The Pursuit of Happiness

I have been extraordinarily lucky. From the parents I was blessed with, in the nation of my birth, with the color of my skin, to my gender and my sex and my sexual orientation, I started at the top of the heap. But even beyond this I'm lucky to have a calling, and it's a calling that can feed me.

I won't understate the thousands of hours of practice, the sacrifices, or the leaps of faith I've made. But, fundamentally, I want to spend my life doing something that it's possible to spend my life doing. This is extraordinarily rare, and I get too much credit for it.

I have a lot of friends who are not so lucky. They don't have an overriding vision for their lives, an all-encompassing purpose. And so they make choices and compromises, just as I have, but with less glamor and fewer accolades.

They take a job that may not fulfill them, but which supports them and doesn't take too much from them emotionally. And they build a life from there in the SCA, at the Ren Faire, doing cosplay, active in community theater, and/or raising a family. And from these things come their fulfillment and happiness.

That's the goal, happiness, and there's no clearer purpose in life. Money, reputation, and legacy only have meaning to the extent that they make you happy. When my nieces ask why I make half as much in music as my engineering training warrants, that's my answer. As it should be for anyone who's ever voluntarily gone part time, declined a promotion, or worked "beneath their potential".

It's as courageous a choice as any I've ever made.