It’s official, there are three weeks left until I start my last semester at Berklee College of Music. Am I excited? Incredibly. Am I scared? Definitely.
My entire life, I’ve pursued new places and experiences, always pushing to the next phase – new people, new places, new experiences. I changed schools three times before college, then transferred from my first college to Berklee, each time anxious to get to my new setting, fear very far in the back of my mind.
My first day of college, I brought cupcakes (baked my incredible mother, who rarely bakes) and posted sticky notes on all the doors on my floor and the one below me in an attempt to get to know people.
My first year at Berklee, I volunteered to do a lot of bitch work for the Songwriters Club, which led to planning bake sales, concerts, and being passed the torch at the end of the year.
Soon I learned that those people were not people I wanted to be friends with, but that there were others.
Soon I learned that working with people and creating something from nothing can end with a lot of love, as well as a lot of hate.
I also learned that I get bored…rather easily. There are people out there who can do the same work, every day, for YEARS and still find fulfillment. I am not them.
Now that I’m preparing to go into the “real world” where I get paid for people to tell me what to do, instead of paying for people to tell me what to do, this could be a problem. If my future boss wants me to go through endless files, organizing them or purging the system, I have to do it. If I’m told to do the same job every day for a year, I have to do it. Whether I find it fulfilling or not, if I want to earn a living and rise in the ranks, I have to keep doing jobs that I find pointless and unfulfilling.
At least that’s what I’m afraid of.
BUT, having read all the inspirational and productivity blogs I can in my spare time, I know that focusing on what I don’t want will get me exactly there. So Maybe I should focus on what I do want; someplace where I would excel.
I want a job where I am regularly starting new projects. I want to formulate ideas on how to increase efficiency. I want to find talent and creative ways to promote that talent. I want to imagine events and shows, each one different from the other, each with a purpose I believe in. I want to dive into my work, fully enthralled with it, then be able to switch to another endeavor a few months later.
I want more than to raise the sails or lower the anchor, I want to be given the wheel. Should we take this metaphor further? I think so. I want the seas to never remain the same, to shift from calm and slow to vicious and stormy, so my mind never becomes stagnant.
…Is that even possible for a first job?
Musikleigh Alive 