Education can be a lot of pressure. You want to pick the right major, make all the right decisions, so hopefully you can have your cushy dream job by the time you're 30. The idea of picking the wrong path, waking up one day and realizing you've spent 20 years on the wrong thing is terrifying. But is it?

Life is full of chances. Regrets and paths, and navigating it as a teenager is even harder. Many people start over at 20, 45, or 60.

A new career, another child, going back to school, a divorce. And sure, maybe they do look back and think "Wow. I wish I had never done that" "I wish I did this sooner." But the magic is this: every move, every choice, gives you experience. It gives you knowledge about yourself and the world. It strengthens bonds and helps you live life to the fullest. So sure, maybe in 20 years you'll change careers. But right now you're not 30, or 40, or in grad school. The future and the past are none of your business. So pursue what you like in this moment.

Want to be a baker? Pursue that in this moment, it doesn't matter if you change your mind years down the line, because you will have beautiful memories of chasing a passion, of learning from it, and gaining confidence from knowing that you can pursue whatever you want.

This is freedom, the freedom to chase your dreams and change your mind.

Go to school to be a lawyer, and become an artist. You'll have an interesting story to tell. Become a baker, then move to France, you'll gain so much confidence from chasing your dreams.

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Picking a Current Path

Sylvia Plath might not be the best person to take life advice from, but she popped off with the Fig Tree Analogy.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.

One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out."

Let's focus on just the Fig part of this poem, and make our own fig tree. Some people (Like Sylvia) feel that they can't be more than one thing. This is entirely untrue. You can be many things, and many different points in your life, so let's imagine for a bit.

I want you to make your own fig tree, but with careers and majors. But, instead of saying plain career names, try simply describing what you want to do. It's guaranteed that you're dream job is out there, but it probably has some weird title that no one would ever think of. In stead of googling "what does a ___ do," try "what jobs include ___?"

Ya get me? To make it less daunting, here are some of my fig tree branches:

1. Guy who researches stuff and writes essays about it
2. Managing a museum's website
3. Expert on Hellenism (the ancient Greek religion)
4. Editing essays and books (Dark Academia who?)
5. Accountant (Don't ask me why I, an artist, like finance. I don't know.)

These are just some random things, now let me show you how you can turn a random list like this into a somewhat comprehensible education plan.

Editing for books and essays is pretty straightforward, so majoring in journalism, creative writing, or English will be helpful. Good things for experience would be volunteering for a magazine like TTM or the Medium, or taking on simple writing and editing jobs for other beginners (Like offering proofreading services to a beginner book writer, two newbies helping each other out!)

As for accounting, you can do perfectly fine in the industry with a simple associate's degree and a couple of certificates.

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The Bottom Line

Education feels like a lot, like everything is on the line. But you can always go back to school, change careers, and at the end of it you'll have wonderful stories and memories of when you were brave enough to follow your passions, no matter what the future held.

Pursue the life you want now, instead of trying to predict what you will want in 20 years, because if you do, you'll just end up wanting to go back in time and actually embrace your current passions.