I often feel like the future is hurtling towards me in the same way an indifferent comet hurtles towards a helpless, spinning planet. I’m suspended immobile in its path, and the only way to survive the wake of its arrival is to know the answer to the impossible question which it demands: who are you and what do you want? But the closer it gets, the faster I’m spinning and the further the answer seems to drift away from me.
Four years ago I decided that I would attend Springfield College, pursue a degree in Health Science, and go on to become a Physician Assistant. As a PA I could make a direct, positive impact on others’ lives. Of course, most people who choose a career in medicine like to make you think they did it for completely selfless reasons, when really the decision is based largely on the hope that helping others feel better will make us feel good about ourselves. It’s a Win-Win situation. But seriously, I’ve always enjoyed working with people, so this seemed like the obvious—and perhaps the only—path to a happy future for me.
Between then and now, however, I have developed a very serious condition, one from which I’m afraid I will never recover—a love of art. I believe it’s something that’s always been there, only it was sleeping in some dark, comfortable corner in my brain. But one day it decided to wake up from its long nap and put a hitch in my carefully constructed plans. Actually, less like a hitch and more like a small collection of active nuclear warheads.
Suddenly I wanted to make music, be a painter, or animate short films. There was so much to explore in this new world, but there was one thing I enjoyed more than all the others: writing.
The more passionate I became about writing, the less passionate I became about my major and future career. My imagination slowly shifted from one extreme to the other, from seeing myself as a life-long PA to day-dreaming about my newest book being sold at Barnes & Noble. This change was only reinforced by the dreary three hour lab periods and energy-sapping lectures I had to sit through everyday.
I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.
When I’m feeling this way, I do the only thing I know which seems to slow time down: I read. One unimportant evening, I was reading Dead Poets Society by Nancy H.
Kleinbaum. I bought this book because I loved the movie and couldn’t wait to read the source material which inspired it—except it turns out that the book is based on the movie so there was no point in buying it in the first place. I nearly put it back on the shelf to collect dust and be forgotten, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
The thing is, each time we consume a piece of media whether it is a book, a show, or a movie, we are doing so at a very particular moment in our lives. If we read the same book years apart, it is not the same person reading that book. And so, I came across a line which must have gone over my head the first time I was introduced to Mr. Keating.
The energetic boarding school English teacher stands on his desk and says:
“Medicine, law, banking—these are necessary to sustain life. But
poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!”
It’s not like this is some revolutionary idea, or some rare stroke of genius. It is not even among the best lines in the book. But it just happened to be the one simple thing that I needed to hear.
On one hand, I could see a future filled with Work; my days spent in a hospital, a stethoscope around my neck, trying my best to treat patients’ injuries and illnesses.
On the other hand, I could see a future filled with art; my days spent at a desk, a pencil in my hand or blue light in my face as I write.
We often think that we can only have one thing or another—an impossible choice that leaves us unable to truly embrace either.
But is it not possible for us to have both?
Medicine, law, banking—Work. We must Work to sustain life, to be a productive member of society. If there were no trash collectors, we would all live in a sea of decaying garbage. If there were no farmers, we would have no food. Work is how life continues, how we survive. We must contribute. But it is not all we must do.
Poetry, romance, love, beauty—Passion. Through our Passions we make sense of the world. They provide us with the deepest joy, give us a reason to go on living. Passion, whether it is art, or nature, or love for someone beyond ourselves, is why life continues, why we choose to survive.
This is not to say that Work must be bleak, monotonous, or overbearing. There is room for Passion and creativity within Work—just as our Passions can sometimes feel more like a chore than a pleasure.
Like the lawyer who delivers an opening statement so heartfelt that it moves the jury to tears. Or the delivery driver who turns down the radio and makes his own beats as he travels from house to house.
Like the author who writes and rewrites and rewrites the same sentence all day. Or the husband who does the grocery shopping so his wife doesn’t have to.
How often do we find ourselves counting down the minutes until our next vacation, only to find that once it arrives we spend it doing mostly, well, nothing? Just as too many obligations can leave us with little energy for anything else, too much leisure time can carry a similar burden. Often the greater balance we strike between Work and Passion, the greater we can contribute to each.
Work and Passion—we must make time for them both. Whether they are one in the same, completely separated, or somewhere in-between, both are necessary; one cannot exist without the other.
We only know the joy of a good day because we’ve known the misery of a bad one.
Time is only precious because it passes.
I have accepted that I don’t have to choose one over the other. I can love working in medicine, interacting with others, developing relationships, just as much as I love time alone to simply sit and write. I don’t have to know exactly who I am or what I want because that is something that will always be changing and growing.
The disastrous comet is no longer approaching—because it never was. The future is already here, it always is, and the only answer on how to survive it is to make it up as you go. And hopefully, along the way you find time not just to live, but to be alive.
Drew Woishnis
Drew Woishnis is a Health Science/pre-PA major going into my senior year this upcoming fall. He commutes 15 minutes from Ludlow, MA, and is on the SC Ski and Snowboard Club Team. He loves reading anything from philosophy books like Flow to satires like HHGTTG and sketching or writing for fun. He gives credit to his sophomore year Creative Writing class for renewing his passion for writing. And Mr. Keating, of course.