Originally Posted by badhat

i guess the possibility exists that other people might be in a similar position so the short version is:

when youre finishing up school and you have a skill or talent or passion that gives you the opportunity to do something wild and daring and risky vs going straight to the cube farm or gradschool or a post grad program, i strongly believe in going for the hail mary. you can always go back to school and theres a good chance you'll end up in the cube farm eventually anyway. the difference is that some people are married and mortgaged and parents by 25 and even if theyre happy they'll spend the rest of thier lives wondering what might have happened, whereas if you take the leap while youre young and financially unencumbered, you try something for a while, whether its riding your bike for a living or being an urban starving artist or traveling or whatever... your chances or regretting it later are pretty minimal, even if it doesnt turn out to be viable long term. i went the starving artist route and while at 33 i'm back in the cubefarm like everyone else, i have 6 years of awesome experiences and memories to show for it, and the demands that sort of lifestyle, the commitment and sacrifice are more than i've ever faced in any subsequent professional situation, so life now is comparatively easy (except for training, interestingly, thats hard). i dont presume to speak for everyone, but i know a lot of people who went straight into the button down life, a number of people who are still working artists in thier 30s and 40s, and a lot of people who took the gradschool of life route before settling down, and the last category are healthier and happier than the other two, in general.