Never have I made a decision with such conviction. It began with a sudden outburst in my accounting class about how pitifully boring the whole thing was. What followed was a character breakout from the most composed and brilliant accounting student I had come to admire.
He put forth regrets of not studying journalism or economics, “anything but accounting!” He had the passion of child and the regret of an old man. I realized that my lack of inspiration in the topic was shared by many, and I just handled it less gracefully.
Looking around the boring room I imagined the passions these people would rather be pursuing. I waited through class, giving my condolences, and went to the career centre to liberate myself of the subject. I am now a “general business” student. It doesn’t command nearly as much respect at cocktail parties, but I would rather be dancing anyhow.
It is tricky to know when to apply hedonism or focus on the luster of tomorrow. Surviving the jazz age, F. Scott Fitzgerald warns his daughter:
For premature adventure one pays an atrocious price. As I told you once, every boy I knew who drank at eighteen or nineteen is now safe in his grave. The girls who were called “speeds” at sixteen were reduced to anything they could get at marrying time. It’s in a logic of life that no young person ever “gets away with anything.” They fool their parents but not their contemporaries. I think that despite a tendency to self indulgence you and I have some essential seriousness that will manage to preserve us. Whatever your sins are I hope you never get to justify them to yourself.
