What Should I Do with My Life?

I was in my early twenties when I heard the best advice I’d receive in my life. It came from a well-known small-town musician. One night I brought my guitar over to play music with him and he suddenly asked, “You know what the difference between me and the artists who made it is?” I shook my head. “They just went and did it,” he answered.

What he meant was that the artists he saw reach the heights of their ambitions didn’t second guess going for it. Instead of becoming stuck in place thinking about whether they were going to be able to make it, the logistics needed to even start out on their path, possible negative consequences, doubt of their talents and abilities, and so on, they just put one foot in front of the other and kept walking towards their dreams.

I wish I had followed his advice a lot earlier on. I am embarrassed to admit it is now well over a decade since he said this to me. Only now have I begun to implement his words, and looking back I realize the best thing I could have done when endlessly stuck in that place of wondering what I should do with my life was to just settle on a particular path and start taking steps forward in that direction.

 I was torn between becoming a writer, musician, or photographer. I went in circles for so long considering the best option rather than just taking a first step with one of them that I am now none of them. That’s a painful admission. So much time spent wondering what I should do with my life when I could have been investing that time in any one of my artistic passions and figured the other two out as I went along.

I moved to San Jose, California from Colorado three years ago and finally decided only recently to go all in on photography. As someone now seeing the benefits the advice to “just go and do it” provides, I can relay how effective this advice is to those in that place of wondering what to do with their lives. Once I committed to taking steps in the direction of a decided upon passion and dedicated myself to that pursuit, taking one step after another on that path, other things have begun to fall into place.

I said I have long wanted to be a writer, musician, photographer. I settled on photographer, and now here I am writing this ( writer). I just finished a road trip I was asked to go on to photograph a talented musician, and while on this trip I learned tons of valuable information around writing music, performing, playing guitar, etc. In the span of one week, I learned things about music that would have otherwise taken me months to learn had I not decided to “just go and do it” with photography ( musician). If I hadn’t started taking steps in a specific direction, if I hadn’t just decided to “go and do it” instead of second guessing and contemplating and overthinking all possibilities, I would still be wondering how to become or if I should try to become a writer, musician, or photographer.

As a result of establishing a “go and do it” mentality with photography I now have a direct outlet for my writing and storytelling. Additionally, I am closer to and involved more with music and musicians than I would have been unless fully dedicating myself to becoming a musician. This works the other ways around, too. If I’d decided to pursue becoming a musician and fully committed to that, I would be writing songs and shooting my own photographs and videos for promotional purposes. If I had gone with writing, I might have started writing within the music scene and taken photos for a blog. No matter which path I would have chosen everything else was bound to work itself out along the way. The biggest factor in any outcome was just choosing one thing and beginning to take the steps in that direction.

I encourage anyone wondering what they should do with their lives to dedicate themselves in one direction and begin taking steps—the rest will begin to fall into place. And instead of having to worry about all the possible variables and everything else that stagnates us, all those things will soon begin to work themselves out. If you’re trying to choose between careers, just pick one and go with it as soon as possible. If you’re considering starting a business but are being weighed down by all you think could go wrong Start today. Tomorrow. Don’t wait like I did and come to regret all the time you spent thinking about what to do instead of being a person who “just went and did it”.