One of the most common questions asked of children and teenagers across the world is, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” As a child, my answer was an immediate, and rather enthusiastic, comment of becoming a veterinarian as I cuddled close my various stuffed animals all with makeshift bandages wrapped around fluffy appendages, but as I grew the attraction to the field I had felt as a kid had fizzled to a cooling ember. I still absolutely love animals, specifically cats, and thoroughly enjoy several vet shows on Animal Planet (The Incredible Dr. Pol is my ultimate favorite), but it was no longer enough for me to want to pursue it as a career. Many teens are still steadfast in the career they choose as a child, or have found something else just as easy, and so I felt like I was behind in a way. I came to fear that question, shivers running through my body every time it was asked, and I worried for my future. College loomed closer and closer, staring me down as I anxiously tried to push my incredibly vague future from my mind and all that it entailed.

It only took a research paper on a career in my English class to add some definition to the hazy view of my future, that feeling of being behind my peers seeming not as threatening as it once was. One of the most prevalent ways I had avoided that dreaded question was writing and thinking about different stories and such in my head. As a child, it was clear I had an infatuation with literature of all sorts, specifically fantasy, and any chance I got to creatively write was immediately seized with a zest that other topics had failed to induce upon my young, wild mind. However I realized through the help of this research paper that the only problem with becoming a writer is that it is not the most supportive job to have unless you can somehow make it big.
Today, millions of people across the globe claim the title of being an author or writer, ranging from political journalists to children book authors. Those who wish to become a journalist or editor for a newspaper or magazine may find their financial life a little better off than those who prefer to write in the more creative direction, which is the route I intend to stroll down. Sure, an author may somehow manage to publish their short story onto some questionable website and get a couple hundred reads, but the likelihood of their piece skyrocketing to fame is incredibly low. Several authors are forced to take on the burden of a second job just to pay the bills, which inadvertently seems to change the writing style of these workers as well as how much they write. However, the great thing about writing creatively as a job is that there are no deadlines or required work hours, you simply write when you can.

The rather capricious success rate of authors should not be daunting in any way however, and should not dampen one’s willingness to write. I truly love to write, and I see nothing that should stop me from doing so, not even the likelihood that no one will ever read what a I have written or that I need to take on a second job. Granted becoming an author is not exactly a career, but more of a hobby that has the possibility of becoming something more, I thoroughly believe that it is something I want to pursue as an adult and becoming a full time author would definitely be nice, but if it did not happen, I would not be too upset. I write things for me, and I am slowly learning not to let outside forces dictate what I am comfortable with expressing into words. Writing this essay about something that may not be my main career probably was not the best idea, but it helped me to realize that my career, the one that pays the bills, does not have to be my first passion, it can simply serve to bring home the pen and paper.