have continued on my idealistic, naive path of dreaming of nothing more than playing the flute full time. This would have changed my path dramatically. Chances are I'd have wound up working a miserable day job anyway. The promise of returning to school was what ultimately drew me out of my burned out funk. What if I had already obtained that and then entered the workforce like a dejected nobody?

Perhaps it's the transitional times we live in where I'm growing increasingly distrustful of all large organizations whether it's a corporation or government bureaucracy. Academia is no different. I don't think academic institutions have students' interests at heart. There's too many other competing factors (hello, money!), and this is a reality that many don't think about. I am speaking from a purely institutional perspective. On an individual level, I know many professors who are aware of the realities of the outside world and are honest with their students. We need more faculty members like that.

I wouldn't give up these past 5 years of my life for anything. I've never done things the normal way. While I may have resented it at the time, I'm grateful for it now. When do the hordes of talented musicians making their way through loads of degrees say "enough is enough!" and find the courage to strike out on their own? I want my life to be an example to those who may be questioning their path. Anything is possible.

We are creatives. We have the ability to be free thinkers. If years of schooling is what you feel you need, then that's OK but think about the life waiting for you beyond the academic confines. What possibilities exist for you as you are? The beauty of life is our freedom to choose, even if it's the path less traveled.