Missed Opportunity?

Lately my greatest fear regarding my own potential as a writer is the possibility of a past missed opportunity during College. I was and am so grateful to have parents who were willing to pay for my college costs…from the books to the beer. At the time it seemed reasonable and prudent to major in Accounting. I didn’t simply open the College Catalog to a random page and point. Instead this decision was agreed upon by all interested parties upon examination of the job market and discussion of my stellar math skills. As it would turn out, math is definitely not the same thing as accounting. I impart this wisdom to potential students all the time. Just because something has to do with numbers, that does NOT make it math. Also turns out that not only is accounting not like math, I really don’t even like it. For me, on a scale of Bees to Disney, Accounting falls only slightly above bees.


The biggest deterrent to College Ann deciding to major in something like English or Writing at UK was that College Ann didn’t even enjoy writing! She hated papers and essays and such. I assume this is because when I am forced to do something then the enjoyment gets subsequently sucked out. Cristy was telling me today that she is not looking forward to her Literature Class because when she is TOLD to read something her attitude wants to go the way mine did when I was forced to practice piano. But I don’t waannaaaaaaaaaaaaaa read it!!!

To make matters worse, I didn’t plan on my future self utilizing the knowledge I was learning in my few English and Composition classes. So while I did enjoy reading, grammar and analyzing stories and Shakespeare, a lot of that knowledge seems to have been filed in the “it’s ok to forget later” part of my brain. You know, where I put the stuff like chemistry and Football rules.

Sometimes I will be reading blogs about writing and things like “sentence structure” or “ethos” will come up and I start thinking “do I even remember what that is and if so am I doing it all wrong!?” Terrifying. Does it really matter though? Is it possible that it could turn out to be a good thing that I don’t have to conform to certain models or expectations? Is it possible that people outside of academia might feel my writing more relatable if it isn’t influenced by academic law? Was it truly a missed opportunity? Only time will tell; but I am willing to find out. I am willing to put effort in and to practice, read and study things on my own to find my own voice as a writer.

Regardless, the Income Statement route I ended up taking did bring me where I am now. From Auditor to General Accounting to Recruiting to Admissions/sales to wanting to be out of Sales – along that journey I have made friends, learned things, changed and grown as a person. You can never go back and change your life. And as I told my cousin yesterday: you wont ever have a perfect life but you should never stop striving to make it so.