just what, exactly, was i thinking?

I was cleaning my room recently and came across an old journal type book I've had since college. I knew what was in it and felt that the opening pages [lists of "Top 5s"] could be pulled out and thrown away. I knew they were outdated. Skimming thru some of the lists, one caught my attention and got me to stop and read through it: Top 5 . . . Dream Jobs. In he words of my younger, foolish college self:

1. club owning DJ/Bartender
2. Photographer
3. Executive Produce/Talent Scout for a record label
4. Owner of a music store
5. Lawyer

So, as tonite's entry asks, what was i thinking?

I can, somewhat ashamedly, admit that #5 was placed on that list simply because I knew I was going to law school without really knowing what I wanted to do in life. [As for the rest of that list, I'd say I've grown up about some of it and also refined some of the ideas behind certain entries.]

I think most people would be really happy to have found employment in one of their top 5 dream jobs. I found employment as #5, but it never really deserved to be there . . . and more generally, the entire list was somewhat youthful and confused. I didn't even have 5 things for the list at that time in my life.

And while most would find great joy in knowing that they work, or have worked, as one of the top 5 dream jobs, it's pretty tough to realize how far you are from any of those dream jobs. Some think dreams of rather childlike; we all need to grow up one day and get realistic about things. But is that really so? An old favorite quote of mine is a passage from James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," which reads

While there's on so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.

Another favorite [one's the precise language escapes me right now] is that one should aim for the moon because even if u miss, u may still hit a star.

And so I'm left to wonder about when one should be realistic and now hold onto some of the dreams in life. Obviously, bills need to be paid and reality comes with its difficulties. But even as I grow older, I still find myself living in my head...a place of dreams and fantasies and things of all possibilities. Sometimes I worry that it's not a place to spend as much time in as I do.

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The answer to this entry's question is that I was looking for justification. I wanted a valid reason to go to law school . . . and to be honest I got to law school and met many people who had much better reasons for being there than I did. I came up with reasons for going to law school. And more importantly, I really enjoyed law school and learned a lot form the experience. I have no regrets about going to law school. But that doesn't mean I don't have questions in life now about precisely what I want to do. The job I had over the past couple years taught me many things and helped answer some questions about just what I want to do and what I want in life, but it also created some new questions as well. As I ramble on about this I think that many of my questions are normal and just a part of life and "growing up" and facing this thing they call the real world. I think I'm just expressing some of these normal thoughts out loud, in a manner of speaking, for the first time in a while as I haven't really discussed the issue(s) at length with anyone. I think it's time to do something about that . . .

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And now, the current Top 5 dream jobs, in no particular order and also without really knowing all there is to know about the stated profession(s):

1. artist [primarily a photographer but also a mixed-media artist]
2. teacher/professor
   
3. architect
4. journalist
5. . . .

it's kinda funny that, altho revamped and rethought, i still struggle to fill out position #5 [this is actually nothing new for me as i often struggle to complete lists like these for reasons beyond me]. some sick, foolish, funny part of me wants to put something relating to the law. it would be a truer statement now than it was a handful of years back when i wrote out that original list. but i don't think i could put something like that in good conscience right now simply because, even if turns out to be true, i'm yet to really properly define it.

but that's OK. life's about figuring it out. u can have all the dreams u want, u can even attain those dreams and think u know exactly what u want to be or to do in life . . . and then it can all change. it's all temporary i guess.