Mere Naiveté?

There are three groups of things I live for in life: (one) people whom I care for, (two) food, and (three) the arts. The latter, of which being the vector of thought.

I often think of what it would be like, as I near the time for auditions into music school, if I were to have chosen to study a field that could give me a guaranteed steady income. What if I were to go premed? What if I were to go to Yale? What if I had decided on being a lawyer? An accountant? I know I would have chosen these things on account of some very conformist reason bent on insecurity, and I would be very unhappy. But what I seek out of life is happiness, and that is all. So, in a way, I am destined to be a "starving artist," however cliche that is. But lately, after having broken up with a boyfriend of a second-generation-Chinese background, I have been thinking more about money - second-guessing my opinions on the topic.

For him, appearance was important; he didn't want to be the "FOB." Money can solve a lot of that initial problem, as it (unfortunately) draws the attention away from the foreign aspects of your being to the more glittery green aspect in your pocket. Independence was also quite the issue for him in his household: his parents constantly needed to know where he was, he couldn't have what the other American kids did apart from Magic Cards, and honor was very much stressed. You could not cry, or else you were seen as weak. You could not do poorly in school, lest you wanted to lower your family's status amongst their friends' families. And so for him, only the best mask and school would do, and here, it is the University of Michigan. He is going to be a lawyer; not the incredibly talented musican that he is and might be poor in being for a time.

At 16, he had already made his move away from his parents by letting his license as soon as it was made possible, let his parents buy him a car (notice the dependency), and had his first drink at 20. Money is what made this all possible for him, and because I am flat out broke (nearly to the point of poverty), I couldn't afford Driver's Ed., nor did I mind to be seen being driven by my mother or brother, so I decided to wait until my eighteenth birthday to save a lot of cash and time. And because I can't afford to go to U of M, I'm going to Wayne State in Detroit - definitely not a bad school, but it isn't U of M. To get there, I won't be living on campus. Instead, I will commute; possibly by bus, friend, or parent. And so, this all brings me back to my main point of thought: money that is both a necessity and an accessory in life.

For me, I recognize money as a necessity, but I don't believe that it should be used as a means to gain status or friends. It does not measure maturity, goodness, or worth. I want to be a professional violinist knowing I will never be rich, and most likely far from it. It will be a struggle even getting through college, as there are no internships available to me. And yet, I insist that I must do this on account of how I want to be doing something that I love. Is this merely a fantasy on my part - naiveté - to think that happiness will be enough?

**In response to some of the very much appreciated comments, I am definitely aware of the fact that many people don't end up doing what they went into school for, which is especaially so for musicians. I suspect I'll be playing gigs like weddings, and the like, taking on students, and playing in an orchestra, all of which are things I have been doing. It's also possible that I might like to start up a quartet while at Oberlin or Indiana in grad school. I definitely do not mean to become an Itzhak Perlman or Isaac Stern. If that were the case, I wouldn't want to go into music at all.