Friday, March 13, 2015

Day 802: Do What You Do...For You

As a college student, everything you do has a profound impact on your future. If you get caught drinking underage, that goes on your record. If you are in a variety of on-campus clubs and hold leadership positions, those make a huge impact on your resume, which you'll eventually send off to employers. And if you spend none of your time studying for the test you have at the end of the week, you definitely will get a low grade. After all, a man unwilling to study for the test deserves what he gets. On the other hand, if you spend literally all your time studying, you'll quickly get frustrated and tired. You need to find a balance.

But sometimes, people just don't get it.

I've actually been kind of angry about this all week, and that would be why it's time to get it off my chest. The reason it's here on my very public blog? It involves my blog, very much so.

Over the past two years, I've learned a lot about friendship. It's been rough going here and there, and while at least a solid half of my friend group dropped out from under me, I've held a few constants, and I have certainly made new friends along the way (my roommates, for instance, I'm sure will be happy to know that I've mentioned them here on my blog). But what's kind of a weird feeling is watching a friend you trust not understand anything you stand for. It's ok to have different opinions, but that doesn't mean you insult who I am.

After having dinner the other night with one of my friends, who I hadn't seen in quite some time, I was pretty well astonished when she made a comment about how I spend my time. Basically, she told me that maybe I could spend more time practicing my alto if I stopped blogging and doing Disneybounds and watching my dear Once Upon A Time. While, yes, on a technical level, if I stopped all of those things I WOULD have more time to practice, it just doesn't work that way. It means that literally everything I care about would be taken away from me, and I'm not about to sacrifice one huge part of my life for another, especially when I actually have very real physical restrictions due to my wrist (I suffered from some overuse issues in the fall, and they continue still today).

But Disney, and my blog, and Once, and all of this...it's my future. This is what I want to do, and I have to do it for me. I mean, no,  I'm not famous, and I'm certainly not earning anything from the work and time I put into all of this. But on the other hand, I'm slowly gaining speed, and eventually I will get to the point where I'm interviewing real people and making a real difference talking about Disney as a career.

So when someone suggests to me that I should give all of that up because it's not important? Of course I'm going to be angry! Why wouldn't I be? You know what though? Someday I'm going to be sitting and interviewing someone like Colin O'Donoghue, and you know who will be laughing then? Me. And Colin, because he'll be there too. And yes this is a goal in my life. Doesn't mean interviewing Colin is any less of a goal than learning another alto saxophone solo. These are all things I want to do in my life, and it's the reason you'll find me practicing my saxophone with a Monsters University hat on my head, or sitting at my desk blogging away all afternoon to catch up on a week I missed because I was, indeed, studying and doing my homework. Is Everyday Disney or Once Upon A Time or Disneybounding the most important thing in my life? No. But it's certainly important enough for me to continue doing all of those things, because they help keep me moving forward, and at this point, I'm not sure what I'd do without them.

Which is why my advise to you today is to keep doing what you love because sometimes you have to do it for you. I can't guarantee that Everyday Disney will help me get a job in the future, but I can tell you that it keeps me writing, something that's crucial for my major. And you never know...maybe someday something WILL happen and I WILL get to go interview Colin O'Donoghue. I'm not throwing that equation out of the question any time soon.

Have a magical day!


(Note: This blog post was written on March 16 due to Midterms). 

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