The Right Track

During a lecture this past week, my Doctrine and Covenants teacher asked us to think to ourselves and truly examine if we are in the right major for us. He said that some of us might have an unsettled feeling and we may already know we're going into the wrong career.

Rewind a year ago. A year ago, I was preparing to audition for the School of Music on my trusty clarinet. I was playing music for hours a day, working hard in my lessons, and suffering from all of the normal stress and anxiety of a freshman while also worrying continuously about my impending audition. There were many vital things I needed to fix before my audition and I found myself trying to fix habits that had grown over 9 years in just about 4 months.

I was a basket case.

I tend to be very tunnel visioned about things in my life. When I really want something, that is all I can focus on and I work until I reach my goal. It has been that way with the Nebraska Children's Choruses I sang with, becoming a Drum Major in high school, making All State and Honor Bands, and getting into BYU. This audition was the first thing that I felt that even though I was trying will of my heart, I might not succeed. It was the passing of an illusion that I had grown up with: all of your dreams will come true if you only believe and work hard enough. When I got that email in February informing me that I had not gotten into the program, I think that was the moment I started to become an adult.

I don't mean to say that being an adult only involves disappointment and hardships but it does entail gaining a realism that no matter how many books you read on the subject, you just don't understand deep disappointment until it happens to you.

It was hard. My focus was so tightly pointed at that one goal, that it was disorienting at first. I didn't know where to go from there. Thankfully, I was in an Honors English class and also working on a student journal on campus. Once I got over the initial heartbreak, I began to realize how much happiness my writing class brought me. I used my English assignments as a break, a release, from the boring and miserable Geology readings. I loved to write.

It took me a few weeks to get over my results, many phone calls home, numerous prayers, lots of hugs from my friends and family, and one life-changing pep talk from my Dad, and I was ready to move on. I began to look at English courses and all of a sudden it clicked. It felt like I had just broken up with my supposed soul mate only to realize that my best friend had been right there the whole time and was the right person all along!

I have since changed to English Language, and the feeling I get coming from my ELang 223 class is something that cannot be expressed in words alone. I get giddy, exhilarated, and am bursting at the seams with excitement after each class, ready to spill my love of the language on the next person I see.

Here I am, 1 year later, listening as my D&C teacher urged us to look inside ourselves to see if we've chosen the right major. I waited for the feeling of dread, of doubt and a miserable realization that I had got it wrong again. It didn't come.