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RC's avatar

I majored in English. I have a pretty good job, not particularly related to that degree, not a job that carries any particular prestige, but that contributes roughly half the household income needed to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in an expensive city that I love. I’m a reader and a writer but I’ll never get paid a dime for it and I have the freedom to love it in a completely pure and non-cynical way. I love books in a way that’s inseparable from loving my own existence. I love to write because I don’t know any other way to capture the reality of that existence. I have one big colossal failure in my life that has affected me deeply and caused me a lot of grief and I’m so grateful that that failure has nothing to do with writing. I used to feel like a disappointment, or even a coward, because there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about me and my place in the world compared to the “potential” I was once assured I had. But now I (most of the time) feel incredibly fortunate. The thing you love can just be the thing you love, especially for those of us who are not geniuses. Just let it belong to you and being you pleasure.

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Twerb Jebbins's avatar

It's rare a piece had resonated with me quite as much as this. It took nearly 11 years of scraping by paycheck to paycheck, flat broke in NYC, and getting fired from the YouTube content farm of a major legacy publisher most people only dream of working for before I could finally admit majoring in English lit was a mistake. Fuck them and fuck the whole system. You can just walk away and do something else with your life. The workplace will be less toxic and you'll get paid better too.

I really only regret not pulling the plug sooner. It's hard to admit you royally fucked up and threw a decade of your short life in the trash with absolutely nothing to show for it, but ignoring it won't make it go away.

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