And, if I was just starting out now, I have no idea what I’d do in any field. At some point, you just have to step off the cliff and trust.

And, if you have that gnawing, you really have to give it a shot. IT’s impossible to go back and recapture an opportunity once you’ve walked on.

I have the pleasure of working on staff at a small university. Every year I have eight or ten seniors call me asking for help. They all — every one of them — want to “travel the world and take pictures.” They invariably put it exactly that way. They all have a digital camera (usually a point-and-shoot); some of them have taken an intro photo class, and they are sure that National Geographic awaits.

I try to let them down gently; after all they are generally bright and good students, and they’ve been told all their lives how they can “be anything they want” as long as they “follow their passion.” Every once in a while there is a student whose work just blows me away — the last one just finished up at the Portfolio Center (right in time for a major recession, unfortunately.) Those students are the ones who have some semblance of a vision and the ability to express it.

I’m going to add your essay to the list of links I provide to these students. Thanks for your thoughts.

I too have had a number of false starts in the world of photography. My rat was easily subdued by other things in my life. Thankfully, the little fellow is making quite a bit more fuss these days! Thanks for your blog!

I know what I have, and passion is my driver. If someone is passionate about something, it keeps them going. I love what I do, writing and taking photos. I have a long way to go, but each day brings new adventures.

I love getting up in the morning.

I’ve always thought that it is a rare individual who truly knows what their calling is so early in life. As you alluded to, past experiences are important in informing our future trajectory. With minimal past experiences that path is a little wider than for someone who has been around the block a time or two.

In concert with that is a belief that life needs a series of highs and lows before you can find your bliss. Without being able to relate a current state to either a time of joy or a time of pain/frustration I don’t think you have a good measure of how good/bad things really are.

It is easy to believe that your first job out of college needs to be it and if you aren’t doing exactly what you dreamt of you are wasting your time. With hindsight I think we can realize that all those good and bad experiences let us focus in on what our lives are really meant for. Life is a path and a path that changes as we mature (or grow older at least).

Having an equally sought after job (let’s just call it a tie) – we get a lot of the same questions here as well. In my profession it is sometimes easy to tell if someone has the talent for the field or not. There is a certain touch you need and it can be hard to develop – passion is not always enough. Often we steer these people away as gently as possible.

For most of the people coming to us straight out of college or university we lay both sides of the job out for them. Lots of competition, low(ish) wages, dirty conditions and arthritis in old age countered by a unique life experience that many people can only dream of, the idolization of children and giving something back to the world.