I stumbled upon this video by accident and it was just what I needed right now. College is coming soon and the immense pressure of decision making time has arrived.

“We’d like to be painters, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows, you can’t earn money that way.”

As a child, the question of what we want to be when we grow up seems to get asked a lot.

“What would you do if money were no object?”

Answers flow out like ink on a piece of paper; a ballerina, a cowboy, a singer, a doctor, a professional baseball player.

“How would you really enjoy spending your life? “

With time, we get older and the answers change. Reality kicks in and there becomes no difference between being an ambitious dreamer and being foolishly unrealistic.

“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time.”

When asked the same question I had been asked a hundred times, my answer changed as I got older. My career interests swayed towards the amount of income I would be receiving based on that career.

I’ve been infatuated with writing since I was a child. From journalism to creative writing, I’ve always been in love with storytelling.

Now I won’t stop and pause before telling people I wish to be a writer. No longer will I try to mimic the community I grew up in where everyone goes to study business at USC because that’s what their parents did.

Alan Watts has inspired me to stop thinking about money for a second and think about what I am passionate about, what I really want to do.